As the saying goes, what gets measured gets managed…
In this data-driven marketplace, easy accessibility to different kinds of user behaviors and metrics can help evaluate every aspect of a marketing, sales, or even HR strategy and this has allowed companies globally to optimize plans to help achieve business goals faster.
When it comes to human resources, it has been proven time and again that besides a lack of adequate talent retention policies, the costs of a bad hire can add stress to the overall backbone of a company’s HR policies and budgets. Filling new positions only to have the candidate quit due to a role or company culture misfit, will force the HR team to spend the same efforts and resources to fill the vacancy a second time. With the access to a range of skills assessment and hiring tools today, it is now easier to evaluate the probability of an employee staying for the short to long term.
While there are several metrics that a company can choose to put in place as parameters to help evaluate the strength and health of their hiring processes, setting a foundation with these 5 base metrics can be a good starting point.
Hiring cost per candidate
Every HR team wants to hire the best possible talent for their company. While identifying the best in the industry while also reaching out to these candidates and marketing the vacancy on the right talent platforms, it is important to assess the costs incurred and time spent in detailing the vacancy, advertising it, setting up a call with a candidate, etc. Evaluating the cost per hire for every role will help decide which part of the journey needs to be optimized further to either reduce costs or time taken for each stage.
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Time taken to fill a role
If your hiring process takes too long and you start to notice that the average time to fill a role is lasting over a couple of months, this could be draining your resources at some point. Keeping a deadline for each vacancy will help evaluate hiring managers ensure they don’t spend too long in the process.
The goal with every new vacancy should be to try and shorten the time it takes to hire a candidate for a position after posting about the new job.
This is a common metric that most HR teams do measure. With the evolving trends in tech and need to hire a balance of skilled and technically inclined candidates, certain roles can take longer to fill. Besides requiring more time in these cases to source candidates, hiring managers will also have to do a thorough skill assessment. This can lengthen the process and add to the time spent in filling the role.
But if this time taken during this stage keeps getting longer, it’s a sign that the hiring process and interviewing schedules needs to be tightened to help further HR goals.
Quality of candidates
Having plenty of candidates to show as leads but seeing that they are low quality sources points to a hiring process that needs more planning and one that focuses on measuring quality not volume.
Today, hiring teams use online hiring platforms to share their job openings across a range of networks in an effort to fill a vacancy faster. Having a bigger talent pool to evaluate from can help companies find the best talent, to ensure that the whole effort of sourcing and communicating with multiple candidates is a worthy effort, shortlisting quality candidates should be the focus area.
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Employee attrition
It takes time to find and hire new talent. While the whole cycle of hiring, then onboarding and training new candidates is time-consuming, it is important to note that it takes at least 6 months to a year for a new hire to show their full capability and potential. This is why measuring attrition within the first year can be an important metric to understand how many new hires leave within or at their first-year mark. If candidates leave at this point, hiring teams will have to undergo the whole process too often and this does not ensure productivity and output.
Finding ways to create a more lucrative talent retention policy will help reduce these inefficiencies and lead to a more optimized HR process. In order to minimize first year attrition, this is where hiring teams will have to be careful in the kind of candidates they source (quality) and evaluate them on the basis of their past job history and longevity.
Employee satisfaction
Creating a good employee experience is key to a good customer experience. While a comprehensive hiring process should involve networking with candidates regularly, it is important for HR teams to implement a work culture that boosts employee satisfaction and in turn retention. While keeping an eye on attrition levels (how fast and how many employees leave in a specified time frame), boosting employee engagement policies and assessing how these activities helped build a stronger teamwill help assess the overall hiring and employee management policies. Besides setting role-based metrics and KPIs to assess a candidate’s performance and progress, tracking a candidates job satisfaction is important to check the overall alignment of the organization.
There’s always room to be innovative in today’s hiring marketplace. With the evolving technologies in the marketplace, roles have transformed too and hiring candidates that can adapt to a dynamic working world is now crucial for companies. As hiring teams get accustomed to the changing hiring demands and best practices, these metrics can serve as a foundation to measure their ROI.