Challenge your current metrics approach!

1. 1
Metrics That Your CEO
Cares About
© Dr John Sullivan
Go to www.drjohnsullivan.com for a copy of these slides

2. 3 goals for today’s presentation
2
My primary goal is to get you to re-think and to
challenge your current metrics approach
Another goal is… to clearly demonstrate the
difference between… a “so what” metric approach
& a Omg actionable business impact metric
(Where a CEO Omg metric is… 1) attention getting
because of its rev. impact, 2) it drives action & 3)
that action measurably improves corp. revenue!
A third goal is… to show you the high revenue
impact HR areas that most CEO’s would want to
know about (through metrics)
Please interrupt and ask questions at any time

3. Let’s begin with a CO quote
3

4. I was happy with our HR approach…
But now… “I want that one”
CEO of General Mills

5. Let’s look at an illustrative example
Showing the difference between “so what”
and “Omg … I must take action” metrics
5

6. 6
Which metric would a CEO want to know about?
Hiring costs (CPH) are a one-time .001% cost item
CPH $ returns & rev. impacts of
a new-hire last for years
LeBron vs. Homer Simpson
“So what” Omg
But the revenue impact of a great or a weak hire…
lasts for years! (VW or Wells Fargo)

7. 7
CEO’s would want to know about…
the performance differential between new-hires
What is the % of increased output added by top performers?
The top 1% of your workforce produce what % of
your total output?
The top 5% produce
An innovator produces what “multiple” more?
(i.e. How many times more than the average new-hire in the same job?
- 10 times the average
- 25 times more than average employee
- 300 times more than the average
GE, Netflix & Yahoo
10% (or 10 times their expected output)
Apple
Google
26% (over 5X their expected output)
(U of Indiana study by O’Boyle and Aguinis)
Conclusion: there may be an 80/20 rule
when it comes to employee performance…
so you should prioritize your employees

8. Also focus your hiring on high priority jobs…
to maximize your visible revenue impacts
Jobs with the highest revenue impact (not costs)
1. Hire the top sales managers
2. Hire top people in revenue generating positions
3. Hire top people that are innovators
4. Hire the best in product development positions
5. Hire great executives & managers
6. Hire the top recruiters of salespeople
Also
7. Hire into already measured jobs ($ or quantified)
8. Hire the best away from your competitors
9. Hire those that also have leadership capabilities
10.Hire top people that stay longer
11.Hire those with a high career trajectory

9. 9
CEO’s would want to know…
the tremendous cost of weak hires and employees
A weak employee causes errors and disruptions
each year up to ___ times their annual salary
(Source: O’Boyle and Aguinis, U of Indiana)
Weak employees take up a manager’s time, so a
manager must… spend what % of their time
dealing with them
Toxic employees make their teammates what %
more likely to quit (Source: Cornerstone Selection survey)
Replacing a weak manager equals the impact of
adding 1… to an 8 person team Source: National Bureau of Economic Research
Bad ones stay forever… weak hires may stay 20
years, multiplying their negative impacts
2 ¼
1 day a week (17%) (Source: Robert Half)
54

10. So the #1 fault in metric selection has been…
Selecting metrics that are not on the top
of list of HR problems/opportunities…
with the highest $ of revenue impact
10

11. The Omg approach also changes how
you report metrics…
For example…
just changing the way turnover is
reported… changes it from a “so what”
metric… into a Omg! metric
11

12. Here is a standard turnover report
1. Last year we had a 18% turnover rate
2. Among that 18%... 98 salespeople left
3. But we aren’t concerned… because it seems like
every firm in our industry is having sales
turnover problems
That’s interesting… but “so what?”
12
CEO’s care about metrics that…
show them that they must act immediately

13. This 10 point quantified reporting approach is
guaranteed… to get a CEO’s attention
With the CFO, we calculated actual turnover costs
1. The sales job is #1 in revenue impact (the metric selection criteria)
2. Of the 98 that quit… 26% were top-ranked performers
3.At 3X salary for average and 4X for top performers,
the initial revenue loss was $30.3 mil.
4. In vacant sales territories, we lost 4… $10 mil customers
5.Also the turnover resulted in 303 sales vacancy
days @ $4000 per day (a loss of $1.2 mil.)
6.And new-hires performed 8% below those they
replaced ($80k (8% of $1 mil.) X 98 = $79 mil. a yr.)
7.50% was preventable & 26% went to competitors 2x
8.Total cost $166 mil or 6.2 % of corporate rev.
9.The projected turn for next year is up 10%
10. BTW the stay interview tool cut’s turnover in ½ 13

14. As a foundation…
let’s understand HR’s potential
Jack Welch, former CEO of GE and Fortune’s
“Manager of the Century” has made HR’s potential
crystal clear…
“When it is used appropriately”, HR… “is the most
important department of a company”
Source : https://blog.kissmetrics.com/winning-and-profitability/
14

15. But are we using HR appropriately?
15

16. 16
Almost everyone agrees that HR must…
become more strategic
When CEO’s and board-level executives rank
strategic business functions…
Which one is listed as the most strategic?
Sales
Where was HR ranked on the list?
“The least strategic function”
Source: DDI survey

17. 17
Almost everyone agrees that HR must…
increase its business impacts
Of the 18 business factors that contributed the
most to business outcomes…
#1 - With the highest impact was…
Reducing operational cost structures
And talent was ranked…
“Talent was dead last” (#18 out of 18)
(Source: KPMG / HfS research)

18. 18
What percent of CEO’s have faith in HR metrics?
Unfortunately, “Only 12% of CEO’s are confident
with the quality of Human Capital metrics”
AICPA survey
BTW… C- Level execs. rated “new hire quality” as the
most important performance metric (Source: Survey by staffing.org)

19. 19
Where does HR rank among functional metric users?
1.R&D 13.2% 11.4%
2.Executive team 12.4% 8.8%
3.Finance 12.2% 5.7%
4.Operations 10% 8.3%
5.Marketing 9.1% 9.4%
6.Sales 5.3% 11.4%
7.HR 4.4% 16.7%
Learning: compared to the executive team, HR has only
1/3 of the experts and double the number of poor users
Source: AMA/i4cp 2013 Conquering Big Data
Rank in analytical ability Experts Poor

20. 20
Where do executives rate our effectiveness in…
“making a business case” and predictive metrics?
(13 out of 13)
(12th out of 13)

21. 21
CEO’s care about…
the strategic challenges that they face
What are the top global business challenges
according to CEO’s?
• Operational Excellence
• Customer Relationships
• Regulation and Risk
• Corporate Brand and Reputation
• Innovation and Digitalization
• Human Capital
• Sustainability
Source: The Conference Board survey of CEO’s 2016

22. 22
HR is #1 in the challenges they care about
CEO’s are watching us (The top CEO challenges)
1.Human Capital
2.Customer Relationships (tied)
2.Corporate Brand and Reputation (tied)
4.Operational Excellence
5.Innovation and Digitalization
6.Regulation and Risk
7.Sustainability
Would you agree it’s time for bold changes…
when we are still the top challenge after 4 years?
Source: The Conference Board survey of CEO’s 2016
4 of the 5
top challenges require
outstanding employees
For the fourth year in a row

23. The 3 basic categories of HR metrics
(and 2 of them stink)
23
Part I

24. So what
metrics
They generate no action or interest on the part of a CEO
The first category of HR metrics are…

25. 25
HR “So What” metrics are everywhere
Yawns don’t drive action (CEO’s yawn, because
they have low revenue impacts)
The # of new-hires
Hiring manager satisfaction
The number of training hours offered
Compensation cost per employee (without an output value)
Workers Comp cost per employee
Average # of days of vacation used per employee
So what ?

26. “is a high or
low number
better” metric?
They confuse a CEO
Now shifting to the 2nd kind of bad metric

27. 27
“Is a high or a low number better”?
1.Cost Per Hire – cheap may mean low quality hires
2.Time to Fill – fast hiring might be careless hiring
3. Benefit Costs – do lower benefits hurt rec. / retention?
4.Absence Rate – coming to work sick is expensive
5.Tenure – don’t costs go up with tenure? (performance)
6.Turnover – what could a low turnover # mean
Source: Unicorn HRO

28. Lets shift to…
OMg
metrics
Report a metric in the HR areas that have the
highest rev. impact (productivity / innovation)
The best category of metrics

29. Let’s compare the workforce productivity in high-tech – Rev. per ee #
Average in this industry $211,000
IBM $212,000 (Average)
HP-E $212,000 (Average)
Amazon $555,000 (Nearly 2 ½ times the average)
Microsoft $745,000 (Nearly 3 ½ times the average)
Google $1,380,000 (Nearly 6.5 times the average)
Apple
Facebook
Key learning – Facebook can produce the same revenue
as IBM with nearly 8X fewer workers 29
Source: MarketWatch.com 11/5/16
$1,850,000 (Nearly 8¾ times the average)
$1,940,000 (Nearly 9¼ times the average))
CEO’s care about…
the returns from their labor investments

30. What are the HR programs that cause
this huge productivity differential?
But in case your firm hasn’t already done those
calculations…
The Boston Consulting Group has provided us with
some ranked benchmark data
30

31. 31
HR leaders must know and focus on…
the highest impact HR programs
Pick the top & bottom 3 HR programs based on
their impact on revenue and profit
1. Managing flexibility and labor costs
2. Restructuring the organization
3. Managing work/life balance
4. Managing an aging workforce
5. Employee engagement
6. Managing change and cultural transformation
7. Recruiting
8. Retention
9. Managing talent for productivity and innovation
10.Employer branding

32. Focus on the HR sub-functions that have
the highest business impacts
32Source: BCG/WFPMA - From Capability to Profitability: Realizing the Value of People Management
Which HR area normally has the highest impact on rev. & profit?

33. Other Omg high revenue impact areas
that CEO’s want metrics on…
34
OMG

34. 35
Firms made Fortune list 3 out of 10 yrs. (109%) vs. S&P (10%)
Source: BCG
S&P
“People companies” outperform by 10 times
CEO’s would want to know that…
People companies outperform the S&P

35. 36
CEO’s care about…
only the factors that increase business results
Workforce analytics is a major contributor to results
The Harvard Business Review concluded that…
advanced users of workforce analytics produced
much higher business performance:
Profitability - a 65% increase in performance
Growth - a 65% increase in performance
Productivity - a 64% increase in performance
Customer satisfaction – a 71% performance increase
(* when compared to the performance of competitor firms that were less effective in the use of analytics)

36. The new approach to metrics is called…
“Business Impact Data-driven” HR
37
Part III

37. Google is the benchmark firm to follow
“All people decisions are based on data & analytics”
“We apply the same level of rigor, analysis and
experimentation on people as we do the tech side”
Source: Google 38

38. What is business impact data-driven HR?
A strategic forward-looking approach to HR (vs.
the current historical metrics)
It replaces HR’s all too common reliance on…
opinions, intuition, hunches, trial & error learning &
automatically continuing on with past practices
It instead relies on… data, facts, analysis, charts,
metrics, algorithms, statistics, & predicted
trends… to improve the accuracy, speed and the
business impacts of key HR decisions
It shifts to real-time and predictive metrics
39

39. 40
Improvement tips
Tips for improving your metrics
1. Build a compelling business case for your effort
2. Reject metrics in an area w/ a low revenue impact
3. Report metrics inside standard financial reports
4. Only report strategic metrics and limit the number
(between 3 and 7)
5. Develop a process for “just-in-time alerts” to give
managers a heads up
6. Calculate the cost of a delay or doing nothing
7. Pretest your metrics to ensure that they cause
alarm and drive action

40. 41
10 metric components that drive CEO’s to act
1. Only report metrics with the highest bus. impacts
2. Add a stoplight icon to show urgency
3. The corporate strategic goal that is impacted
4. The problem is converted into dollars
5. Provide predictive and forward-looking metrics
6. Add a visual trend line revealing a neg. trajectory
7. Provide comparison numbers for each metric
8. Executive want to know “why” (the root causes of problems)
9. Provide a list of the prescribed solutions… and
their costs, time required and likely success rate
10.Identify the accountable individual
11.Distribute ranked metrics widely to get noticed
CEO’s care about metrics that…
drive them to act immediately

41. An example…
of an actionable predictive analytic display
42

42. Source: Workday Insights Retention Analytics
An example - Distribute ranked/quantified metrics
(retention flight risk)
43

43. The top 7 strategic HR metrics
to report to your CEO
44
Part IV

44. 45
Strategic HR metrics – Revenue per employee
1. Revenue per employee - for measuring the
productivity & innovation of your workforce
• Accepted by the CFO – this is the standard
workforce productivity metric
• Output focus – it focuses is on the value of the
output of a firm’s workforce (revenue dollars)
• The most productive firms – produce a higher #
• The formula – the total yearly corporate revenue
divided by the average number of FTE employees
• It is easily comparable – it utilizes publicly
available information to compare firms in the
same industry (found at MarketWatch.com)

45. 47
Strategic HR metrics – Quality of hire
2. The improvement in the performance of new
hires (quality of hire improvement)
• Hiring better performers increases team
productivity - if you hire a volume of new
employees, if each one performs a % better than
those they replace, the productivity of the team improves
• Focus on already measured jobs – don’t measure
all jobs, instead focus on those jobs that are already
measured in dollars or quantified with numbers
• Use performance appraisal scores as an
alternative – the percentage improvement in
performance appraisal scores can also be utilized

46. 48
Strategic HR metrics – Quality of hire
Report the quality of hire (continued)
• Q of H is a delayed measure – where after 6/12
months on the job… you compare the performance
of the new hire to the performance of the employee
they replaced… you report the % of improvement
• Add new hire retention – as a companion measure
you can calculate the voluntary turnover rate of new
hires during their first six months
• Add diversity hires – a companion measure is to
calculate the % of diversity hires in key positions
• $ impact – calculate the total $ impact from the
improved performance of all new hires during the year

47. 49
Strategic HR metrics – Performance turnover
3. Performance turnover in key jobs
• Losing top performers in key jobs is expensive –
double-digit turnover is not rare so it’s important to
measure the % of employees that voluntarily quit
each month and over the whole year
• Focus on key jobs – it’s important to focus only on
key jobs with high business / revenue impacts
• Weight the turnover by performance – because
losing top performers is more expensive, put a
weight (the % that the departed individual
performed above the average) so that top performer
turnover counts more then low performer turnover

48. 50
Strategic HR metrics – Performance turnover
Performance turnover in key jobs (continued)
• Also report the dollar impact – calculate and
report the total dollar impact from top performer
turnover in key jobs

49. 51
Strategic HR metrics – Performance turnover
4. $’s of revenue lost due to position vacancy days
• No revenue is generated when a position is
vacant – when an employee quits, there is a loss of
productivity & revenue until the position is filled…
With slow hiring those “vacancy days” increase
• Focus on revenue-generating positions – the
highest impact from vacancy days occurs in
revenue jobs… so focus your measure on them
• Calculate the $ loss per day – determine the
amount by dividing the average total yearly
revenue in the job by the number of working days
• Report – the decrease in vacancy days and the $
reduction in the amount of lost revenue

50. 52
Strategic HR metrics – The hottest talent issue
5. Track a metric covering the highest impact
current “hot” talent problem at your firm
• Report metrics on the hottest current issue - in
addition to the fixed metrics already covered, report
on one or more currently hot talent problems
• Select a talent item on the executive committee’s
agenda - add a metric covering 1-3 issues that are
“keeping your executives up at night”. Start with
the high impact areas including: increasing
innovation, onboarding, developing leaders,
diversity in customer impact positions, key skills
shortages and increasing internal movement

51. 53
Strategic HR metrics – Contribution to productivity
6. Survey to identify “Which HR programs helped
me to increase my productivity?”
• A survey is cheap and effective – you can best
determine the impact of individual HR programs
through a survey of managers and employees
• Rate their impact – survey a sample of managers
and employees… and ask each how much each HR
program contributed to their reaching their
productivity goals. Utilize a 1 to 10 scale with a 10
indicating that the function exceeded their expected
contribution
• Areas to cover –cover recruiting, retention,
innovation, training, compensation, leadership
development, internal movement, performance
management, onboarding, benefits, and diversity

52. 54
Strategic HR metrics – Contribution to productivity
Survey “Which HR programs helped me to
increase my productivity?” (continued)
• Also ask for $ impact - for any rating of eight or
lower, ask the surveyed person to estimate the $
amount of their reduced productivity
• Survey every 6 / 12 months – conduct a survey at
least once a year… and every six months if the
results of the last survey were negative

53. 55
Strategic HR metrics – HR strategic goals met
7. The % of HR strategic goals that were met
• Report the % of goals met – it’s important for all
strategic functions meet their goals. So the HR
function should report to executives the percentage
of its strategic goals that were met or exceeded
• List the percentage of target met – HR should
also list the percentage of the target that was
reached for each of its top five goals
• Report at 6 / 12 months – halfway through and
also at the end of every fiscal year report on HR’s
goal attainment

54. Hot areas that CEO’s would want metrics in…
If they knew their cost or their impact on
productivity/ innovation
So consider metrics in each of these areas
56
Part V

55. 57
4 different sources indicate a failed hiring process
What % of all new-hires fail within 18 months?
“46%” (Source: Leadership IQ)
What % of all hourly employees quit or are fired
within their first 6 months
“50%” (Source: Humetrics)
What % of management new-hires fail within 18 mths.
“Between 40 and 60%” (Source: Harvard Business Review)
What % of executive new-hires fail within 18 mths”
“Nearly 50%”(Source: The Corporate Leadership Council)
Is this 6 Sigma quality?

56. 59
CEO’s would want to know…
how HR improved new-hire performance
Footlocker improved new hire performance
Used applicant data from an on-line assessment
to more accurately select interview slates
To increase commitment, HR, sales and finance
were also involved to support the bus. case
Results from the pilot
Double digit increase in sales-per-hour
Double-digit reduction in staff turnover
Managers also reviewed fewer applicants, (From
as many as 300 to as few as 3 per opening)
Source: Talent Management 12/4/15

57. CEO’s would want to know…
slow hiring loses performers and innovators
60
"If you have complex online job applications, you're going
to lose top talent
The typical fortune 500 company loses 9 out of 10 qualified
applicants to these unwieldy processes
Netflix’s process takes only 1 minute, Salesforce (3
minutes), Intel (4 minutes) and Apple (5 minutes)”
Source: Officevibe.com
Source: Indeed 2016 survey

58. 61
CEO’s would want to know…
the actual impact on applications from your EB
Employer Brand metric – applications per employee
EB goal – the purpose of an employer brand is to
increase the # of applications for your jobs
The top benchmark target – Google receives
nearly 3 million applications for 61,000 employees
(the ratio of 52 to 1)
The average target – the # of applications each
week should equal your number of employees

59. What is the #1 predictive strategy for global
financial performance?
“Building an inclusive culture”
Does gender or racial diversity impact sales revenue?
Source: Bersin by Deloitte
CEO’s care about metrics that…
Demonstrate future business success factors
62

60. CEO’s would want to know…
the elements that increase innovation
Google has an algorithm for increasing innovation
(i.e. a formula)
63
Innovation = Discovery + Collaboration +Fun!
Source: K M World Magazine Webinar 2008
(i.e. learning)

61. CEO’s would want to know…
the # 1 competency in a fast changing world…
Most fail to assess the learning ability
“Learning ability is the key determiner in
deciding among candidates” (Google - along with technical capabilities)
The # 1 desirable trait in college hires (Futurestep)
Intellectual curiosity is among the top 4 factors
that managers use to ID top performers (LinkedIn survey)
Also look for a growth mindset
The business impacts of learning ability
1.An increase in productivity
2.More collaboration and innovation
3.Fewer major errors
4.More current and effective solutions
5.Adaptability / scalability in a VUCA world 64

62. CEO’s would want to know… that you can improve
the performance of 75% of your worst managers
Google’s “project oxygen" showed it was possible
“to improve 75% of our worst-performing
managers” with these 8 actions Source: L. Bock
8. Have key technical skills to advise the team (not #1)
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team
6. Help your employees with career development
5. Be a good communicator & listen to your team
4. Don’t be a sissy; Be productive / results-oriented
3. Show interest in their success & personal well-being
2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage
1. Be a good coach – hold regular one-on-one’s and
provide personalized constructive feedback 65

63. CEO’s would want to know…
which key employees are soon to quit
Google uses predictive metrics to ID who might quit
Employee reviews
Promotion history
Pay history
Employee surveys
Peer reviews (360 degree)
Employee training
Leadership meetings
They look for employees who “feel underused”
66

64. CEO’s would want to know…
the hidden cost-cutting costs in other departments
Most miss the costs of unintended consequences…
That occur later in the budgets of other departments
Froze safety training (Saved $50,000… in the
training department’s budget)
But track “other department’s added costs” after 1 yr.
(i.e. other pocket costs)
Safety dept. – Accident rates doubled -$400,000
Insurance – Insurance rates up 23% -$187,000
Operations – Turnover of employees +15 - $89,000
Other not-tracked dept. budget costs - $676,000
67

65. 68
CEO’s would want to know…
if HR improved new-hire time to productivity
½ of the managers of new hires were sent a JIT on-
boarding email…
The email reminded the managers to do 5 things
1.Have a discussion on their role and responsibilities
2.Match your new hire with a peer buddy
3.Help your new-hire build a social network
4.Set check-ins once a month for their first 6 months
5.Encourage an open dialogue
Bus impact $ – new hires of the “reminded managers”
had a 25% increase in speed (weeks to min. new-
hire productivity)… compared to the control group
Source: Laszlo Bock Google
a control group got no reminders

66. 69www.drjohnsullivan.com or JohnS@sfsu.edu
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