Making metrics more relevant
Now that the economy is picking up, most Canadian companies say they plan to maintain or increase hiring volumes in 2010. However, with the recent recession still fresh in everyone's minds, organizations are approaching recruiting more cautiously - which means recruiting metrics are more important than ever.
But metrics are only useful if they're relevant - and tied in to overall business goals.
Traditional recruiting metrics - time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, number of jobs filled per recruiter, etc. - can provide some good basic benchmarks within the recruiting function, but they tend to focus on transactional activities and process efficiency. They don't do a good job of capturing the total value/benefits to the organization as a whole, and aren't connected to the strategic priorities of the executive team.
5 ways to ensure your recruiting metrics are relevant:
- Talk to your clients and executive team: What are their key business drivers? What are the strategic goals and objectives over the next 3-12 months?
- Ask them what metrics they'd find most useful: They may be more interested in quality measurements such as 'time to contribution' than they are in 'time to hire'
- Maintain regular reviews and refinements, to ensure that the metrics you're tracking continue to be relevant to overall business goals
- Commit to long-term tracking, particularly around quality-of-hire indicators: Quality dimensions - such as performance ratings, time to contribution, and promotion/retention rates - require 12-18 months for full results
- Communicate key metrics to the executive team on a regular basis: A quarterly presentation to managers/executives outside the recruiting function is a good way to get feedback and ensure alignment with the rest of the organization.
