Helping HR to measure up: arming the “soft” function with hard metrics

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to highlight the more strategic role HR departments can play in their organizations. By prioritizing the measurement strategy in organizations, HR leaders can demonstrate to leadership the impact employees have on the business and how an investment in internal processes and programs can boost engagement – and ultimately business results. Design/methodology/approach – This paper outlines a four‐step process for effective employee engagement measurement: use behavioral and emotional outcomes; correlate employee engagement survey results to meaningful outcomes; focus improvement efforts and investments on the high impact/low performing areas; and re‐measure to assess success. A series of de‐identified examples from PeopleMetrics clients illustrate the importance of following each step in the process. Findings – By measuring employee engagement, tying the results to other HR and business metrics and using the findings to target improvement efforts, organizations are demonstrating to leadership the impact employees have on the business and how an investment in internal processes and programs can boost engagement – and ultimately business results. As more organizations recognize the value of using rigorous metrics to evaluate and optimize their workforces, the HR function will benefit because it will be serving a more strategic function than it has traditionally been associated with in the past. Research limitations/implications – These findings are based on the fieldwork experience of PeopleMetrics. Originality/value – The paper provides a very useful perspective for HR managers to consider, particularly within organizations with extensive measurement systems.