HR Organizations Under-use HR Metrics

The Hackett Group^®, a leading global strategy and operations consulting firm, recently surveyed senior HR executives to gauge current HR organization capabilities and priorities. While the results revealed a generally positive picture of contemporary HR capabilities, one glaring weakness that emerged is the failure of most organizations to adequately leverage HR metrics for measuring performance. For example:

• HR organizations, like most back-office functions, are under pressure to demonstrate their value to the business. But more than half do not employ any formal HR metrics for measuring HR business value. A majority either use informal anecdotal evidence in lieu of rigorous HR metrics, or do not measure the business value of HR at all.
• In the area of talent development, most organizations employ HR metrics only to the extent of gauging employee satisfaction with training programs. Only about 20% of organizations use HR metrics that measure the actual impact of training on performance.

Under-use of HR metrics not only makes it more difficult for HR organizations to demonstrate their value to the enterprise, it also makes it more difficult to make sound strategic and resource allocation decisions. For example, absent rigorous use of HR metrics, HR organizations on tight budgets will struggle to make optimal choices about which programs and initiatives to pursue and which to postpone, and fail to make a compelling business case for change.

The Hackett Group delivers proven HR metrics and best practices

The Hackett Group offers an HR Executive Advisory program that provides HR leaders with ongoing access to a range of resources that help you measure and improve your organization’s performance including:

• A comprehensive online database of HR metrics, benchmarks, and best practices. This invaluable resource for performance-minded executives is built on more than 26,000 benchmarking engagements that The Hackett Group has completed with major companies around the globe.
• Our veteran consultants and experts, with rich practical experience in measuring and helping to improve HR performance.
• Our cutting-edge research into emerging HR issues, practices and technologies.
• Member events that give you the opportunity to exchange insights with other HR executives who face similar challenges.

In addition to our executive advisory programs, The Hackett Group offers comprehensive benchmarking and transformation consulting services. We can help you to understand where your HR organization stands in relation to peers and top performers, and help your own organization to achieve world-class performance.

The Hackett Group’s operations consulting services

The Hackett Group delivers experience and expertise across the full range of enterprise functions, including strategic sourcing, finance consulting, business cost management, and more. We can also help organizations control their IT costs through optimizations such as IT outsourcing or offshoring.

To learn more about The Hackett Group’s HR metrics and our other solutions that deliver measurable performance improvement, contact us.