Managing people successfully requires a specific set of skills and tools. Today’s human resources managers need to locate and recruit top talent while assessing factors such as employee engagement, productivity, and employee turnover rate.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) provide a set of essential metrics that let HR managers quantify and collect data related to their workers. Let’s take a look at several KPIs critical to human resource management and discover how these tools can make your job easier. Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list of KPIs. You may have additional metrics which you want to monitor within your organization.
What Are KPIs?
A KPI is a performance metric that allows managers to determine how well their business is performing. KPIs are used to track the effectiveness of systems, strategies, and campaigns but are extremely useful in tracking human metrics as well. The idea behind the use of KPIs in human resources is to examine your workforce from a range of perspectives. The data you gather can then be used to guide future hiring strategy to improve factors like worker satisfaction and overall job performance.
KPIs Essential to Human Resources Management
Let’s take a closer look at some specific KPIs and see how they can help keep your business operating at peak performance.
Absenteeism Rate
An efficient company requires motivated workers. Studies have shown that increased rates of employees who are less engaged tend to call out sick more often. An increase in absenteeism, whether in a single department or company-wide, can be an indicator of a larger problem requiring further investigation. Are there morale or safety concerns on the job? Are workers struggling to adapt to new systems or technologies? Answering questions like these can help you get to the source of the problem.
Overtime Hours
Measuring the amount of overtime your employees work can help gauge the efficiency of your business processes. Are employees working overtime because business is booming, or are there impediments to their work that force them to work overtime to complete their tasks?
Training & Investment
Each employee you train is an investment in your company’s future. Are you providing your people with the skills they need to be effective workers? How much do you spend training each worker and how is that investment returned?
Productivity
How do you gauge the productivity of your employees—sales closed, projects billed, projects completed? Whatever rubric you use, it’s important to consider the factors with the most direct effect on output and performance. KPIs can also let employees see how well they’re doing at meeting company goals and can help identify areas in need of improvement.
Employee Satisfaction & Retention
Hiring skilled employees is essential, but what is your company doing to retain its best workers? By measuring job satisfaction among employees, you can make changes that will lead to decreased turnover rates.
Turnover Rate
The loss of a valued employee can damage a company’s performance and workflow—an exodus could damage your business’ reputation. That’s why retaining quality staff is so important. By gauging turnover you can better understand the factors that cause workers to leave, allowing you as HR manager to implement worker remedial strategies (perks, benefits, salary increases) to keep your best hires onboard.
Time to Fill
A position left open at a company can place stress on other workers as they attempt to cover extra duties. Knowing how much time it typically takes to fill a vacant position can help you determine the impact of that lag time on your business. Who will be picking up the slack and how can you as HR manager minimize the company-wide impact while the employee search is ongoing?
Diversity
A diverse workforce offers the advantage of multiple perspectives and talents. Making your workforce as diverse as society means seeking out quality hires from underserved or marginalized communities. KPIs can help you measure the cultural and gender diversity of your workforce to better reflect society as a whole.
Time of Stay
If your company is excellent at retaining workers, you’re going to want to know that too. Measuring time of stay can indicate which departments have the best employment retention history and why. This can guide future policy to help you retain your best workers longer.
Part-Timers
If a segment of your workforce is part-time, you’re going to want to measure their productivity. Part-time and work-from-home positions now occupy a far larger segment of the workforce than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Measuring the performance and job satisfaction of these workers can help improve your business’ efficiency and competitive standing.
Dismissals
An unfortunate part of any job is the loss of an employee because of firing or layoffs. Yet it’s important to know the details of your company’s dismissal rate, as it can tell you something about your company and the way it operates. If you’re seeing an unusually high dismissal rate, what’s causing it? Have work conditions changed? Is there a safety or personality issue involved? Determining the answers to such questions can help you reduce dismissal rates.
By combining these metrics, you can obtain an operational snapshot of your workforce, their strengths, and places in need of improvement. You can make strategic moves that allow you to reduce absenteeism, lower turnover, and increase retention of quality workers.
We hope you’ve found this article useful. At Moskowitz LLP, we’ve built our reputation helping businesses like yours overcome their operational and financial challenges. Our tax attorneys, business advisors, seasoned tax professionals, CPAs and enrolled agents are ready and waiting to help. Don’t go it alone, contact us today!