Use HR Metrics to improve new hire performance

There are three primary areas where you can use HR metrics to analyze and improve your hiring process. One are is improving administrative efficiency (by reducing cost per hire, time to fill, etc.). Another is reducing waste and rework– high turnover means wasted time and money in recruiting and training (It’s better to get the right person in the role the first time). The third, and the focus of this article, is for reducing performance variation. Not every person hired performs equally well–how can you bring all new hires to a higher standard?

HR needs a straightforward, commonsense way to measure the efficiency of the workforce staffing process. The key is solid HR metrics and communicating your discoveries to other executives, then taking action together to improve. We will focus on reducing performance variation now.

HR Metrics: New Hire Performance Variation

Every job has some type of performance output, whether objective or subjective. Objective measures are areas where you have hard output numbers; this can include things like sales, production levels, or number of transactions. Subjective measures include things like knowledge level and customer or supervisor ratings. They’re all important measures because organizations need a way to assess the performance of their employees and compare performance levels – and this will vary from job to job.

Why do we use performance variances among employees as an HR metric? Isn’t this primarily relevant for employee performance reviews? The reason this metric is important for HR professionals is because it gives a means to compare the effectiveness of new hires in the organization, and, by extension, the effectiveness of the hiring process in terms of not only filling vacant roles, but filling them with the best candidates consistently. So, how do we take the performance variance information and use that to improve effectiveness in the hiring process?

HR Metrics: Conduct Job Analysis to Improve Performance

“Understanding what it takes to be successful [in a job] is really important.” Joseph P. Murphy advised in a recent CER webinar. You should use multiple methods to assess the job and to define competencies and related performance drivers that are specific to that job. A multi-method job analysis, as the name implies, uses several different methods that combine to give a clearer, more comprehensive picture of what it takes to be successful in that job. Here are some examples of methods to collect data for your job analysis:

• Focus groups. “Talk with high performers and have them define what it is that they do on the job.”
• Job observations. “Watch high performers at work.” See what they do that differentiates them from the rest.
• Review all the job documentation.
• Use a structured job-analysis questionnaire.
• Interview subject matter experts (those who are experts in the role), especially those who have trained others – they can give you insights on the type of people who are most effective and learn the job the fastest.
• Interview supervisors and executives as well – ask how the job is moving into the future of the organization.

“Job analysis provides the foundation for using objective [candidate] assessment methodologies. So if you’re going to use any type of an assessment, it’s very important that you begin with job analysis as a way of discovering what’s important in the job.” Murphy explained. Once you have this, you can assess potential new hires against the real competencies required for the job and make better matches.

This job analysis also allows you to give candidates a realistic job preview, outlining not only the job responsibilities, but also the challenges. Candidates can use this information to ensure the job is what they are looking for.

Combining these items allows you to ensure your new hire selections have skills more aligned with the job requirements and also have realistic expectations before accepting the job offer. This lets you move beyond the HR metric of performance variation and move into taking action to reduce that variation.

The above information was excerpted from the CER webinar “HR by the Numbers: Key Metrics for Reporting HR Activity.” To register for a future webinar, visit CER webinars.

Joseph P. Murphy, vice president of Shaker Consulting Group, has worked for more than 30 years with clients to develop HR strategies that result in significantly improved business outcomes. He helps clients to define, capture, and analyze staffing data to document return on investment.