Human Resources Metrics, Reporting & Financial Management Flashcards
(80 cards)
1
Q
How is Labour Cost Calculated?
A
Labour cost per FTE = labour cost/FTE
2
Q
How is Labour Cost Revenue Percent calculated?
A
Labour Cost Revenue Percent = labour cost/revenue
3
Q
How is Cost of Benefits as a Percentage of total labour costs calculated?
A
Cost of Benefits as a Percentage of total labour costs = benefits costs/labour costs
4
Q
How is Return on Investment Calculated?
A
ROI= Benefit - Cost/Cost
5
Q
What are some of the benefits of Information Technology?
A
- Operational = processes are more efficient
- Relational = people are more connected
- Transformational = the way work is done has changed
- Information technology encompasses all of the hardware and software including networking and communication technologies
6
Q
What is HRIS?
A
- Human Resource Information System
- HRIS enables better access and analysis of workforce information
- Allows for employees to self serve for information such as requesting vacation days
- HRIS tend to be used by the HR department and certain stakeholders
- Speciality products can include applicant tracking systems or scheduling systems
7
Q
What does Federal and Provincial Legislation regulate with HRIS?
A
- What is collected
- How it’s stored
- Who has access
- How long it’s retained
- the info collected from an employee must have a business need
- individuals have the right to know why the info is being collected, how it will be used and how it will be stored
- info must always be stored in a manner that maintains privacy
- must only be used for a business reason such as on-boarding an employee
8
Q
What is important to note about Retention of HR Documents?
A
- CRA requires that documents pertaining to earnings be retained for 6 years from the end of the last taxed year. stated in the following acts:
- Income Tax Act
- Employment Insurance Act
- Canada Pension Act
- Provincial Jurisdiction also regulated information retention
- Employers Standards
- Workers’ Compensation
- Human Rights
- Privacy
- Labour Relations Board
9
Q
What does the Employment Standards Act regulate?
A
- name
- address
- start date
- hours worked
- vacation time
- vacation pay
- overtime
- maternity leave
- paternity leave
- emergency leave
- medical leave
10
Q
How long does Ontario require this information to be retained?
A
3 years
11
Q
What are Human Capital Metrics?
A
- Describe various aspects of the workforce
- education level, measuring the value of human capital is very important to understand the relationship between org success and its workforce characteristics
- experience
- skills inventory
- performance scores
- tenure or service
12
Q
What is an HR Audit?
A
a review of HR policies, programs, processes and documentation to identify opportunities to improve efficiency, effectiveness, customer satisfaction and legal compliance
13
Q
What are Efficiency Metrics?
A
assessing whether things are being done right = Doing Things Right
14
Q
What are Effectiveness Metrics?
A
assessing whether the ‘right’ things are being done = Doing the Right Things (ex: measure of increased performance following training)
15
Q
What are Operational Metrics?
A
assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of programs and services = Short-term impact
16
Q
What are Strategic Metrics?
A
assessing the linkage between HR programs and services and the organization’s strategic goals, forecast trends = Long-Term Impact
17
Q
What is the 5C Model of HRM Impact
A
- Compliance
- Client Satisfaction, including employees, managers, customers and shareholders
- Culture Management (attract employees who also want to be in that culture)
- Cost Control
- Contribution
18
Q
What are Metrics used for?
A
- establish base lines - to compare current practices with past practices. (ex: looking at past employee surveys to track whether there have been changes, improvements, etc)
- conduct benchmarking - to compare current practices with best practices or practices outside of the organization. Enables them to see if their hr practices compares favourably or unfavourably with others. (ex: absenteeism rates, turnover rates, etc)
- track trends - including economic, demographic or workforce trends
- justify strategic decisions regarding talent management (ex: may help in deciding whether to outsource a certain function)
19
Q
What to Metrics enable HR to do?
A
- speak the language of the business
- put forward convincing business cases for justifying HR strategies and programs
- report empirical evidence that quantifies the efficiency and effectiveness of HR programs
- Be a true strategic business partner
20
Q
What is an HR Dashboard?
A
A tool that visually displays HR Metrics. Example: Turnover rates
21
Q
What are some Productivity metrics?
A
- Absenteeism measures
- Overtime measures
- Human Capital Return on Investment
22
Q
What is Human Capital Return on Investment?
A
Rate of return for each dollar invested in employee pay and benefits = Revenue - [Operating Expenses - (Compensation and Benefits Costs)] /Compensation and Benefits Costs
23
Q
How do you calculate Compa-ratio for an individual?
A
Individuals salary/midpoint of salary band
24
Q
What are some Recruitment Metrics?
A
- measures the quantity, quality and efficiency of recruitment actions.
- Track vacancy, number of external hires vs internal, candidate diversity, time of recruitment process
- the % of positions being actively recruited for is the vacancy rate = number of vacant positions/headcount
- External hire rate = number of external hires /# of all positions filled
- Average time to fill
25
What are some Retention metrics?
- Turnover (most common) = (resignations + retirements+ involuntary terminations) / headcount
- helpful to understand where turnover is occurring in the organization, higher or lower than the industry average
- voluntary or involuntary
- turnover is costly and if the rates are high it could be due to poor management skills, poor hiring decisions, poor training methods, etc.
- Executive voluntary turnover rate = (executive resignations + executive retirements) / executive headcount
- Succession planning = # of succession planning candidates/ executive level headcount
26
What are some Learning and Development Metrics?
- Cost Metrics
- Cost per FTE = learning and developing cost /FTE
- Cost as % of revenue = learning and development cost/revenue
- Cost as a % of payroll = learning and development cost/labour costs
- Incidence = # of learning and development events/FTE
- Duration = # of learning and development hours /FTE
- Participation = # of employees attending learning and development events / # of all employees
27
What is the Research Process?
the research process is used to predict and measure the value of an initiative.
28
Why is it difficult to measure the value of an HR program?
1. HR Initiatives do not occur in a vacuum
2. HR Initiatives are mostly “qualitative” as opposed to “quantitative” (for the purpose of establishing a baseline to record future change)
3. HR professionals are too busy to conduct research or are unaware of how to do so.
29
What is the Dependent Variable?
What you are trying to impact (ex: Sales)
30
What is the Independent Variable?
The variable that has an impact on the Dependent Variable (ex: Customer Service)
31
What are 4 common research designs?
- Surveys
- Experimental
- Qualitative
- Existing Research
32
What are Surveys?
- Survey research is extremely popular.
- Good way of gathering employee perceptions.
- Can be used to observe long term trends.
- Surveys are used to assess change or create change. They are used to:
- pinpoint areas of concern
- observe long-term trends
- monitor program impact
- provide input for decisions (ex: decisions about benefit programs or types of training employees may need)
- communicate - allows 2 way communication
- perform organization behaviour research
- assist with change and improvement
- show care and interest in employees, sends message that the employees welcome their feedback and cares about their ideas.
33
What is important to consider when conducting Surveys?
- population sample
- survey questions
- data collection method
- data coding for interpreting open ended responses
- data analysis
- report format
- feedback mechanism to stakeholders
34
What is Sampling?
Sampling involves deciding who and how many people should participate. Types of sampling include:
35
What is Random Sampling?
- a group of employees chosen at random from the organization or population.
- If done properly it can be used to
interpret what the whole
population would do
36
What is Stratified Sampling?
- a group of employees who represent the organization in some way (i.e. gender, department, location, occupation, etc)
- Ex: if 60% women and 40% men
are in a workplace, the survey
would also need to be c
comprised of that percentage
37
What is a Sampling Error?
- sample is insufficient to reflect the entire population. Occur if the method used is flawed
- implementing a sample to a convenient population like those more likely to respond, would not adequately represent the views in the workforce
38
What are different types of Questions?
1. Structured Questions
- easy to analyze in a purely
objective manner because the
respondent has left nothing to be
interpreted
- limited to scope
2. Open Ended Questions
- difficult to analyze, require the person analyzing it to code the answers which can introduce the opportunity for more bias or error.
- not limited to scope
39
What is a Likert Scale?
Uses the following measures:
- Strongly Disagree
- Disagree
- Neutral
- Agree
- Strongly Agree
can be frequently based like always, occasionally, often, never, etc.
40
What should Questions be designed to avoid?
- Acquiescence response styles
- when a person gives the same
favourable response to every
question
- to avoid, word some questions
positively and some negatively to
change the scale
- Social Desirability
- when a person gives the answer
they think you want to hear
- to avoid, use a forced choice
behaviourally anchored check-list
41
What is Experimental Design?
the purpose of experimental design is to find relationships between one or more variables. To measure how one variable affects or predicts another. (Ex: how effectively an interview process can assess how successful they will be on the job)
42
Where is Experimental Research Conducted?
- a lab
- the field
43
What does Experimental Design include?
- Post-test only designs (ex: testing employees on the acquisition of a new skill after a training program)
- Pre-Test/Post-Test Designs (ex: testing employees before and after the training)
- Pre-test, control group, post-test designs, (better to manage a programs true impact. 2 groups of employees are tested before the training program and only one group gets the training and then after they are both tested). (Famous study: Hawthorne study, impact on improved lighting on productivity, they noticed productivity went up both ways and noted that even those without better lighting were getting more attention and therefore were more productive)
44
What does Qualitative Research entail?
- qualitative research mainly involves observation and interviews such as:
- one-on-one interviews
- group interviews
- focus group interviews designed to gather feedback
- debriefing interviews
45
Why is Reviewing Research important?
- reviewing existing research provides a wealth of knowledge and information for developing HR strategies based on past practice and best practices
- Reviewing previous research can help us create hypotheses that can be used and tested in our own environments
- Some excellent and more recent existing research includes:
- Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index
- Hewitt Employee Engagement Research
- Towers Watson Engagement Research
- Gallop Q12 Employee Engagement Research
46
What is Criterion Measures?
ensure we are measuring what is important (i.e. competencies related to a job when conducting interview assessments) Ensure dependent and independent variables are linked in an important way.
47
What is Criterion Relevance?
ensures the criteria are relevant to what we are trying to predict (i.e. all the right competencies are assessed). Need to test for all the important skills and characteristics that we found necessary in the past to fulfill the position
48
What is Criterion Deficiency?
occurs when we haven’t assessed all the necessary criterion (i.e. an important competency is missing from our assessment)
49
What is Criterion Contamination?
occurs when we measure things that are irrelevant/not necessary. Don’t contribute to our ability to note if the candidate would be successful in the position
50
What are the 4 types of measurement scales?
1. Nominal
2. Ordinal
3. Interval
4. Ratio
51
What is a Nominal Scale?
a list of variables that have no “value” (ex: department name). Simply names things, used to differentiate responses but has no nominal value
52
What is an Ordinal Scale?
a list of variables that have an order (e.g what employees like best versus least or what they want most). Used to rank order data, Ex: employees may be asked from a list, which benefit options they prefer which will allow you to rank them.
53
What is an Interval Scale?
a scale that tells us the mathematical difference between 2 responses (e.g. Likert Scale) Each point on the scale has a value relative to other points on the scale.
54
What is a Ratio Scale?
shows the relationship between 2 variables (e.g. sales per employee)
55
What is Statistics?
the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data. Can be used to describe or predict information
56
What is Validity?
ensures the measurement is accurately assessing what it’s supposed to measure. Accuracy of the measure.
57
What is Reliability?
- ensures the consistency of the measure
- Ex: keyboarding test, would be valid if accurately measured keyboarding speed and accuracy and reliable if all candidates were tested in the same conditions i.e. a quiet room vs some being in a nosy room
58
What is Content Validity?
ensures the measure accurately measures what it’s supposed to
- Example: A written exam tests whether individuals have enough theoretical knowledge to acquire a driver's license. The exam would have high content validity if the questions asked cover every possible topic in the course related to traffic rules
59
What is Criterion Related Validity?
ensures that what is being measured is relevant
- Example: A researcher wants to know whether a college entrance exam is able to predict future academic performance. First-semester GPA can serve as the criterion variable, as it is an accepted measure of academic performance
60
What is Predictive Validity?
ensures that the measure can predict the dependent variable
- Example: the degree to which college admissions test scores predict college grade point average (GPA)
61
What is Construct Validity?
measures abstract constructs such as IQ and Personality type
- Example: a medication might have an effect not because its putative active ingredients are absorbed into the bloodstream but because of its placebo effects
62
What is Concurrent Validity?
when it can be shown, for example, that current high performers also do well on the test, it is said to have concurrent validity. Suffer from range restriction
- Example: a therapist may use two separate depression scales with a patient to confirm a diagnosis. As long as both the assessments give the same results, they are concurrently valid
63
What about Range Restriction?
because we don’t tend to continue to employ poor performers, you can only really assess the high performers and don’t have poor performers to assess. Can confirm that high performers would have high test results but cannot confirm that poor performers would have low test results
64
What is Test-Retest Reliability?
when a person achieves the same score when tested twice using the same test. Through calculation of a reliability co-efficient to see if the test can be reliable
65
What is Split-Half/Internal Consistency Reliability?
when the score a person receives on one-half of the test is the same as the score they receive on the other half of the test. Would just one half of the test be sufficient to predict the candidates competency
66
What is Inter-rater Reliability?
ensures reliability across raters, for example, when two different raters have scored a candidate similarly. Is there agreement in their ratings
67
What is Central Tendency?
- the average (adding the responses and dividing by the number of responses provided)
- used when conducting employee surveys or examining competitive market surveys
68
What is Mean?
the average (adding the responses and dividing by the number of responses provided)
69
What is Median?
- middle response. What the 10th person said if sorting from highest to lowest
- 50th percentile - number below
by which the responses are lower
(another name for median)
Remember, this is positional not mathematical
70
What is Mode?
the response given by most people, typically wouldn’t have a mode in a salary survey
71
What is Regression Analysis?
- a statistical technique that predicts the level of one variable (the “dependent” variable) based on the level of another variable (the “independent” variable).
- uses correlations to predict an outcome
- can be used in behaviour research such as how to predict employee turnover
- most often used in job evaluation to predict job values in terms of
72
What are Affinity Diagrams/Mind Maps?
enables us to look at groups of related issues as a whole so that an entire system can be analyzed at once
73
What are Cause and Effect Diagrams/ Fish Bone Diagrams?
are used to identify a problem, in fish bone diagram sorting causes into 4 categories (machinery, methods, materials, people)
74
What are Gantt Charts?
chart activities against calendar dates
75
What is Critical Path?
minimum time between start to finish of a project. Identified activities to complete a project. Milestones, etc. Allows product leader to identify any slack in terms of delays
76
What is the Delphi Technique?
brainstorming using questionnaires. Once a group of individuals feedback is given about an issue, it is synthesized and sent back to the group for further feedback
77
What is Nominal Group Technique?
when voting follows a brainstorming activity (also known as sticky dotting)
78
What is SWOT Analysis?
examining Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities or Threats. Strategic planning exercise. Can also be conducted as any new initiative
79
What is Utility Analysis?
assessing the dollar value of an initiative in terms of increased productivity or performance
80
How are Analytical tools used?
Analytical tools can be applied to examine issues, solve problems and make decisions
