To reach the top levels of business, two experts advise using HR metrics. In a June 28 BLR audio conference, they’ll tell you how.
Yesterday’s Daily Advisor carried the results of a survey of top HR generalists on what skills they’d most like to see in their successors. Many must have been surprised to find HR knowledge trounced by general business knowledge. Almost twice as many survey respondents considered business skills essential as said the same about HR.
Two individuals not surprised were top HR consultants Deborah Saks, president of 1 Source Consulting, and Ronald Adler, president and CEO of Lourdan Associates, Inc. Both have been preaching the wisdom of HR managers acquiring general business skills for years, if an HR person wants to make it into executive management.
That’s particularly true in the area of metrics, they say. In order to make a significant contribution to business strategy, declares Adler, “[HR people] need to know almost as much about the numbers as the CFO.”
Measure your way to HR success with BLR’s June 28 audio conference: HR Metrics. Click here to read more.
To help you gain that knowledge, Saks and Adler will conduct a special 90-minute BLR audio conference on June 28, titled HR Metrics: How to Measure – and Maximize – the Strategic Value of Your Workforce.
The two experts will delve deeply into how HR metrics have “grown up” along with the profession in its progression from being an “arranger of parties and picnics” to today’s role of managing business’s most precious asset: its people.
Saks described that journey in numerical terms. “In the ’50s and ’60s,” she said, “our metrics measured things like turnover. Then that matured to ROI. Now they lead us into analytics and modeling.” These tools, the experts say, help chart what investments should be made in human capital as the business moves into the future.
But to use HR metrics effectively, says Adler, you first need to learn the basic metrics of the business. “Learn how money is made,” he says, “and what costs reduce the bottom line. Then chart what competencies you currently have on board, and which you will need in the future.”
Effectively used metrics complement general goals, such as increased profitability, he continues. “If we have a mission, aligning human capital decisions with corporate objectives should be it.”
Adler says he often first looks at the company’s unemployment insurance tax rate, as this single figure is a measure of business stability that’s also measurable against other organizations statewide and often in the same industry. Other metrics he suggests are:
–Source/distribution of candidates for employment
–Time to hire and time to productivity
–Percent of applications hired and of offers accepted
–New hire quality, per evaluations after a trial period
–Turnover/retention
–Workers’ comp data
–Job safety data, including all risk-related costs, divided by hours worked
As a general measure of HR’s effectiveness, he suggests the metric of Return on Human Capital (ROHC), which is derived by dividing operating profit by total employment costs.
HR Metrics … explanations and recommendations in just 90 minutes. Attend BLR’s special June 28 audio conference or order the CD. Read more.
Many of these results can be benchmarked, the two experts say, against the annual “Human Capital Benchmarking Study,” published by SHRM, and against state chamber of commerce and proprietary data from private sources. However, they advise, benchmarking serves little purpose unless there’s an understanding of why your results differ from those of others.
To this end, the experts recommend that you form a team to report the data. “Include the CFO,” says Saks, “but also operational people who can translate your metrics into why what you’ve measured is happening, and what can be done about it.”
Saks and Adler will share much more on the profitable use of metrics in their audio conference on Thursday, June 28, from 1:30 to 3 p.m., ET (Adjust the hour for your time zone.) As always, you can train as many people as can fit around a conference phone, with satisfaction assured. A CD is available if you can’t attend.
Click the link below for more information or to register or pre-order the CD.
Metrics, Anyone?
Actually metrics, everyone! These days HR must show results in quantifiable terms. Let two top experts show you how to do it in a special June 28 90-minute audio conference, HR Metrics: How to Measure – and Maximize – the Strategic Value of Your Workforce. One low fee trains your whole staff … satisfaction is assured. Can’t attend? Order the CD. Read more.