Eliminating anxiety of numbers with HR metrics

Human Resources, traditionally one of the most human-centric practices of an organization, has witnessed tremendous growth over the past couple of years. As an HR professional reading this, you must have probably noticed a game changer in the HR paradigm. HR metrics - numbers, data and analytics related to talent management.

Now, I’m not a numbers person. My proficiency lies in constructing stories and meaning out of words. But for the HR professional, HR metrics are increasingly growing into focus. Specifically, the metrics have to do with the data related to the company’s employees.

For companies of all sizes, metrics plays a crucial role in understanding the company’s growth and tracking their assets. Previously, CEOs of small and medium companies were focused on the growth of one aspect: Revenue. This often resulted in HR being seen as an expense, and not as a strategic partner to contribute to the business. However, understanding what  people metrics to measure and report is vital to the success of the impact HR can have on the company and describing the value of their activities for the company.

However, today, with the growing focus on people analytics, business leaders have changed their stance. In small and medium businesses, employees account for the largest initial investments and ongoing expenses among company assets. So, as logic follows, it would make sense that business leaders would want to better understand and track their people assets.

But here’s where the problem arises. In many companies - especially smaller ones - HR metrics aren’t tracked to a great extent. It’s not like the numbers don’t matter. It’s just that there are multiple issues that interferes with an HR professional’s ability to collect and interpret data and numbers related to employees.

In smaller organisations, HR processes are commonly handled manually. Which means that different departments may save their own people data and numbers in spreadsheets. And one of the common problems that arises due to this is the difficulty for departments in accessing the critical data. Whether it’s protected by security, or whether departments have their different systems of collecting and storing information about employees, the lack of a unified and accessible solution makes accessibility difficult.

Obversely, the ease of access to employee data may raise questions about its accuracy and authenticity. Despite their best efforts, there are all kinds of issues that could plague the HR of a small business. And at the rate at which workforce and digitization trends are moving, it will be even more crucial to track talent metrics in a timely and efficient manner.

So, to help you eliminate HR’s anxiety of numbers, it would be wise to start slowly. HR professionals can start-off by settling on a few measures that will be relevant to the company. The following are some key HR metrics that HR professionals of small companies can track to measure employee activities with accuracy, as well as overcome the apprehension towards numbers.

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Key HR metrics for SMEs

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1. Recruitment metrics

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Recruitment is one of the most important areas of HR for any growing company. It is important to measure recruitment as an HR metric so that businesses can measure the success of their recruitment efforts.

With AI-automated recruitment solutions, HR professionals are able to see a snapshot of the hiring cycle, time-to-fill and drop rates across various hiring sources, and get hiring reports in real time.

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2. Engagement metrics

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Past the recruitment metrics, people analytics remains important for measuring the success of strategies for engaging and ultimately retaining employees. Teams can track engagement with the help of pulse surveys, setting measurable goals, measuring employee retention rates.

Engaged and satisfied employees drive productivity, so it’s important to monitor them.

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3. Performance metrics

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Performance metrics are crucial in measuring and predicting workforce trends. These people metrics can be used to find the best performing teams across all teams in no time. By monitoring performance, managers are able to identify productivity hurdles and assist in optimising performance in areas that need more attention.

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Monitoring HR metrics that matter with peopleHum

Thus, to eliminate HR’s anxiety of numbers an HR software makes it easier for small businesses to measure and monitor data related to people. Calculation and reports are automated and standardised across departments, and all data is kept in one place.

peopleHum’s human capital management solution is designed to help SMEs easily and efficiently track their people metrics, so that they can focus on growing the business without the anxiety of numbers. To find out more about how peopleHum can help you record and measure the talent metrics that matter, contact us to book a demonstration.