HR Benchmarking
The HR function should be able to demonstrate value for money and should be recognised for its added value contribution to the corporate goals.
There is much noise about "HR Business Partners” ~ but are they delivering?
"There are some truly awful HR functions out there - masters of bureaucracy, obsessed with compliance - but unclear with what."
A Good HR Function will be staffed with enthusiastic people who are committed to helping the organisation to improve - people who look for opportunities, who work with Managers to stimulate change - who know about Employment Law and are able to steer a safe course while helping the organisation to achieve its objectives.
Thus the 'test' of your HR function is internal satisfaction - do they HELP or do they HINDER?
Systematic Benchmarking against other organisations unfortunately tends to be a fruitless activity which gets lost in details of complex numbers - but stimulating change by ensuring your team know that there is a different world out there, by pushing them to network and by insisting on evidence of 'best practice' - especially if any revised Policy proposal is more then two pages long - all of this can help.
Measuring HR costs is important, of course, and devising simple ratios can be informative -
Number of employees per head of HR staff
HR cost as % of whole payroll
This year's cost vs. last
BUT - what is "an HR employee", or what actually ARE "HR" costs? - many organisations will include Training staff, some will include payroll & pensions. Some will exclude the 'Business Partners' in devolved operations - so Benchmarking the HR function is more to do with identifying best practice than it is about numbers.
Spending the time on rigorous analysis of the HR business processes is often a more fruitful activity - and start by checking with the users - what do they think of the way things are done around here? what would they change?
How effective if the HR use of IT? On-line Forms, automatic data transfer? Are those transactions really adding value?
The way we were .........