2.10 Key Terms

Absenteeism: Absenteeism is a productivity metric, which is measured by dividing the number of days missed by the total number of scheduled workdays. Absenteeism can offer insights into overall employee health and can also serve as an indicator of employee happiness. (2.8)

Buyout: Employers may offer employees an incentive to leave the company. (2.6)

Contingent workers are hired as a contract worker for a specific amount of time at a specific rate of pay. They perform a specific job while employed. (2.6)

Delphi Method: a group of experts predict specific future events through surveys and opinions. (2.4)

External supply is hiring from outside the company. (2.5)

Extrapolation uses past information related to change. (2.4)

Forecast: an estimate of future human resources that a company needs to be successful. (2.3)

HR Analytics: HR analytics specifically deals with the metrics of the HR function, such as time to hire, training expense per employee, and time until promotion. (2.8)

HR Planning is a strategic process that helps companies plan for future human resources that are needed to support the growth, or downsizing of production demands. (2.1)

Human Resources Information System (HRIS) helps companies organize and manage people-related data. (2.7)

Human Resources Inventories: This is completed through HR audits of summaries of employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). (2.5)

Indexation matches employment growth with specific indices (such as the ratio of sales to the number of pieces of production). (2.4)

Internal supply are the existing employees who can be promoted to new positions, transferred to other departments or satellite offices, and could be demoted. (2.5)

Involuntary turnover rate: When an employee is terminated from their position, it is termed “involuntary.” The rate of involuntary turnover is calculated by dividing the number of employees who left involuntarily by the total number of employees in the organization. This metric can be tied back to the recruitment strategy and used to develop a plan to improve the quality of hires to avoid involuntary turnover. (2.8)

Labour market analysis studies the companies labour market to assess the present and future availability of employees. In Canada, the unemployment rates are a quick way to determine how many people are actively seeking work, and what types of work they are looking for in their careers. Other ways to find employees is to target those employed in other companies. (2.5)

Labour shortage is not enough supply of employees to meet the demand for the company, and/or people do not have specific skills that company needs to operate the business. (2.6)

Leadership and Management Inventories: The KSAs are recorded in addition to the employee’s potential for promotion to management is monitored. (2.5)

Markov analysis: is often used which is the company’s future human resources needs that use transitional probability matrices based on past data. (2.5)

Nominal Group Method: a focus group of experts work face-to-face or virtually. (2.4)

Offshoring: when companies may outsource work to a different country. (2.6)

Offer acceptance rate: The number of accepted formal job offers (not verbal) divided by the total number of job offers given in a certain period. A higher rate (above 85%) indicates a good ratio. If it is lower, this data can be used to redefine the company’s talent acquisition strategy. (2.8)

Phased retirement which allows them to work fewer hours for a period of time, and then finally retire completely from the company. (2.6)

People analytics: People analytics, though often used as a synonym for HR analytics, is technically applicable to “people” in general. (2.8)

Recall list: a list that tracks employees who are laid off so that when there is a job available, the employees are called back to work based on seniority or need. (2.6)

Replacement Charts: are charts that are like a “picture” that help to determine who can replace who when the need arises through a job opening. (2.5)

Replacement summaries track the employee’s history with the company and HR departments can decide if these employees can fill gaps in the company. (2.5)

Revenue per employee: Obtained by dividing a company’s revenue by the total number of employees in the company. This indicates the average revenue each employee generates. It is a measure of how efficient an organization is at enabling revenue generation through employees. (2.8)

Staffing tables. These tables are lists of project employees for each type of position in the company. (2.4)

Time to fill: The number of days between advertising a job opening and hiring someone to fill that position. By measuring the time to fill, recruiters can alter their recruitment strategy to identify areas where the most time is being spent. (2.8)

Time to hire: The number of days between approaching a candidate and the candidate’s acceptance of the job offer. Just like time to fill, data-driven analysis of time to hire can benefit recruiters and help them improve the candidate experience to reduce this time. (2.8)

Training efficiency: Obtained from the analysis of multiple data points, such as performance improvement, test scores, and upward transition in employees’ roles in the organization after training. Measuring training efficiency can be crucial to evaluating the effectiveness of a training program. (2.8)

Training expenses per employee: Obtained by dividing the total training expense by the total number of employees who received training. The value of this expense can be determined by measuring the training efficiency. Poor efficiency may lead you to re-evaluate the training expense per employee. (2.8)

Voluntary turnover rate: Voluntary turnover occurs when employees voluntarily choose to leave their jobs. It is calculated by dividing the number of employees who left voluntarily by the total number of employees in the organization. (2.8)