With the changing labor market, it’s important that HR can track and monitor how quickly and efficiently an empty job position is filled in their organization. This is especially true for hard-to-fill job roles during a competitive labor market with known talent shortages. For these reasons, Time to Fill is often included in the shortlist of most important recruiting metrics that every HR team should measure, track, and benchmark. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about Time to Fill, how to calculate it, and how you can best use this metric in reports and analyses. Table of Contents What is Time to Fill? Why Measuring Time to Fill Time to Fill vs. Time to Start How to Calculate Time to Fill Examples of Using Time to Fill to Make Better Workforce Decisions What is Time to Fill? Time to Fill measures the number of days it takes to fill an open position, from the date a job requisition is posted to the date a new hire accepts the position. This metric is often expressed as an average number of days when divided by the total number of hires or positions filled. Organizations typically measure Time to Fill for externally hired positions as internal hiring requires different processes with different ranges of performance. Why Measuring Time to Fill There are several benefits to knowing your Time to Fill: Time to Fill provides a quick reference point on how long it would take to fill an empty position. Time to Fill acts as a key performance indicator (KPI) or running score for your recruiting operations. Time to Fill serves as an excellent forecasting variable and a valuable input metric for talent strategies. Time to Fill vs. Time to Start If Time to Fill is an indicator of how efficient a recruiting team is at filling an empty position start, Time to Start is the efficiency measurement of the entire recruiting process from the date a job becomes vacant till the date a new hire finishes the onboarding process and start the new position. You can visualize the differences and see a side-to-side definition comparison between Time to Fill and Time to Start below: Time to Start: Total number of calendar days from the date a job becomes vacant to the date a new hire starts work in the new position. Vs. Time to Fill: Total number of calendar days from the date a job requisition is posted to the date a new hire accepts the position. How to Calculate Time to Fill Definition: Total number of calendar days from the date a job requisition is posted to the date a new hire accepts the position, expressed as an average number of days when divided by the total number of hires or positions filled. Examples of Using Time to Fill to Make Better Workforce Decisions Example 1: Benchmark with Peers and Industry Average According to SHRM’s Talent Acquisition Benchmarking Report, the average Time to Fill is 36 days. Note that the average Time to Fill differs substantially between industries, types of positions, and hiring locations. Some positions have a smaller talent pool and therefore naturally take longer to fill. For example, the current skilled nursing shortage makes it hard for healthcare providers and hospitals to recruit bedside RN nurses. The average Time to Fill for this role is 54 days which is significantly higher than the 36 days cited in SHRM’s report. There is also a big gap between the top and bottom-performing teams. While it takes the top-performing recruiting teams on average just 34 days to fill an empty position, the bottom teams take as much as 91 days to accomplish the same task. Example 2: Cross-compare Time to Fill with Other Metrics for Additional Insights No single metric could tell the whole story of your recruiting operations. Time to Fill is no exception. The quality of new hires, cost per hire, and retention rate are just as important to recruiting performance as how quickly an empty position is being filled. We recommend that HR cross-compares Time to Fill with other employee metrics such as quality of hire metrics or indices, engagement scores, and retention rates for better insights into the talent pipelines. In the below example, you can see that Time to Fill is growing slowly over time. Taking one or two extra days to fill an empty position would not be a big concern if recruits are highly engaged and more likely to stay. In this case, not only is Time to Fill taking longer, but the average Retention Rate is also taking a big dip. This should be a warning sign that HR needs to take a closer look and examine what might have caused these issues. Example 3: Discover additional Insights by Filtering Time to Fill by various Workforce Dimensions As illustrated in Time to Start, we recommend that HR filter Time to Fill by measurement dimensions such as workforce category, critical job groups, business unit, and performance category. In doing so, management can use Time to Fill as a predictor of improved recruiting operations, increased workforce productivity, and lowered total cost of workforce. HR Analytics Software like SOLVE™️ can make this process quick and easy with data automation and dynamic filtering. Below is an example of the Time to Fill and Retention Rate at the Job category level:

HCMI participated in the prestigious HRWest 2024 HR Conference, held on March 5th and 6th in Oakland, California. Organized by HR.com, this event gathered HR leaders and professionals from across the nation to discuss and explore the latest trends and challenges in human resources management. During the conference, HCMI was prominently represented by Jeff, who delivered a compelling presentation titled “Linking People Metrics to Business Results, The ROI of People Analytics.” This session delved into the paradox where organizations, despite claiming “Our people are our most valuable asset,” often treat personnel primarily as costs to be minimized. Jeff expertly navigated through this contradiction, advocating for a model where people data drives strategic business decisions. The presentation covered essential learning objectives, including demonstrating how people are the source of value creation, identifying strategic opportunities for HR to add value, and measuring business impact from various HR activities like recruiting, retention, performance, engagement, and training. Jeff's insights provided actionable strategies for showcasing the tangible value of workforce talent, emphasizing its critical role in achieving superior business results. HCMI's participation underscored our commitment to advancing the role of HR in driving business success, highlighting our innovative approaches to people analytics. Stay tuned for upcoming posts with more insights and takeaways from the event!

This summary below was taken from Shally's Alley Podcast with Jeff Higgins, CEO of HCMI, as the guest on December 15th, 2023. In the final episode of "Shally's Alley" for 2023, host Shally Steckerl concludes the year by welcoming Jeff Higgins, a recognised expert in HR analytics and workforce planning, to give his thoughts and predictions for the future. Jeff Higgins, a former CFO turned HR specialist and the founder of the Human Capital Management Institute (HCMI), addresses the history of workforce planning, the value of data in making informed HR choices, and future trends in employee turnover and human capital reporting. Jeff emphasizes the move towards treating personnel as valuable assets rather than expenses, and forecasts higher turnover rates and new SEC reporting requirements in 2024. The talk also covers the ISO 30414 standard for human capital reporting, as well as the obstacles and opportunities in talent acquisition and workforce management. Are you prepared to maximize your employees' potential and drive revenue growth? Learn how to maximise your personnel strategy, turn your HR data into meaningful insights, and improve your bottom line with HCMI's advanced workforce planning solutions. Don't pass up the chance to steer your industry towards innovation and strategic insight. Reach out to us here and find out more about how we can use smart workforce planning to help you meet your business goals.

Using workforce analytics, management can improve workforce productivity to drive growth and start building a competitive advantage around human capital. Image for illustration purpose only. What would it mean to companies if they could improve talent performance and service delivery level while keeping workforce costs under control? Since a stunning 85% of today’s S&P 500 Market Value derives from human capital, it’s not a surprise that companies are seeking ways to address this challenge, especially for those who trade commodities or compete on margin. This need translates directly into the demand for a better method to measure, track, and benchmark workforce productivity and ROI of their human capital investments. However, this is not entirely new. Dr. Jac Fitz-enz, the father of workforce analytics, has been promoting these measurements for the past decades. This is also the area recommended by HR professional organizations such as CIPD and required as a part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index’s assessment as well. While measuring productivity is important, it’s even more critical to use workforce productivity to boost the business’s bottom line. Below are examples of what HCMI has been doing to help companies improve workforce productivity: i. Peer Benchmarking Similar to other Financial and Operational metrics, the primary value of measuring workforce productivity is in analyzing and comparing them over the years with competitors and peers in the same or similar industries, in particular best-in-class companies. For example, if your organization has an increase in the Total Cost of Workforce (TCOW) of 3.2% and a return on human capital investments of 10%; it is difficult to determine if those numbers are good or bad without a comparison point. Generally, improvement is always good. If competitors’ select metrics are at 4.5% and 18% annual rates respectively, while your organization is able to implement a new mentorship program that will help new hires better prepare for their jobs and raise the percentage of high performers, your organization will win out the competition over time. This is the reason we apply the same evidence-based approach to track workforce productivity performance over the years. In short, external market analysis using advanced measures can be deeply insightful when compared in a proper context. And it doesn’t stop here. The same concept can also be applied to non-profit and government agency as well. ii. Improve Productivity by Linking to Other Talent Management Areas After seeing how your productivity fares against peers and competitors, it’s only natural for management to ask for concrete ROI along with specific policies that will help improve workforce productivity. While increasing productivity alone is a broad topic, identifying sources of improvement can be accomplished by linking workforce productivity to other potential sources of improvement and using predictive analytics to assess future impacts. The answer can be boiled down to a set of what-if questions similar to those listed below: What if they increase the number of internal hires by 50% for the next year? What if they make the mentorship program a requirement for new sales representatives? How much leadership can impact productivity and what that number is? By linking productivity to specific talent management policies, practitioners can effectively establish a strong business case that’s (1) relevant to business leaders with (2) concrete ROI and (3) actionable insights. Using the same approach, our analytics experts helped one of the world's biggest package delivery companies measure the impact of their manager leadership on the distribution centers’ productivity and found over $1 billion in ROI annually. Overall... Workforce productivity is a great door opener and a spearhead project for organizations who are looking to improve their talent management practices using workforce analytics and planning. To learn how leadership affects workforce productivity, download this case study: How Leadership Affects Workforce Productivity ---- Learn more about our Workforce Productivity Benchmark Analysis by getting in touch with us! 📅 Schedule time to discuss here 💻 More info on SOLVE™️: https://www.hcmi.co/solve ✉️ Send us an email at: info@hcminst.com

In 2024, the business sector is seeing a significant change in how it plans its personnel and acquires people. The shift towards skill-based hiring is changing the traditional recruitment process, emphasizing practical abilities and competencies above formal qualifications and past job titles. This inventive technique is not only a passing fad but an essential adaptation to keep up with the requirements of a swiftly changing global economy and technological environment. The Philosophical Basis of Skill-Based Hiring Skill-based hiring focuses on an individual's ability and capacity to learn and adjust as better predictors of success in a position compared to their educational or employment background. This concept is in accordance with the evolving work landscape, emphasizing the need for digital literacy, critical thinking, and adaptability, as the skill set needed for jobs is continuously changing. Strategic Transformation in Talent Acquisition Strategic transformation in talent acquisition involves firms completely overhauling their recruitment tactics to migrate to skill-based hiring. This includes creating job advertisements that highlight skills and competencies, creating new evaluation methods to precisely measure an individual's talents, and using technology to pair individuals with positions based on skill compatibility. The goal is to establish a workforce that is more adaptable and versatile in order to navigate the intricacies and uncertainties of today's business landscape. Facilitating Professional Advancement and Adaptability Within the Organization Skill-based recruiting greatly supports internal mobility and career advancement. By emphasizing talents, people can move between different departments and functions in the organization, using their distinct skill sets and following their interests without being limited to certain tasks. This increases employee engagement and happiness while also improving the organization's agility, allowing it to reallocate talent based on changing market demands and possibilities. Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Utilizing skill-based recruiting can effectively promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. By de-emphasizing degrees and conventional job pathways, it allows for a wider range of candidates, including individuals from underrepresented backgrounds or with non-traditional career choices. This inclusivity enhances the workplace by bringing a variety of perspectives and experiences, which promotes innovation and creativity. The Challenges of Implementation Despite its advantages, transitioning to skill-based recruiting comes with several implementation obstacles. Organizations need to deal with the challenges of identifying and assessing skills, reducing bias in skill evaluation, and ensuring that their talent development programs match the skills needed for future success. To overcome these challenges, one must dedicate themselves to ongoing learning, invest in developing talent, and implement innovative HR technologies. Find out how SOLVE™️ Competitive Talent Intelligence and Recruitment tools can give your company the information it needs to do a great job hiring people based on their skills. Use our cutting-edge tools to not only find the best people but also make sure they fit with your strategic goals and workforce planning, giving you an edge over your competitors. Are you ready to make your employees one of your best tools and help your business grow? Get in touch with us to find out how we can make our solutions fit your needs and put "people" at the center of your success. 📅 Schedule time to discuss here 💻 More info on SOLVE™️: https://www.hcmi.co/solve ✉️ Send us an email at: info@hcminst.com

By Jeff Higgins, CEO of Human Capital Management Institute (HCMI) For hundreds of years, owners and managers have sought to quantify workforce productivity. This interest has intensified each decade up to the 21st century due to the increasing complexity and sophistication of business, technology, and the workforce. Today, it is imperative to identify and differentiate talent, as companies continue searching for ways to quantify workforce productivity and the differential value that top performers contribute versus average performers. In the past, when most jobs were direct sales or product manufacturing, the workforce was easier to measure via traditional metrics (such as sales per salesperson or number of widgets manufactured per worker). In a world driven by services, data, and the internet, the measurement of productivity and talent has become increasingly difficult, yet more critical, due to the cost of technology and skilled workers needed to operate and drive today’s organizations. Since modern workforce productivity is not easily quantified, this challenge requires a new approach and a consistent process. Such a process must measure workforce productivity in aggregate but more importantly, by job role. Such a process must also work across industry, geography, size, and complexity. Why Haven't We Disclosed Human Capital Data in the Past? Quite simply, human capital data has not been disclosed in any significant way because no disclosure is currently required by public company reporting entities. Organizations have executed unprecedented restructuring, retrenchment, and downsizing in recent years, yet most still lack the metrics to measure the workforce, or they measure everything and are unable to determine which numbers really matter in a meaningful way. “Human resources can readily provide the number of people it hired, the percentage of performance evaluations completed, and the extent to which employees are satisfied or not with their benefits. But only rarely does it link any of those metrics to business performance.” -- Keith Hammonds, Fast Company (Why We Hate HR, August 2005) Workforce complexity, fluidity, a shortage of analysis skills in HR, and missing human capital reporting standards have contributed to the lack of confidence and minimal human capital reporting in existing financial statements today. Measuring and Reporting Human Capital What if it were possible to value the impact of human capital and quantify its contribution in the form of productivity or return? What if the return on human capital could be definitively measured, quantified, and linked to business results by company, business unit, and even job role? Imagine today’s financial investment marketplace without standard financial statements. Without financial statements, investors would be left on their own with little to no objective information with which to determine whether a company was a worthwhile investment or not. They would be left to rely to a great extent on the company’s own and potentially skewed information. In such a situation, investors could be overwhelmed with unsubstantiated positive claims, in which organizations disclose what they consider fair and objective information that puts the best possible light on their performance. Today, when it comes to evaluating an organization’s human capital, an environment similar to the one described above exists in HR. Organizations are open to making unsubstantiated talent claims regarding productivity, engagement, career path, training, and innovation. Nowhere in current disclosures or reports are they required to substantiate statements with facts or data. Introducing Human Capital Financial Statements (HCF$™️) Just as traditional financial statements allow investors to compare companies, gauge financial performance, and evaluate risk, so too can Human Capital Financial Statements (HCF$™️) provide bottom-line impact, tell a deeply contextual talent management gain and loss story, and spotlight human capital risks. Further, the flow of human capital can be measured and predicted, i.e. workforce planning, enabling HR to devise and implement strategic interventions to optimize building, buying or leasing talent, optimizing costs and critical roles among other strategies. Human Capital Financial Statements developed by HCMI, represent three distinct statements, fulfilling functions similar to traditional financial statements. This function is to tell a comprehensive, contextual story that connects workforce performance to financial performance across multiple dimensions. These three unique statements provide a wealth of value to companies and investors, as described below: Human Capital Impact Statement - The human capital equivalent or supplement to the income statement, measuring quarterly or annual impact of human capital on financial performance. This statement measures the workforce impact on financial performance for a given reporting period. Human Capital Asset Statement – Like a balance sheet, this statement quantifies the total value of the workforce, specifically the value of human capital at cost and the total value added over and above cost. It breaks down differential value contributions by job category and can drill down into critical job roles at a micro level to measure the ROI of specific job roles. Human Capital Flow Statement - Similar to a cash flow statement, this schedule traces the flow of human capital across headcount, cost, and movement multiple dimensions by period such as a quarter or year, showing where and how human capital is allocated and used in an organization. “Human Capital Financial Statements represent the endpoint HR has been searching for to standardize measurement and enable comparison of human capital performance across industry and geography.” - Dr. Jac Fitz-enz - recognized as the father of human capital measurement. A Supplement to Financial Statements, not a Substitute Human Capital Financial Statements are not a substitute for current financial statements. They are a tool to measure the workforce as well as a resource for workforce insight and a supplement to a key success differentiator and source of future intangible value creation. Company workforce costs should continue to be reported and treated conservatively as a period expense for traditional accounting and reporting, with one possible exception: the capitalization of qualified training costs. These statements quantify trends in workforce productivity, costs, and value creation across the talent management lifecycle. Now we can clearly demonstrate a relationship between an organization’s financial performance and its workforce. In practice, these statements can lead to a radical change in how organizations think and make decisions regarding their human capital. For example, a publicly traded international telecommunications company called Broadtek (a pseudonym), utilized human capital financial statements in a strategic discussion with the company's top management and the board of directors. The board, based on recent performance in traditional productivity metrics revenue and profit per full-time equivalent (FTE), was recommending a reduction in force. Top management was convinced they had made substantial progress in controlling the Total Cost of Workforce (TCOW) and improved productivity by changing their workforce mix by selectively growing and investing critical roles while disinvesting and slowly reducing positions that added less value. As a result, Broadtek's top management, using human capital financial metrics, demonstrated to the board that Broadtek's workforce productivity was increasing by 13.5% per year, while competitor productivity was negative and showed no signs of improvement (see Figure 1 below). At the same time, Broadtek management had held TCOW growth to 4.4%, far less than the competitors’ ballooning 10% plus TCOW cost increases. The board not only agreed with management but also supported continued strategic investment in critical roles provided workforce cost targets were maintained. Figure 1: BroadTek Human Capital Impact Statement (Workforce Productivity Impact Session) (1) EBITDA = Earnings before interest (2) Total Market Capitalization for publicly traded organizations or independent bank/financial market valuation for private entities. Human Capital Financial Statements Answer Many Questions Starting With: What impact does human capital have on financial performance? What is the right number of employees and workforce cost? What is the marginal return of $1.0 invested in the workforce? What is the human capital value creation by different job roles? What is the true cost impact of turnover? Greater transparency into an organization’s stated “most valuable asset,” the workforce, and insight into management effectiveness with that most valuable asset. Transparency into knowledge capital fills a critical gap in today’s disclosure reporting. A method to value knowledge capital. The world of business has changed and it is time that reporting and market disclosures changed with it. The drivers of market valuation today and in the future are far more knowledge capital than financial or physical capital. Today, knowledge capital is classified as intangible capital since no measures exist to make reasonable and accurate valuations. The Human Capital Asset Statement addresses that need. Adoption of the Human Capital Asset Statement can bridge this important gap and give everyone from credit rating agencies, banks, public reporting entities, and individual investors, an objective set of numbers and values with which to make better decisions about the true drivers of value. Improved investment decisions, with better information, mean improved ability to assess future growth, particularly innovation and long-term value creation. This could lead to more efficient and effective deployment of human capital in organizations. Supports standards for human capital reporting and analysis of human capital data for human resources, and the business. The Human Capital Financial Statements actually exceed the Society for Human Resources (SHRM) Human Capital Investor Metrics voluntary reporting standards. Further, these statements provide not just metrics but a methodology and framework with which to show whether the workforce and HR are creating significant value for the organization. Enables benchmarking and comparison of a critical expense and differentiator of success.³ Standards enable deep benchmarking and identify best practices on a broad scale. Today’s benchmarking is often more anecdotal than objective and quantitative. Links financial results to the workforce with both definitive measurement and a contextual story via high-level productivity metrics and quantifiable impact but also by individual talent management life cycle segments (such as recruiting, internal mobility, management and leadership, training, performance and engagement, and turnover/retention). __________________________ ³ Benchmarking Standards and Advanced Workforce Measures Provide Insight - For most financial ratio metrics, their primary value is in comparing or benchmarking them with competitors and peers in the same or similar industries, in particular for best-in-class performing organizations. For example, if an organization has an asset return ratio of 3.2 or a return on invested capital of 10%, one often cannot know if those numbers are good unless one knows what competitors and peers have for the same metrics. Improvement is always good however, if competitors are at 4.2, and 18% respectively your organization is in trouble. In short, benchmarking using standardized measures and metrics can be deeply insightful when compared to the proper context and benchmarks. Such a set of metrics and reports enables HR and finance departments to integrate financial results with human capital metrics that quantify the bottom-line impact in recruiting, mobility, training, productivity, retention, and more. Ultimately, the possibilities for workforce optimization are limited only by data availability and systems that create a repeatable process. While complex, such human capital reporting can be done and is being done by 100+ organizations today. The real question is, if human capital is a critical differentiator in your business, why aren’t you doing it? ---- For more detail on these and other foundational concepts as well as details on the metrics and calculations involved go to www.hcmi.co. Also, see the groundbreaking white paper entitled Human Capital Financial Statements (HCF$) here, and a case study here. Jeff Higgins is CEO of the Human Capital Management Institute (HCMI). He is a driving force in workforce analytics and planning, helping to transform workforce data into intelligence and ROI. He has experience as both a senior HR executive and former CFO, with 15 years of experience in finance and accounting roles for companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Baxter International, and Colgate Palmolive. You can contact him at info@hcminst.com.

The use of Generative AI in talent acquisition and management is a disruptive trend for 2024 in the constantly changing field of workforce planning. With the help of this technical breakthrough, organizations may now improve decision-making, streamline their hiring procedures, and gain a competitive advantage in the talent market. In tandem with these advancements, SOLVE™️ appears as a critical instrument, providing extensive modules that go beyond workforce planning to cover a range of aspects of data-driven recruiting and recruitment decision-making. This blog update explores how companies may handle the challenges of contemporary labor planning by utilizing Generative AI and SOLVE™️. The Rise of AI in Recruiting Generative AI is transforming the recruitment process, from the initial stages of sourcing candidates to the final steps of hiring. Traditional methods of recruitment are being augmented or even replaced by AI-driven tools that can screen resumes, schedule interviews, and even conduct initial assessments of candidates. These technologies leverage vast datasets to identify the best potential candidates for a position, significantly reducing the time and resources typically required for talent acquisition. General Advantages of Generative AI in Recruitment and Talent Management The benefits of incorporating Generative AI into talent management are manifold. Firstly, it enhances the efficiency of the recruitment process, allowing HR professionals to focus on strategic aspects of their roles rather than administrative tasks. Secondly, AI-driven analytics can provide deeper insights into the talent pool, helping organizations to identify and attract individuals with the skills and potential to thrive. Finally, AI can help in personalizing the candidate experience, tailoring interactions and communications to the preferences and expectations of each applicant, thereby improving engagement and satisfaction levels. Navigating Challenges: Bias Mitigation and Ethical Use However, the integration of AI into talent acquisition and management is not without its challenges. A primary concern is the potential for AI to perpetuate or even exacerbate biases present in the recruitment process. To mitigate this risk, organizations are advised to implement responsible AI practices, including regular audits of AI tools for bias, transparency in AI decision-making processes, and the inclusion of diverse datasets to train AI models. Moreover, ethical considerations must be at the forefront of AI adoption in HR. Businesses should ensure that AI applications respect candidate privacy, adhere to relevant laws and regulations, and are used in a manner that fosters trust and fairness. Enhancing Workforce Planning and Recruitment with SOLVE™️ While SOLVE™️ provides a suite of modules to supplement these AI-driven initiatives, Generative AI opens new avenues in personnel management and ensures a comprehensive approach to workforce planning. The capabilities of SOLVE™️ cover a number of important domains: Data-Driven Decision Making: By utilizing SOLVE™️, organizations can effectively utilize data to make well-informed decisions on the acquisition of talent. Companies may gain a deeper understanding of the talent market by combining AI-generated insights with SOLVE™️ analytics. This allows them to identify not only the best candidates but also new trends in skills and competencies. Strategic Workforce Planning: SOLVE™️ enables long-term workforce planning in addition to meeting short-term hiring demands. With the help of its technologies, companies may predict their future labor needs and match hiring tactics to the demands of their operations and the state of the market. In a world where technology is constantly changing the terrain, this kind of strategic foresight is essential. Enhanced Applicant Experience: SOLVE™️ engagement tools enable individualized communication strategies, employing AI insights to tailor interactions based on applicant preferences and behaviors. This is important in an era where a candidate's experience can set one company apart from another. This degree of customization makes an employer brand more appealing and raises the possibility of attracting top talent. Bias Mitigation and Diversity Enhancement: SOLVE™️ provides modules intended to detect and reduce potential biases in AI-driven recruitment, acknowledging the difficulties these biases may provide. SOLVE™️ ensures fair, egalitarian, and inclusive talent acquisition procedures with comprehensive analytics, improving corporate diversity. Ethical and Compliance Considerations: SOLVE™️ offers a framework to guarantee that data-driven and AI-driven recruiting procedures adhere to ethical and legal standards as they change. This is essential to keeping the hiring process honest and trustworthy. GIF: SOLVE™️ Workforce Module - Recruiting Forecast How Can Companies Benefit From Embracing AI-driven Tools for Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition? The advent of Generative AI in talent acquisition and management offers exciting opportunities for businesses to enhance their workforce planning strategies in 2024. By embracing AI-driven tools, organizations can streamline their recruitment processes, gain valuable insights into the talent landscape, and improve the candidate experience. As we look towards 2024, the integration of Generative AI and SOLVE™️ in workforce planning offers a promising avenue for businesses to navigate the challenges and opportunities of talent management. This innovative approach enables a more efficient, strategic, and ethical framework for recruiting and managing talent, paving the way for a future where data-driven decisions and AI-enhanced processes drive success in the competitive talent market. Businesses that adopt and adeptly integrate these technologies into their HR practices stand to gain a significant advantage in attracting, retaining, and nurturing the workforce of the future. Be in the now - Speak with us to know how your organization can have a comprehensive, data-driven workforce plan ready within 30 days or less! Schedule time to discuss here. Book a demo: https://www.hcmi.co/solve Send us an email at: info@hcminst.com

By Jeff Higgins, CEO of Human Capital Management Institute (HCMI) Employers have been complaining loudly about the inability to find and hire qualified talent for many years, and the challenge and noise increased further during the pandemic and the ensuing 'Great Resignation' that started during the pandemic. The total number of open positions in the US has remained above 10.0 million for more than two years, nearly double the pre-pandemic historical norms of 5.0 to 6.0 million open positions across the US. As of February 2023, according to the US Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) Report, open positions dropped slightly to 9.9 million open positions, but according to some economists studying demographic workforce trends, including an aging workforce, the economy is unlikely to return to the prior average level of open jobs in the foreseeable future. Evidence of the continuing 'Great Resignation' and resulting talent war trend continues in 2023 since the same JOLTS Report (February 2023) shows quit rates or turnover increasing slightly to 4.0 million workers or 3.7% of the workforce in February 2023. The 3.7% quit rate, when multiplied by 12 months or annualized, equates to a 44.4% turnover rate, which is 75.5% higher than the decade before the pandemic (Feb 2013 vs. Feb 2023). The point is that higher levels of employee turnover and increasing competition for jobs make for a challenging environment to attract and retain workers and this is likely the new normal for companies. Therefore, in order to have any chance of winning the talent war by attracting, hiring, and retaining good talent, companies must be willing to change how they operate, not just in recruiting but decision-making, accountability, career pathing, and more. All employees eventually leave a company, whether by retirement (good turnover in many respects), layoffs, or voluntary resignation. What makes a difference is whether the company is improving how it sources, hires, trains, rewards, manages, and retains its best workers. Companies are, of course, focused on keeping good employee turnover to a minimum. The key is to concentrate on retaining the good performers, the critical roles, the highly engaged employees, and the current as well as emerging stars. The amount of human capital value lost when a hard-to-fill vital role or high performer leaves is considerable, causing work to slow while much time is invested in replacing the open position with no guarantee that the replacement will match the level of performance of the prior worker. Since it is much harder today than it was a decade ago to find great talent in a reasonable amount of time, that leaves the company and co-workers to struggle while a replacement is found and brought up to speed. As a result, morale may decrease, and the risk of turnover of other good performers may increase, creating a negative growing turnover cycle. Here are the 7 recruiting mistakes companies must change to win the war for talent: 1. Hiring Managers Who Are Unaccountable for Their Hiring Decisions A famous Gallup poll of more than a million employed US workers concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor. In the study, 75% of workers who voluntarily left their jobs did so because of their bosses and not the position itself. "In spite of how good a job may be, people will quit if the reporting relationship is not healthy." Marcus Buckingham said it best "People leave managers, not companies...in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue." In fact, the issue is even worse than what Gallup found. Managers, in recruiting, wield tremendous power in the overall hiring process and are typically the final decision maker as to whether or not to hire a person for an open job. If the manager makes a poor hiring decision, even if HR and the rest of the organization do everything right, the new employee often can end up leaving in the first year (or 90 days in some cases), regardless of whether it was a voluntary or involuntary termination. Worse, who do the manager and the organization typically blame for this failed hire, why, HR, and often, specifically recruiting? The blame may start with unfounded accusations by the hiring manager or a more senior leader trying to support their junior manager saying, "HR didn't find us any good candidates," or "We hired the best we could find from a bad batch." Therefore managers conclude HR needs to do a better job of attracting talent. Also, HR can be blamed due to HR pay policies that a position be paid commensurate with internal pay equity and candidate experience level, which translates to "HR doesn't let us pay enough to get and keep good people." The solution to mistake #1. while simple requires discipline and management support to execute as described below; Management can simply hold hiring managers accountable for any 'New Hire Terminations' within a given amount of time (either 90 days or one year via a New Hire Retention Rate metric). In essence, this holds managers accountable for newly hired employees and whether that employee stays with the organization for a specified amount of time. Concurrently, HR should track and score all applicants for open jobs based on an agreed-upon set of criteria for each job. Many applicant tracking systems today enable users to score job applicants on how well they meet selected job requirements, with the best systems turning the scoring into a percentile from 0% to 100%. The advantage of this is to share such data with hiring managers to help them make more objective final round interviewing and hiring decisions. Lastly, another metric is to track and digitize each hire based on who agreed or voted (i.e., hiring manager, HR, recruiter, Higher manager director) to make an offer to a candidate. Over time, managers who are terrible talent scouts are easily identified. In one financial services company case study, when both recruiter and hiring manager agreed upon a hire, the retention rate of the new hire was 2x the retention rate when only the hiring manager approved the hire against HR's advice. 2. Valuing Jobs and Employees Only After They Leave the Organization While this seems obvious, it is perhaps one of the great truisms of managers who are frequently beset with a need to replace departing good employees who are relied on as essential contributors. These essential contributors are also easily ignored and overloaded with work. The famous saying "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" applies to employees, with some of the best employees rewarded with more work while other employees consume more time and resources. This issue manifests as a high-performing employee voluntarily departing and the direct manager suddenly realizing the employee had, in fact, been doing the work or two or even three positions. As a former head of compensation for a publicly traded bank and large privately held real estate firm, I saw this scenario play out many times. Hiring managers would submit a requisition to hire a replacement for a departing employee and, yet, would have two or sometimes three separate requisitions for a single vacancy, effectively doubling or tripling the cost. If the manager were to realize the organization's risk in advance, they could have pro-actively invested in positive feedback, better salary increases, rewards and recognition, and training for co-workers as well as appointing future successors to enable automatic backfilling of some or all skills. In effect, if managers truly value each employee as if they may leave or be promoted at any time, they would treat the employee better, recognize and reward better, and most importantly, have defined career paths and successors, pushing continual cross-training and career development. 3. Recruiting Based Solely on Experience/Education/Industry Managers who are overly reliant on experience, education, and industry-relevant knowledge/expertise often ignore three of the strongest predictors of future job success and retention. The solution is to focus on what potential employees really want, a career, a community, and a cause (see Harvard Business Review Feb 2018, "The Three Things Employees Really Want: Career, Community, Cause" 1); "Career" includes a defined career path and growth potential, meaning the ability for the employee to grow with the organization over time, assuming good job performance. This also includes cultural and motivational fit meaning a job is intrinsically motivating and that employee gets a level of satisfaction from the job. "Community" includes feeling respected, cared about, part of a team, and recognized by others, and today increasingly includes job flexibility and autonomy in skilled roles. "Cause" reflects a sense of purpose that the employee is making a meaningful impact, aligned with an organizational mission, and doing good in addition to doing well. This element is often reflected in employee engagement surveys which ask employees to rate the questions "I am proud to come work for XXX Co." and "I am proud to go to work each day." 4. Increasing the Job Requirements for a Position to Ensure a More Qualified Hire This is closely related to #3 above. Hiring managers who feel pressured to fill a position and restart work quickly may interpret that if no time is used to train a new hire, then they can get an immediate boost by increasing the requirements of the job. Examples of increasing job requirements include increasing years of experience, increasing the level of required education, adding certificates/certifications, and requiring more industry expertise. Managers following this path to success unknowingly are likely to doom the new super job to dramatically fewer job candidates, longer time to fill the job, dramatically increased cost, and a plateaued employee with little or no career growth. Such a position becomes a job with less chance of meeting what employees really want (see #3 solution above) and may spend increasing amounts of time as an open position unless hiring managers are actively practicing solutions to #1, #2, and #3 above. 5. Recruiting/Evaluating/Hiring Only for the Current Job As described, this is short-term thinking at its' worst and, when combined with #4, may make a position not only harder to fill but one without a defined career path since the employee is expected to have plenty of experience. Such positions in less technical job roles are subject to competitor talent cherry-picking via higher pay leaving no successor due. 6. Ignoring the Newly Hired Employee Once Hired Once an employee is hired, even one who is experienced and qualified still requires considerable time to fully come up to speed in a new organization due to unique aspects of work, decision-making, support systems, tools, and technologies. The largest of the learning curve challenges often is navigating the human capital aspects of work, whom to go to for specific questions, how to work with others in the team, how decisions are made, and what it takes to fit into the organization's culture. Employees who are hired and ignored can fail regardless of expertise, experience, and competence if rejected by the company culture, co-workers, departments, and leaders. In such situations, it is far easier for the employee, sensing that they have no support from their boss, to simply leave and go on to the next company. 7. Throwing Money at Recruiting Problems Interestingly, this can be like trying to put out a fire with paper. The problem, like fire, just gets bigger. In the field of compensation, trying to adjust compensation significantly for one individual or position can have the inadvertent effect of creating a large number of unhappy employees and positions all around it since, in most cases, employees end up discovering what other employees make in salary or total compensation, and once a pay disparity is created as an exception for a position it can create internal havoc across larger and larger sections of the workforce. The solution to #7 is to hire the best talent available that is a reasonable fit with the internal wage structure and the external market, rather than a weak manager simply trying to get an exception to salary and wage policies to make their own individual department more stable and secure. This is another form of sub-optimization that many large companies experience as hiring managers seek to optimize their own situation without regard to the impact on the larger organization. ---- Explore SOLVE™️ by HCMI, a powerful Workforce Intelligence tool that guarantees ROI and helps your company make better recruitment and hiring decisions. Speak with us today! Help us understand your business and let's discuss how we can help bring more success. Schedule a meeting with us here or email us at info@hcminst.com.

This audiogram/clip is taken from Salary.com's HR Data Labs Podcast (“Potential Changes to the SEC’s HCM Metric Disclosure Rules”). Learn about the evolution of Human Capital Management (HCM) metric disclosures in this audiogram/clip. It begins with the 2017 petition by institutional investors to the SEC, highlighting the disconnect between CEOs' claims of valuing human capital and the lack of corresponding data in reports. The discussion covers the SEC's 2020 rule acknowledging the materiality of human capital but leaving metric disclosure to companies' discretion, which led to minimal reporting. Finance and accounting sectors, traditionally late adopters, are now advocating for detailed rules on workforce and labor cost disclosures, recognizing these as critical yet underreported areas. Schedule time to discuss with us here to know how SOLVE™️ can help your company prepare for the new and upcoming requirement by the SEC on disclosing additional human capital management metrics. Or, email us at: info@hcminst.com

The video in this post update is taken from The HR Tech Spotlight Podcast. Listen on Spotify here. In an enlightening session on GrowthMode Marketing's HRTech Spotlight podcast, Jeff Higgins, founder and CEO of Human Capital Management Institute, delves into how their innovative technology platform, SOLVE™️, is revolutionizing workforce planning. Hosted by Deanna Shimota, CEO of GrowthMode Marketing, this episode explores the challenges and solutions in harnessing workforce data for predictive analytics and effective decision-making. Are you ready to unlock the full potential of your workforce data? Discover how SOLVE™️ can revolutionize your workforce planning and analytics in just 30 days or less. Contact us today to schedule a conversation with our experts and learn how our innovative solutions can simplify your data analysis, enhance decision-making, and empower your HR strategy. 📅 Book a discussion slot with us here. ✉️ Or, email us at info@hcminst.com

In the early months of 2024, the tech industry witnessed a significant trend: major layoffs at tech giants like Google and Amazon. Google reportedly made cuts across multiple departments, including engineering and hardware, as well as their virtual assistant unit. This wave of layoffs, affecting hundreds of employees, is symptomatic of wider issues within the tech sector. Factors such as shifting consumer behaviors post-pandemic, poor workforce planning, a phase of over-hiring during the pandemic, and various macroeconomic challenges have contributed to this situation. The Relationship Between These Layoffs and Data-driven Workforce Planning These layoffs bring to the fore the critical importance of data-driven workforce planning. Traditional workforce planning approaches often fall short due to their short-term focus and reliance on gut-feel decision-making, which fails to adequately prepare organizations for external factors and economic fluctuations. In contrast, effective workforce planning today involves a data-driven approach, incorporating scenario planning and creating talent transition pathways to manage workforce needs proactively and reduce the need for broad workforce reductions. The essence of data-driven workforce planning lies in aligning business objectives with workforce dynamics, understanding the impact of market forces, and collaborating across departments to ensure consistency with corporate goals. This approach is vital for optimizing staffing levels, positioning critical skills effectively, and minimizing the impact of layoffs on both employees and the organization. Today, Advanced Workforce Intelligence Software is Needed in HR In the current climate, the role of advanced workforce intelligence software has become increasingly significant. HCMI's SOLVE™️, a workforce analytics tool, exemplifies this trend. SOLVE™️ aids organizations in developing comprehensive workforce plans in as little as 30 days, a process that traditionally could take six months or more. It provides crucial talent analytics, such as cost-per-hire, time to hire, turnover rates, employee engagement, and demographic metrics, which are indispensable for informed decision-making during layoffs. The use of such tools represents a shift towards a more efficient, accurate, and strategic approach in HR, aligning with modern trends of data-driven decision-making. Conclusion In conclusion, the recent layoff trends in the tech industry highlight the need for robust, data-driven workforce planning. Solutions like SOLVE™️ are pivotal in aiding organizations to navigate these challenging times. By offering analytics and insights, SOLVE™️ enables companies to make informed decisions about their workforce, leading to strategic talent management and enhanced organizational resilience. If you are interested in finding out how SOLVE™️ can assist your company in completing its Workforce Plan in 30 days or fewer, feel free to contact us. 📅 Schedule time to discuss here. 💻 Book a demo: https://www.hcmi.co/solve ✉️ Send us an email: info@hcminst.com

In 2024, workforce planning will be an important strategic strategy for companies. It entails integrating human resource skills with long-term company objectives, preparing firms for present and future staffing needs, and identifying talent shortages to forecast labor requirements. This approach is becoming increasingly important in an era typified by skill shortages and rapid market changes. Why Do We Need Workforce Planning? The value of workforce planning cannot be emphasized. It is a strategic method that guarantees a firm has the correct quantity of people, with the right talents, in the right places, and at the right time. Workforce planning is more than just filling current vacancies; it is also about identifying the business's future demands and preparing to satisfy them. Challenges in Workforce Planning The primary issues or challenges in workforce planning are: Rapid Technological Changes: Technology is continually evolving, necessitating new skills and positions. Globalization and remote working: These developments necessitate a more adaptable approach to workforce planning. Demographic Changes: An aging workforce and a diversified skill pool create distinct problems. Data Integration and Analysis: Analyzing large amounts of data is critical for good planning. Tackling the Challenges in Today's Workforce Planning To address these challenges: Firms should adopt predictive analytics to accurately forecast personnel demands. Invest in Talent Development: Prioritize upskilling and reskilling to close skill shortages. Implement Flexible Strategies: Be ready to react to shifting worker dynamics. Implement Effective Tools: To increase productivity, use workforce planning software. The Right Tool for Your Organization's Workforce Planning SOLVE™️ Workforce Planning from HCMI is a game changer in the field. It provides a streamlined and data-driven approach to workforce planning. Compared to traditional approaches that might take up to six months, SOLVE™️ allows companies to establish a thorough workforce plan in only 30 days or less. SOLVE™️ Workforce Planning is great for: Quick and Accurate Data Analysis: Provides insight into present workforce skills and future requirements. Effective Talent Management: Assistance in identifying high-potential personnel and succession planning. Strategic Decision Making: Enabling educated decisions based on reliable facts. The Benefits of Strategic Workforce Planning Organizations that efficiently execute workforce planning receive a variety of benefits: Cost-effectiveness: Reducing overstaffing or understaffing while optimizing labor costs. Increased Productivity: Matching personnel talents to company needs. Enhanced Staff Engagement: Investing in staff growth and development. Future-Readiness: Planning for emerging jobs and technological improvements. Conclusion In conclusion, workforce planning in 2024 is a dynamic and necessary process. It necessitates a deliberate strategy, the effective use of technology, and a dedication to ongoing learning and adaptation. HCMI's SOLVE™️ helps firms manage and succeed in today's workforce landscape, preparing them for the future. Talk to us if you'd like to explore SOLVE™️ deeper - and have your Workforce Plan ready in 30 days or less! Schedule time to discuss here. Book a demo: https://www.hcmi.co/solve Send us an email: info@hcminst.com