HR's Useless Metrics

For those who are concerned that HR doesn't provide any metrics to track its performance (yes, all two of you), consider this: maybe those metrics are useless anyway. Tim Sackett at Fistful of Talent opines on the five metrics he feels are "worthless" and why: Turnover and Retention- notice I didn't say "or" - companies that use both make me laugh, especially when they haven't differentiated between the two (ie., we have 3% turnover, but 97% retention - really, thanks for doing the basic math for me!). Days to Fill- When measured as an aggregate. The majority of organizations in the world hire many different types and levels of talent. To say our HR/Recruiting Dept. has a 43 days to fill ratio is again meaningless. This should be broken down by hiring segment - 14 Days for Admin level, 35 for Professional, 67 for Management - or something like that. Diversity- when measured as a percentage of the whole. So, we have 45% diversity within our employee population. So what? Again, this is meaningless. What is the goal and why is that the goal? If you can show operations that at 63% diversification our business units run 15% more productive...it will be worth it! Employee Engagement - I can't think of a more worthless metric! Once a year we, the HR Dept., are going to justify our jobs for a month as we roll out our annual Employee Engagement Survey...then make the largest PowerPoint presentation on the planet, so we can show our senior executive team the good, bad and ugly. Finally, we add fat free pudding to the cafeteria menu as a response to our two-month project. Really!? Training and Development Class Surveys- ...If you have great training, you'll know it, people will talk about it, and other people will track you down to be a part of it. Maybe sometimes bad numbers are better than no numbers?

Fishbowl

HR's Useless Metrics

Rachel Kaufman

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Rachel Kaufman