For any successful business, bringing in the right talent is a major focus. Keeping tabs on metrics is just as important. In fact, 80 percent of executives say the company cannot succeed without a data-driven chief human resources officer who uses real-time facts to chart a strong talent strategy.
Metrics make you a more valuable asset to executives, because you can employ processes more effectively if you know how you’re doing. However, they only work if you know how to use them.
If you’re unsure of which metrics to present at your next board meeting, make sure these four make the cut:
- Position time to fill
Do you currently know the average time it takes to fill a position? Not stopping once an application is filled out, but from vacancy until a seat is physically filled. Organizations with a strong talent acquisition process have a faster hiring time than those without. Granted, if you have strict hiring criteria, you’re an exception to the rule because it would take you longer to find the right candidate. Regardless, aiming to lower the average time to hire is a valuable practice.
- Talent sourcing
Today there are multiple channels from which you can source candidates: job boards, social media sites and employee referrals, to name a few. If you know that one channel is proving to be inefficient, you can choose to shut it down or, conversely, if one channel seems to perform well, you may choose to invest more of your budget in that area.
- Retention rates
If nothing else, you must know retention rates because losing an employee is costly. Turnover varies by wage and role, but the average costs to replace an employee are:
- 16 percent of annual salary for high-turnover, low-paying jobs;
- 20 percent of annual salary for mid-range positions; and
- up to 213 percent of annual salary for executive positions.
Check in every few months and run reports on turnover for specific roles and across departments. In addition to presenting percentages, expressing turnover as an annual cost will warrant intrigue from the CEO. What are the trends? Where can we improve?
Exit surveys are a great tool to utilize in order to identify why employees are leaving. If you want an answer to a problem, it’s best you go straight to the source. Take the insights you obtain from exit surveys and turn them into actionable items to help in your retention efforts.
By consistently checking in, pinpointing the source of turnover and addressing it, you can save hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending in which salary range you experience the greatest turnover.
- Acceptance Rates
You think you’ve found “the one.” You extend an offer, but he or she refuses. Not every candidate will accept, especially with the market back on the rise. Be sure you know how many times you submit an offer before it is accepted.
The average acceptance rate changes year over year, but as of 2014, the going rate was set at 70.4 percent. It is important to keep in mind; however, that the acceptance rate is influenced by the condition of the market. With fewer jobs available, candidates typically accept more readily.
Nevertheless, acceptance rates are important metrics to measure. Losing out on a candidate is costly in dollars and cents, but also in time and morale.
Implementation
Metrics are a necessary element for validating the success of your talent acquisition process. If you aren’t following these metrics, you will have a hard time determining what’s working and what needs improvement. The best way for tracking this information is utilizing a single-application solution that gathers all this data into one system of record and populates reports with notable figures.