Quality of Hire: This Is Where HR Metrics Should Be Focused
Those who know me know I've been writing about HR metrics and data for years (see April 2011 HR Armed with Data). It's been a topic on my various blogs but I am really happy to finally see the topic has spread throughout the business and HR worlds. Today you can find plenty of information on the topic.So what has me writing another blog post on the topic? ...the conversation has finally shifted from the boring, and not-so-telling, metrics of time to hire and butts in seats, etc. to things that are meaningful to business leaders...people.
Yves Lermusi (@YvesatCheckster), wrote a blog post back in early June entitled, "The Quest for Quality of Hire". It was an ERE Conference session with speaker Rob McIntosh (@TheRobMcIntosh), senior vice president of global talent acquisition and recruitment of Avanade. All I can say, it's a great start to the conversation about HR metrics.
My take on the entire topic of HR metrics? It's a necessary evil that I have a fascination with. Why? Because metrics help us ground ourselves in reality, something that has been greatly lacking when it comes to people in the workplace. And without getting myself too worked up about that, metrics - data- real information - gives us a "real" picture about where we stand. The other big reason is that business loves data points, and as long as your data sources and methodology can be explained, the data can be useful to help get additional resources for human capital. Oh yes...and things like M&A, etc. want data...yes that too!
So back to our topic on QoH!
Quality of a Hire (QoH) is really a key, universal business driver. This one metric will tell you a lot about the quality of your recruiting organization BUT it also tells you a lot about hiring manager expectations and the communication around that. So the QoH metric is a multi-function, multi-departmental responsibility; which, I would argue, you want as an executive.
This metric can tell you several things (this is not an exhaustive list):
Were clear job expectations defined and communicated before the hiring process started? Are they measurable?
Did the recruiting organization find the best candidate match possible?
Did the candidate have the job expectations clearly defined before they accepted?
Did those expectations carry through the first year of employment or did they shift for some reason?
How was the candidate's performance at the end of the first year? Would the hiring manager hire this same candidate again?
How satisfied is the candidate with their job based on the expectations set? Would the candidate accept the same offer again knowing what they know now?
I could come up with more, but these are the first that come to mind.
The dilemma of determining the QoH metric is that for every question above, can you determine a quantifiable number?. It requires standardization of what are typically subjective measures of success (i.e. performance reviews, for example but pick any of the 6 above and you see what I mean). [Side note, yet another reason I greatly dislike the concept of using performance review data in business analytics.]
If your organization is looking for a key HC metric, start by working on this one first. How is a "quality hire" measured in your organization, and by whom? How could it be measured, what parameters are collected or would need to be? There are a lot of great questions that surround this. Lermusi points out that setting clear expectations of hiring managers ahead of time is one of the biggest obstacles to quality hire success because most managers know they need a person in a position but can't articulate exactly "what" they need...or at least in a meaningful and quantifiable way.
At Leadership Evolution Group, we use a series of tools called the "Kolbe Wisdom" to do just that...identify in a meaningful and quantifiable way, the expectations of the hiring manager. We can then map a candidate's likelihood for success based on another Kolbe Index, to determine whether the candidate's natural way of working matches with the expectations of the hiring manager. Again, we can get quantifiable data measured during the hiring process and again at intervals throughout the candidate's first year of employment to show alignment or misalignment.
There are other numbers that would be factored in the QoH metric, and those have to be tailored to individual organizations, but I am so thrilled to finally see meaningful conversations about one important metric, the Quality of Hires.
Thanks to Rob for sharing his thoughts at the ERE conference and thanks to Yves for continuing the conversation!