The chief officers at any company are always going to be focused on the big-picture stuff. Members of the C-suite speak their own language, and have a specific set of priorities: it’s all about strategy, strategy, strategy, tangible results, and major business impact. The language they speak is fast, broad, and gets straight down to the bottom line. And HR metrics reports is one dialect that might not always go down easy. Tip: learn how to connect TA metrics to business KPIs.
Metrics are the daily medicine of a healthy talent acquisitions team. They enable dedicated human resources staff to do their jobs, and do them well. But data involving application completion time, candidate experience, or exit interviews are not going to catch the boss’s eye while they’re thinking about productivity and innovations.
To get their attention and incite positive action for your department and company as a whole, you need to step into a C-level’s shoes and align with their macro goals. Reports for C’s should be factual, succinct, and linked to business objectives. The metrics that chiefs will hang onto will show the link between talent acquisition and resulting company effect.
Talent Acquisition Reports for the C-Suite
The following five TA metrics are the top need-to-know reports for executives. Get ready to take notes.
Time to Fill
Translation: Not to be confused with “time to start,” which covers the time between starting your search for a new candidate and their eventual start date. Time to fill removes the time between the acceptance of the job and the start date. Some people prefer to look at contracted time to fill vs. standard time to fill – another distinction. For any of these metrics, the most important thing to agree on is what constitutes Day 1: it may be the day when an open job advertisement has been published or it could be the day when the requisition is approved. Whichever you choose, make sure it is consistent for all calculations.
The time to fill metric is calculated by dividing the total number of days in each time to fill period, by the number of roles filled.
What this will tell you is whether or not your hiring process is effective. It helps to set a standard for hire time, and may indicate problems in acquisition which can result in the loss of top candidates. Make sure you measure what timed tasks the TA is responsible for and what tasks the hiring managers are responsible for. Solutions may include streamlining interviews, or automating certain points in the recruitment process. Addressing any bumps or bottlenecks has the potential to save a company lots of time, and lots of money.
For ideas on how to reduce time to fill, see our article
Streamlining Processes for High Volume Strategies.
Quality of Hire
Translation: just like it sounds, this indicates the number of new hires who receive satisfactory performance reviews within the first set period of time.
This metric is calculated by dividing the number of satisfactory new employees by the total number of new hires in a given time period.
The output of the above metric is the Success Ratio, and again indicates the effectiveness of the talent acquisition process. A low ratio, meaning comparatively few successful new hires, may mean a flaw in the interview or reference check stage of hire, resulting in a higher turnover rate. Just one bad hire can end up costing a company thousands, often more than the lost employee’s salary, and heavily impact human ROI.
Learn more about quality of hire .
Turnover Rate
Translation: this is the number of employees who are voluntarily leaving their positions at your company.
This metric is calculated by dividing the number of departing employees by the total population of the organization. The practical costs of turnover should be weighed by employee performance; a more productive employee will have greater financial impact than one who is low-performing. Often it is a good idea to track and understand the difference between wanted/unwanted turnover, and short term vs long term turnover.
As stated above, turnover is expensive. Between the costs of placing job ads, recruiting new hires, and the productivity loss created by one more empty chair, a company may lose up to 150% of the yearly salary per exiting worker 1. High turnover rates may indicate deeper systemic problems in company culture or employee support, and merits investigation.
To reduce unwanted employee attrition, get our free whitepaper.
Candidate (New Hire) Retention Rate
Translation: this means the total number of new hires who remain with your company past their probationary period.
This metric is calculated by dividing the total number of new hires remaining at the end of a given year or specified period by the total number of new hires at the beginning of the given year/period. This may also be calculated as ‘first-year attrition’ by inverting the fraction.
Depending on which way you perform this metric, it can indicate either a successful or unsuccessful hiring practice. From these numbers you can identify virtues or flaws in your recruiting process, strategize further streamlining and cost-saving measures, and learn what you’re doing right to reel in top talent.
Boost retention rate by managing candidate expectations to improve two-way matching. Learn more >
Recruiting Impact and Effectiveness
Translation: this means the total financial impact of talent acquisition on the business as a whole.
This metric is calculated by multiplying improvement percentage by the average revenue per employee.
Talk about broad. This metric speaks the executive language, by turning human statistics into dollar signs. This will weigh direct costs of talent acquisition with TA-implicated revenue, giving you a strong estimate of the ROI of recruiting.
Watch our webinar to learn how to connect TA impact to wider business goals.
Final Thoughts: Talent Acquisition and Recruiting Reports
This list of HR metrics is just a start. Once you establish the basics, you can begin improving your key TA metrics with greater quality and speed. For help streamlining workflows and identifying better candidates, schedule a demo of Harver’s Hiring Process Optimization.
1https://www.hrdive.com/news/study-turnover-costs-employers-15000-per-worker/449142/
