How Can HR Metrics Help Me?

We all know that the past couple of years have been very challenging.  Some of us experienced reductions in staff resulting in colleagues losing their positions along with budget cuts and a stronger focus on expense control.  This reevaluation of organizational objectives has led to greater stress on the job along with very difficult Human Resource decisions.  As a profession, we are also learning that understanding our business, partnering with the leaders within our industry and changing our tactics is critical to our remaining relevant.

Once again we need to re-adjust our approach as the paradigm has shifted from retrenchment to expansion.  Preserving our company’s competitive edge by retaining our high performers along with the use of HR metrics will allow us to be better positioned as the recovery continues.  As HR professionals one of our goals for the remainder of 2014 and beyond will be to retain talent by looking for alternative ways to respond to the current business climate, offer our employees value and provide management with the support to make quality business decisions.

The Human Resource profession over the past decade has become very sophisticated by utilizing metrics to examine employee trends in order to better anticipate future challenges and opportunities.  When we use HR metrics and evaluate historical patterns we are better able to respond to the challenges we face on the job.  A key challenge is determining if our reward and benefit dollars are being used wisely.  Metrics are a common measurement across all professions and are used as a way to retain, challenge talent and hold people accountable.  The analysis and subsequent data following an employee survey is a key tool in determining employee satisfaction, engagement and management effectiveness.  As companies expand, talent retention is often critical to its very survival.  Understanding and responding to these employees’ concerns and questions are important components in ensuring that success.

 

In the past, our clients have often requested that we create norms that would provide a benchmark against their industry or region in the country. Today, however, we have begun to see a shift from benchmarking within one's own industry toward benchmarking against other “best places to work”. This is particularly true with regard to benchmarking in the areas of organizational climate, culture, engagement, management and leadership.  Our review, as outlined below is based on data collected from over 60,000+ respondents and from organizations representing a broad cross-section of industries and regions of the country.

Today, employees are satisfied with their jobs.  Employees appreciate that management is operating the business efficiently, often under conditions of uncertainty and with limited resources.  Employees also believe that the work environment is safe and opportunities for advancement will occur as long as performance is maintained.  Key challenges for the future include:

 

n  Maintaining effective employee management relations

n  Ensuring that a team environment is supported and encouraged

n  Maintaining a progressive compensation program

n  Supporting a leadership team that is decisive

n  Opportunities for career advancement

n  Benefit programs that offer security and protection for the employee and eligible dependents

 Illustrated below is a chart summarizing the data:

 

 

Over the next several months we will be sharing data with our subscriber’s specific data with respect to employee satisfaction and engagement.  Our goal by publishing this data is to assist our client’s in gaining more knowledge about the workforce which will enable them to make sound business decisions.  In our next post we will discuss areas of employee satisfaction and challenges for the future with respect to progressive employee management relations.