It’s easy enough to come up with meaningful HR generated data that should be meaningful to business stakeholders.  After all who wouldn’t want to know revenue and/or profit by FTE, loaded costs by function, or engagement levels? The problem is that those measures while valuable may not align to what is most important right now. The first step in aligning the measurement of HR to the needs of the business is to align to corporate goals and initiatives. From there we should be able to identify specific measurements or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) when building the case for an initiative.

Resist the temptation to use measures based and volume and time alone. These metrics generally serve as justification indicators, but fall short of a true performance benchmark.  Good KPI’s rely on multiple sources of data that allow for calculating true costs and profitability. At minimum good KPIs support direct correlation to cost and profitability.

Once your KPIs have been identified, you are well on your way to generating a measurement of your current operational state, also known as a baseline.  Now all you need to do is figure where you left all that elusive data…