Scorecard Metrics for HR

They say that it is impossible to evaluate something without measuring it. In business terms, performance is measured in different values, often by money to time ratio. Thus, to analyze performance of your business, you need to find aspects of the work to be measured. Almost all businesses use IT support. Moreover, many firms use special software to evaluate performance of the company to find out what needs to be improved. Of course, in tiny companies this software is not very popular since it is possible to evaluate everything without automated tools. But why do extra work which can be done by computer?

All business professionals would admit that Human Resource Department is an important part of any business structure. You may have the best technologies, output capacities and equipment but you may be not getting proper profits because you personnel is poorly managed. When HR management works at its best you will immediately see positive results. However, the work of HR department also needs to be evaluated. HR managers should always get better and improve performance.

When it concerns companies and departments with 200+ employees it is not so easy to find out who or what makes the company perform worse than expected. Employee A is responsible for negotiations, employee B does the calculations, employee C goes through paperwork. If one of them fails, the entire chain fails. This influences the company’s overall revenue. Businesses must always get better, otherwise they will be wiped out by smarter competitors. In terms of HRM, one should always get better way of dealing with people and streaming their skills in the right direction.

For the purposes of performance evaluation thousands of companies are using Balanced Scorecard (BSC). What is a BSC? This is a mechanism of making personnel familiar with strategic success factors which are reached through key performance indicators (KPI). Different business and occupations have different KPIs. If we are talking about HR, KPIs mostly concern how efficiently personnel is managed in terms of finance and performance.

These days, many companies are using BSC metrics to evaluate performance of their HR department by key performance factors. So, let’s analyze how BSC metrics can help HR managers and HR departments. In order to perform an overall analysis we need to analyze KPIs, i.e. those factors influencing performance of HR department.

Cost per Hire. By evaluating this factor you will be able to see how expensive the recruiting process is. This process starts from posting job offer to the moment when a new person is officially employed in the company. Logically, the shorter this process is, the least expensive is cost per hire. This is a very important value, especially if the company counts hundreds and thousands of employees. This amount includes expenses related to advertising, agent’s fees, recruiter pay, relocation etc. to lover the average cost, a new person must be employed as quickly as possible.

Turnover Cost. These are the costs related to termination, new hire and learning. In other words, these are expenses related to integrating a new person into the company.

Turnover Rate. This value represents the situation in your company related to leaving and hiring new employees. Many people would agree that it is not good to change personnel too often. If the turnover rate is very high, then maybe you are treating your personnel wrong? Or is it something wrong with your business in general? Find out.

Time to Fill. Basically, this is the time needed to fill a vacant position in the company. Of course, this time depends on how well HR managers are working with recruiters, advertising and people in general. The shorter this time, the better performance of your HR department.

Length of Employment. This indicator is very easy to understand. It is possible to calculate an average value. For instance, in average an employee works 5 years for your company. Of course, everything depends on the position. If you are changing couriers or secretaries, this is not a big problem. But if chief managers work for your company less than a year, this is definitely not good.

Training and Development. Even if you hire the best specialist you need to integrate him into your company and train. Of course, you bear costs, related to training. If you manage to cut this cost without harming quality of training, then your HR department is doing a great job.

Salaries, compensation, bonuses. It is very important to know that you are not overpaying and allocating recourses wisely. This also concerns HR department of any company. With Balanced Scorecard you will be able to see how effectively company’s funds are being used in HR branch.

Cost Effectiveness. It all comes to cost effectiveness after all. All above-mentioned factors influence performance of HR department which has one goal – minimize costs and boost performance. If you HR department manages to cut costs and at the same time increase effectiveness, you can be proud of your HR specialists who know how to keep pace with the modern bsuiness.

Balanced Scoreboard will help you evaluate performance of HR managers and find solutions to problems. Once you enter all data, you will see graphs and values in percents which will indicate how well HR department is performing. Sometimes, it is difficult to find what takes the department down or what causes losses. With Balanced Scorecard you will be able to evaluate all KPI to see what needs to be improved.

Use specialized software to measure your business performance

HR metrics is important for large HR deparments

As to psychological aspect, BSC metrics will make managers and employees more enthusiastic. If they know where they need to work harder they will do that to improve overall performance of the company. In other words, they will channel their energy, knowledge and experience in the right direction. It is very important to know own weak points. Using Balanced Scorecard, heads of HR departments will know weaknesses of their employees. It may be not a problem if the department consists of 2 people, but what if we are talking about 200? If people working for you are self-assured and confident, your company will surely benefit.

HR metrics is a must have tool for heard of companies and departments. How can you achieve your goals if you are not performing the way you expected to perform? Besides, sometimes it is very difficult to find the problem or the factor which takes the whole department down.

It may happen that your HR department works in dissonance with other department and branches. For example, managerial braches need more employees and HR department cannot find them on time. It is possible that costs for training one employee are so high that the company suffers losses for the first two or three months of his employment. It is very difficult to find the root of the problem. Balanced Scoreboard is the tool which makes it possible to detect the problem and offer solutions. If you neglect problem you will be simply wiped out by competitors. Of course, this is not something you want to happen to your business, is it?

Many managers never think of organization climate. Indeed, why should they? The company seems to be doing OK. The work is being done. So, what else do you need? Well, this is not true. You company would perform better if employees have a loyal attitude towards the company management. Do not disregard emotional state of your colleagues. It is very important to measure organization climate. With the help of anonymous questionnaires you will be able to get basic info on climate in the office and use it in BSC. HR Scorecard metrics is a very useful tool in this sense. What is there is a negative climate in your company? What if something makes people disagree with the company policy? Why not change this little thing and perform better? BSC will surely help you out here.

If the curve of emotional state goes down, then something bothers people. There is only one way to learn it. All indicators can seem perfect but the work is not done the way it should be done. Again, the answer might be found in emotional climate.

Balanced Scorecard is the best tool to improve performance of HR department within a short period of time. You do not need any meetings and seminars to get information. Of course, personal meeting will also let you know what is wrong in the company and what needs to be improved, but with specialized software you will do that faster and more efficiently.

To sum it up, it needs saying that HR metrics tool is a MUST HAVE instrument in a top manager’s toolbox. This software will save you much money as well as let your earn more. This is the ultimate goal in business, isn’t it? So, take advantage of IT progress to become a true leader. As a true leader armed with HR metrics tool you will always know what needs to be improved in your company. Thus, you will have all chances of staying on the business Olympus.

Balanced Scoracard will help evaluate business performance

Improve performance of your HR deparment with Balanced Scorecard

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Succession planning is an imperative process for any organization as it prepares the human resources to fill up the most critical and train them in order to take up further challenges in the business. The key to retaining the most valuable employees in an organization is to lead and guide them in order to enable them take up their respective career paths and professional goals. Appropriate succession planning ensures smooth sailing of competent employees to newer heights and become the team contributors through the role of managers and leaders.

Retirement is a situation where in the individual stops working completely; and hence leads to stoppage in regular income. The search for apposite retirement plans is the sought after task for any individual approaching the retirement stage. On the other hand, management seeks to organize and replace the positions that would be vacant, that leads to employing

Retirement metrics for mutually beneficial procedures that would assist the employee as well as business.

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Business leaders are like an official guide map that is followed by people who believe in them and their ideas. The social influence garnered in the process can contribute to successfully integrating the available resources towards the attainment of organizational goals. The leadership metrics go beyond the expected protocol and strives to channelize the work groups’ beliefs, views and actions towards the organizational interest.

A leader has to initiate multifarious activities, involving the staff and directing the better resources towards challenging roles for accelerating their career growth; and accordance with shareholders, keeping them duly updated of the business activities and processes. Furthermore, look into the successful completion of projects undertaken and qualitative evaluation of the business goals and key processes.

Clearly defining the goals and instigating loyal and participative spirit by encouraging the employees to contribute in the business process, and further demonstrate the requisite value system and beliefs along with instilling a feeling of purpose and commitment through interactive sessions. Adopting a lifestyle of practice what you preach to become a live example to peers and juniors alike, and positively reflect the desire for compassion and agility towards the establishment of business objectives.

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Introduction

The model of organizational performance groups different factors into three categories: the external environment of the organization, the internal environment of the organization, and the organizational outcomes. One of the most important things is that all these three factors in the model are highly interdependent and interactive with each other. Read below:

The External Environment of the Organization

Mainly it would impact on the organizational life and on human resources policies and procedures in particular. That’s why it would deal with a variety of factors like human and cultural factors, technology, natural resources, economic, regulatory measures and market factor. Firstly the human and cultural factors that actually affect organizational performance and efficacy are technical and managerial skills and abilities. When it comes to the technology, it will not only include equipments but also include techniques for using the equipment and theoretical and applied knowledge behind it.

 Then natural resources would definitely play a big part in organizational performance and effectiveness. Besides, economic factor of importance would include market behavior, buying and selling trends, prices, the level of employment and unemployment and the competition that exists for market and resources. Regulatory measures would include a variety of factors such as laws, court decisions and administrative regulations. Lastly the market factor will reflect the organizational returns and long-term survival.

The Internal Environment of the Organization

When it comes to the internal environment of the organization, it would also play a critical role in the organizational performance and efficiency. Generally the internal environment would contain a variety of factors for instance financial resources, technological and physical resources, structure, management philosophy, leadership style, individual motivation and performance, team behavior and performance, finally organizational culture and climate.

Here one of the most important points is that all these factors in the internal environment of the organization are highly interdependent and interactive with each other. Therefore they would surely play a big part in the organizational performance and success.

The Organizational Outcomes

Clearly outcome has a key role in every organization or company’s success. Generally the outcome represents four measures of performance that are efficient and useful in evaluating the success of an organization. These factors are usually comprised of effectiveness, efficiency, development, and participant satisfaction. Therefore we cannot overlook these key factors of the organizational outcomes by any means.

Conclusion

In short, all these factors would play a critical role in any organization performance and success. All you need to do is conduct a good research on the model of organizational performance and implement its key factors in your organization on a perpetual basis. We assure that you will be able to accomplish your company’s goals and objectives very soon.

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‘Humans’ with their natal exclusivity, also happen to be the most productive yet complex species who require a hierarchy of  needs to be satisfied along with apt motivation, leadership, management and control to prevail synergy.

Realizing this, the corporate empires of recent times have gained their autonomy by recognizing employees’ signature capabilities, i.e. their resource capabilities which needs be closest to the managerial requirements in quest of finding the “best resource fit” that promises success for the organization and helps its people to evolve as the advocates of the firm. However, for tracking, guiding and managing the services that organizations need to derive from its staff and evaluating the actual performance rendered, specific control and feedback systems are  used that constitute of strategic performance indicators which are measured with the help of scorecards as often as practical.

With an increase in the workforce, corporate gurus are baffled by the grueling task of measuring the productivity of different work groups and/or individuals that they need to compare as success factors. However, as a drawback it completely obscures an individual’s signature special. To counter this, organizations need to rely on performance support systems that infact are the powerful tools to any strategy execution.  The solution to the above problem can be tackled through two strategies;

1. Evaluating the implementation methods at all levels

The challenges of human resource department are not limited to, hiring the paramount cadre of workers, but involves; recruiting according to the organizational needs, placement according to edification and skills, mentoring and training, monitoring according to the performance indicators and later retiring with satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. All these purposes can be fulfilled using software that enables to convert random information into valuable data for any organization. It helps generate metrics and indicators that are valued and scored by the people and the organization to reach mutual understanding not only in terms of goals (monetary or executive), gaining employee buy-in and commitment but motivation and rewards as well

2. Evaluating employee contribution

Like Jack Wech, CEO General Electric said, ‘Make winners out of every business in your company’. This strategy focuses on all the levels that an employee is interacting at and contributing to determine how it effects the organization.  For example as a sales person a worker would be involved not only in; market research, developing and distributing product literature and  setting sales targets but might also be working as; advocating a product, interacting with customers, and getting feed back from end users. Thus the key to increasing the economic benefits and business efficiencies is to identify, develop and make use of indicators and scorecards that represent company goals and employee benefits and keep sorting the well accepted, clarified and appreciated from those that need to be changed till all the functions of the human resource department are stream lined.

There are many softwares like the Balanced Scorecard Designer available that offer extensive features to build real-time information with ease of flow for analyses and researches.

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Employee Monitor by Refog company, estimate performance of you HR. Try it now! There are several solutions starting with REFOG Keylogger for personal usage, ending Refog Employee Monitor and other employees monitoring tools.

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Consultants and owners of business-oriented web-sites will be interested in partnership program that is now available with BSC Designer.

With affiliate program that is now available for BSC Designer, it is possible to be affiliate and resell both - scorecards from commercial library and resell BSC Designer itself.

For more information about Balanced Scorecard Partnership check the partners section online.

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It becomes even more crucial to measure HR efficiency in recession periods so that a smart, timely HR response can be made considering employee performance and morale.

Left and right, we keep hearing of even the biggest companies having correspondingly big troubles with the financial crisis. When it first started showing itself, the crisis was, of course, startling and worrying, but as it now wears on, people are starting to turn to the more practical matter of weathering it. One of the crucial things to realize is that it is very important to be able to measure HR efficiency in recession accurately. Despite the possibility of drops in sales and other record financial lows, it is not the Finance or Accounting departments that are vital during recessions at all. Instead, the Human Resources department is the one that has to act fast and act well in order to give the organization the best chances of making it through the crisis with minimized damage.

In any crisis, an organization is in grave danger of losing its best people. This is because news of impending crises and downturns always has the effect of worrying people, making them reconsider their employment options. The best people, being usually the most qualified, are the ones with the most leverage and drive to look for and find what they might think are better opportunities elsewhere. This is why the HR department must act fast to reassure their top performers that the organization will continue to compensate them as fairly as possible during the recession. The HR department and the management should be able to present a unified front and a smart, well-justified plan for the entire organization during the crisis.

The goal, of course, is to increase employee confidence in the organization as well as to boost morale in general. Recessions call for extensive communication with the employees, keeping them up to date with the most important decisions and developments. Leave your employees feeling out of the loop, and pretty soon, inevitably, their worries and doubts will start to surface again. Not only would this lead to worsened performance due to anxiety and nervousness, it might even lead to resignations, as the most worried employees might decide to try their luck elsewhere. Employee dissatisfaction is a very probable result that is very undesirable. This can be avoided entirely by ensuring that everyone knows about all major decisions and the justifications behind them. Even unpopular measures, such as raise reductions and salary cuts, might be taken better than expected if they are explained clearly and with full honesty.

Keeping track of HR efficiency is thus important, as it will also act as a barometer for determining the mood of employees. Generally, higher efficiency will point to better moods, while lower efficiency would indicate that something needs to be done. Measure HR efficiency in recession periods to keep on top of the organization’s internal atmosphere. This data will also, of course, be helpful in deciding which employees need to be retained as much as possible, and which ones could conceivably be let go. Weathering a financial recession is by no means going to be easy and a good HR response is the key.

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Managing HR during financial recession, which will eventually affect most companies and organizations, should focus on keeping everyone calm and together through smart, cost-effective strategies.

The signs are everywhere as even the biggest companies reel left and right from the staggering effects of the financial recession. Layoffs, buyouts, bailouts, mergers, and other undeniably desperate measures are being grasped at like straws. But aside from these drastic measures, everyone should realize that it is just as important to adjust in managing HR during financial recession.

HR or human resources, in fact, plays an even bigger role during tough times than during periods of prosperity and growth. Whenever a company or organization encounters trouble or enters a slump, the group’s morale is certain to take a heavy hit. While to some extent the loss of morale may be alleviated by employees among themselves, human resource departments definitely have to step up as well. In cooperation with management and the leaders within the organization, the HR department has to implement sound, consistent strategies to help everyone through the recession lows.

The first order of business would be to calm everyone down and prevent panicking as much as possible. In doing so, the HR department and management should take care to present and keep up good appearances. Scrambling and hurrying to slap together some sort of message to the organization might be more counterproductive than helpful. Take the time to draft a well thought out campaign. Do not deny what is obvious, that a recession is occurring, but on the other hand, do not focus entirely on predicting doom. Simply reiterate the organization’s mission and state that even through these troubled times, everyone should continue trying their best and working together.

Apart from just drafting a reassuring message to send throughout the organization, the HR department should also begin looking at how it can slim down its processes, in line with the cutbacks that will inevitably have to be made. This might mean reducing bonuses, making parties and other non-necessary events smaller or doing away with them altogether, and even cutting back a little on the training budget. However, as with any budget cut, try as much as possible not to sacrifice quality too much. That is, find lower cost alternatives that are not too different in quality from the processes and policies you already have in place. Creativity and innovation would definitely pay off here.

Assigning top performers to hold in-house training sessions instead of hiring outside experts is an example of cutting costs on training. While this measure might not be quite as effective as hiring a consultant might be, it is still much cheaper. It will also help to build camaraderie among the employees and keep the organization unified.

In summary, with the grave effects of financial downturns, human resource departments are certainly going to have a lot on their hands. Even just staying afloat may prove hard for some companies, let alone continuing to go strong. But managing HR during financial recession is not impossibly difficult, if managers and human resource personnel keep their wits about them and focus on what is important: calming down any panic and remaining unified as an organization.

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Financial crises and downturns are forcing businesses and companies to strive to control recession effects on HR performance by going back to the basics and focusing on their people.

Financial crises, recessions, and economic depressions are not new phenomena, but their occurrence is definitely a cause for great concern among many. This is because no matter how well we study the history of downturns such as these, dealing with them when they do happen again is still just as difficult. Most organizations will wonder, for instance, how to control recession effects on HR performance, and employee performance in general. For the most part, this would fall to the efforts of the human resource department. In fact, the HR department would probably need to handle the most important part of the recession coping strategies.

This is because, essentially, what crises force organizations to do is to go back to the basics and try to maintain an intact, dynamic core. This core consists mainly of the organization’s leaders and employees – all united towards accomplishing their mission and achieving their vision. The panic and worrying induced by uncertain, or worse, poor economic conditions will tend to obscure this simple fact, but human resource departments should strive to realize this, better sooner than later. The sooner HR is convinced of its central role in surviving the crisis, the sooner planning and implementation could start as well.

Drops in sales and profits will inevitably lead management to consider laying off employees, especially the poor performers. While this may be necessary in a lot of cases, it should also be realized that this often has unintended consequences. This is manifested in the loss of productivity caused by layoffs, however small, as other employees suddenly feel less secure in their own jobs. Another effect may be lowered morale, since those who were laid off were friends and close colleagues of those who remain in the organization. The best thing to do to try and lessen these side effects would be to maintain open channels of communication among the management, human resources, and the employees. They should be able to ask questions and get straight, honest answers. This will, in the long run, lead to a better understanding amongst the different parts of the organization, which is crucial for long-term survival.

HR should also do the best they can with the employees and resources available, in terms of training programs. While recessions are usually seen as periods where organizations should do all they can to just stay afloat, it would not do to neglect the future for the present. That is, training budgets are often cut mercilessly during tougher times, with the rationale that they give no immediate payoff. However, companies that follow this policy too closely may find themselves unprepared to cope with the changed situation once the crisis has passed. Strategies should be made looking at the long term, and not just the short term, no matter how tragic the short term may seem to be.

HR departments truly do have their jobs cut out for them in times of crisis, but with a smart and sensible plan, managers can effectively control recession effects on HR performance.

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