We all recognize how critical human capital is to the growth and success of any business, but many struggle to discern the key workforce metrics required to gain the insights necessary to make strategic decisions.
To help alleviate some of the pain and to make sense of all the available data that you could potentially be analyzing the Human Capital Management Institute (HCMI) has put together a list of the top 25 most important human capital questions that all HR leaders should be asking.
Top 25 Questions
Can we accurately forecast our workforce needs in the future?
What percent of our workforce is customer-facing or revenue-generating? What is the trend?
Can we model our workforce to optimize cost, profit and productivity?
What is our workforce productivity? Is it higher than peers?
What is the marginal return of one dollar invested in workforce?
Is the ROI on Human Capital higher than other investments?
Is workforce productivity increasing, decreasing or static? How are we performing versus peers?
What is the average time-to-full-productivity for new hires? For new hires in critical roles?
What are predictive indicators of turnover? What percentage of employees are at risk?
Are leaders effectively managing human capital? Do leaders correlate to employee engagement, retention and performance?
What business areas/positions/managers have the highest voluntary turnover? How do we compare to peers?
Where does our best talent come from? Which managers are the best talent scouts and coaches?
What is the cost of turnover to our business?
Are we losing the right people (low performers) or the wrong people(high performers or critical roles/skills)?
Do we know the leading drivers of employee turnover? Do we know the leading drivers of retention?
What is our quality of new hires? Can we measure it?
What recruiting source yields the most high performers? What recruiting source yields the best cultural fits?
Is there a link between employee performance and total rewards? If so, do we know the optimal pay/performance mix?
What is the total pay/rewards differential between high performers and average employees?
Could we offer compensation and benefits that both cost less and engage/retain employees better?
What is our Total Cost of Workforce as a percent of revenue? As a percent of expenses? How do we compare to peers?
What is the ROI of training to the firm? Where could training investments improve productivity and profitability?
Is internal mobility a source of value or turnover and cost? What percent of the workforce moves internally each year?
What percent of the workforce has a defined career path?
What is the link between employee engagement, customer satisfaction, revenue and profits? What are the drivers?
Answer These Questions
HCMI has helped clients across numerous industries answer these questions. Read some of our case studies to see the impact that HCMI has had and get started on your path to salvation by digging into two related webinars, Questions Human Capital Analytics Can Answer and Linking KPIs to Critical Human Capital Questions.
