To manage their activities, human resources departments have had no choice but to follow the example of other company departments! By creating dashboards, they are able to define the performance and return on investment of their actions.

And this is a rather paradoxical idea. Indeed, to think that you can "measure human capital" is highly counter-intuitive!

And yet, there are dozens of key HR indicators that can be used to monitor the concerns of human resources departments as closely as possible.

And since there are so many, we won t go into them all here. Instead, we ll take a look at some of the "hot" HR topics in the news.

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Key training indicators

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We can t talk about key training indicators without mentioning the training plan! In fact, they are deployed to assess whether the plan is being properly implemented.

The training plan not only decides on the budget allocated for a year, per employee or per team, but also establishes priorities: new skills to be passed on to teams, mandatory training for safety or risk management, skills reinforcement, etc. These priorities are ideally defined by the company s Gestion Prévisionnelle des Compétences et des Emplois (GPEC).

- Indicators of training volume and costs: and the main indicator will be to judge the return on investment of the training courses ordered!

So, first of all, we need to consider the number of employees trained during the year, by department and by team, and the costs incurred. Depending on the needs and objectives identified in the training plan, these costs may or may not be divided equally between departments.

It is also essential to calculate the hourly rate for these training initiatives. In fact, they represent a "hidden" additional cost, since they replace working hours.

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- Training performance indicators: an objective will have to be assigned to each training course as part of the annual plan (acquiring a skill, mastering technical knowledge, enriching one s practice, developing team coherence, etc.). Hand in hand, the employee and his or her manager will then have to assign a performance grade to the training action. This will depend on whether or not the training has achieved its objective.

This systematic monitoring of the performance of actions enables readjustments and refinements to be made, key skills to be chosen more effectively, the selection of service providers to be reviewed, and knowledge transmission methods to be improved (e-learning, face-to-face, blended learning, etc.).

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Key recruitment indicators

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- Recruitment cost indicators: Key recruitment indicators are pretty straightforward. On the one hand, you need to estimate the cost of recruitment. Particularly if an external recruitment agency has been called in to find the rare pearl.

Not forgetting, of course, the cost of integrating and training the newcomer.

- The retention rate of new employees : a good recruitment is a candidate who will stay with the company for some time. In fact, poor casting is costly, and means you have to dip into your wallet more often. The retention rate is therefore a powerful and important performance indicator for judging the effectiveness of a recruitment.

- Time to hire: the longer a recruitment takes, the higher the costs. Knowing how long the hiring phase took and comparing it to previous actions is therefore also a performance indicator to be taken into consideration.

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Social climate indicators

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In recent years, HR departments have come to understand the importance of maintaining an annual social barometer. In fact, we had already discovered some HR Tech tools to help them in this action.

This barometer not only measures employee satisfaction, but also assesses the relevance of actions taken in their regard. It is based on responses to a questionnaire, sent to employees and answered anonymously. Questions can be qualitative, quantitative or a mixture of both.

- Absenteeism rate and employee retention: to gauge employee satisfaction, HR departments can first look at the turnover rate and the average length of time employees stay with the company.

It is also important to take into account both sick leave and absences, in order to estimate team motivation and commitment.

- Quality of life and well-being at work: it s true that the notion of well-being at work can seem difficult to measure! But the questions on the social barometer can help you get around the obstacles and assess the relevance of the actions you ve taken:

- Psychosocial risk assessment,

- Management satisfaction,

- Quality of working atmosphere,

- Compensation and financial benefits,

- Suitability of materials and tools,

- Degree of autonomy and personal and collective effectiveness,

- Mobility and management of skills and careers,

- Gender equality,

- Team involvement,

- Satisfaction with working methods (e.g. teleworking or face-to-face),

- etc.

When it comes to drawing up a complete map of what makes up QWL, the topics are numerous...

- Corporate Social Responsibility: CSR is often mentioned, as it is at the heart of new corporate HR policies. However, the relevance of the actions taken is also difficult to assess! But that s where the social barometer comes in, to gauge their resonance within teams.

It provides feedback not only on the actions taken, but also on the way the company communicates about them.

Far from the received wisdom that human capital is impossible to quantify and measure, HR departments have sophisticated dashboards at their disposal to assess their actions.

And with indicators come opportunities for assessment and improvement. So it s not in vain that human resources departments undertake this type of exercise. In fact, it is probably this systematic monitoring that has enabled HR policies to evolve.

Listening to performance means knowing when to take the necessary corrective action.

And subjects such as Quality of Life at Work, employee experience, employer brand and Corporate Social Responsibility have very probably been highlighted and improved thanks to these indicators!

And no doubt they will continue to fuel the reservoir of innovation within HR departments...