Metrics Mania

It seems like metrics are the hot topic amongst talenteers today. I've been with several customers and prospects late last week. They are all wanting to improve the way they prove their strategic value to their respective organizations and believe (and I agree) that metrics are crucial in that prospect. While I was on the road last week Randall Birkwood from T-Mobile wrote and excellent ERDaily article on the importance of effectiveness metrics. Jeff Hunter has been extremely eloquent over several posts in the last week, even engaging in a very lively blog dialog with Dave Lefkow on the topic of Jeff's "strike zone" metrics.

One thing is very clear to me from all of these sources--staffing metrics have to become better measures of effectiveness as apposed to today's efficiency metrics. It is difficult--let's make that impossible--to prove strategic value to an organization without being able to demonstrate business impact. That means metrics that can be used to prove return on talent investment. Reducing opportunity costs, faster time to revenue, creating a new product line all have business impact ramifications. Tying those actions to talenteering is the challenge and is making us think about a whole new set of metrics. Instead of cost per hire, we should be thinking about production from staffing investment (this is what Randall's article mentioned above was nibbling around the edges of) and requires a feedback loop from the hiring organization to measure the impact of the hire. Instead of time to fill we should be thinking about time to productivity, or Jeff's strike zone.

I hate to overly simplify the case here, but it really is time to get strategic or get outsourced--and that is at the heart of talenteering. Become more aligned with the business and help build a better business by bringing the right hires.