Human Resource Metrics.org

Executives sometimes suffer from short-term vision in slow economic times.

Don't let them drag you and your company down with them. They think that in hard times compensation and benefits plans can be cut because employees are lucky to have jobs. Such short term thinking really loses sight of the big picture. Let's remind ourselves, what is the objective of our compensation and benefits plans? The objective of compensation and benefit plans is to effectively recruit and retain key employees in key roles that are critical to driving the business objectives now and in the future. That's the type of thinking that "real" leaders are made of. In tough economic times companies should covet their good employees because it is those employees that will help them through the tough times.

Many executives will use this time as an excuse to cut variable compensation and use the "I'm not going to lose anyone in this economy" excuse. For the most part employees go along with it but the long-term employer brand and retention impact is sure to sting the company for quite some time. In fact those same executives two years from now will be saying "I just don't understand why our employees are leaving". Real leaders understand the objective of compensation and benefits which is to recruit and retain key employees in key roles that are critical to driving the business objectives of a company both short and long term. They understand that variable compensation is meant to be variable (i.e., goals achieved = variable comp). Even in hard times, your top performing people frequently hit their goals only to see their variable comp plan changed or removed because of poor company performance or positioning for a tough economy. Companies that stay focused on the objective will win in the future.

How are you currently measuring your recruiter workload at your organization? If you are like most organizations, you may have many lingering questions on what is the best way to measure recruiter workload.I’ve seen the questions posted countless times. What is the maximum number of openings a recruiter should have? How many requisitions are too many for a recruiter to handle? Why can some of my recruiters handle far more openings at any given time than other recruiters? The questions are so important to effectively operate your businesses. As with many things, I think the question being is asked is the problem. Aren’t you really asking how efficient are my recruiters? How can I determine if they are at, near, or over capacity? How do they measure up against one another?

I can address the first question of efficiency. The second question regarding capacity, in my opinion, is a matter of each individual company situation. Benchmarking that data against other companies can be dangerous. How many companies operate exactly the same? Are recruiting roles the same from organization to organization? Is the value proposition for hiring people at your organization different than your competitors? Benchmark internally first to improve quarter on quarter and year on year results before looking externally. Once you look externally for benchmarking, pay close attention to processes that may help your company operate more efficiently. Don’t be too quick to focus on your numbers catching or beating your competition. Ultimately run your own race.

Now let’s get back to efficiency. How can I determine the maximum number of openings my recruiter should have? The first step is really measuring each recruiter equally using the same criteria. This shouldn’t be done by calculating the total number of requisitions. First, suspend disbelief for a moment and agree with the premise that it is typically harder to fill a requisition that pays $100,000 salary than it is to fill a requisition that pays $35,000 salary. If you are able to do that then we are off to a good start. If you don’t agree with our premise then contact us regarding the reason's why. Please note that my premise says “typically” a higher paying position is harder to fill but there will certainly be instances when that is not true. No metric or formula covers every situation. If you are looking for something that covers everything then you’ll be searching endlessly.

The second premise that I’d like you to agree with is that positions that pay higher than others are typically more important to the organization. I expect that phrase to stir some controversy based on the common belief that every part of an organization contributes to their success and all are important. I agree with that but organizations pay different people in different positions more than others simply because they have to. It is supply and demand. If you agree with those two premises, then we can move on regarding how to calculate a measurement so we can fairly measure workload of each recruiter. If compensation is the best indicator of both difficulty in recruiting and importance of a hire to an organization, then we should use total compensation recruited to measure workload of each recruiter as well as average compensation recruited to determine the difficulty level of requisitions a recruiter is trying to fill. With both those data points you should be able to fairly compare workload of each recruiter to another.

Recruiter #1 has 25 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $80k
Total comp recruited $2,000,000

Recruiter #2 has 10 Open Reqs
Average compensation recruited at $150k
Total comp recruited $1,500,000

24% of our survey participants don't measure at all

In talking with HR and Staffing professionals most, if not all, express the hectic nature of their work. Always being asked to do more and more. Being pulled in thousands of directions. Putting out fires. Responding to executive demands. Doing more with less. The list is endless. Based on our research nearly a fourth don’t measure at all. For those that don’t measure the explanation usually falls into two categories –not having the time to measure but wanting to and not believing measuring is a priority because of all the other things that are more important (usually getting butts in seats). When professionals that are currently measuring are asked why they measure what they are measuring - the responses are nearly identically to not measuring at all. They are typically too busy to analyze why they are measuring and what real value their measurements bring to the organization. The other response is typically that other areas of focus are more important (such as getting butts in seats). Very few actually feel confident that they are measuring the right things and can articulate how they can impact their organization. It is easy to fall into the perpetual cycle of “treading water” to fulfill the objectives of the moment. Take a moment to review the stats below from one of our metrics surveys. We are hopeful that by addressing some of the things listed we’ll be able to help HR and Staffing professionals break the cycle, start measuring more effectively, and change their focus day-to-day.

24% of participants do NOT measure at all


59% of participants measure Time to fill


68% of participants do NOT measure quality


89% of participants measure Turnover