How to Measure Quality of Hire Surveys
When it comes to quality of hire surveys, determining whether a new hire is a good “fit” for your organization is as much a subjective measure as it is objective. Regardless, there are actions we can take to measure the quality of our hiring decisions on a consistent basis that can blend subjective feedback with objective measures to get a clear picture of how it is impacting our organization.
Measuring quality of hire can pay dividends in many areas. All it takes is a bit of extra creativity and a solid, consistent process. The benefits can be extraordinary, including:
- Reduction in new hire turnover
- Reduction in absenteeism
- Lower onboarding costs
- Increased Net Promoter Score
- More employee referrals
- Shorter time to productivity
- Higher employee engagement rates due to lower turnover
This entire premise “measuring how effective we are at hiring the right talent” is the basis for the “quality of hire” metric.
How Organizations Measure Quality of Hire with Survale
There is no single measurement that assesses overall quality of hire. Most organizations use one to several sets of metrics. These organizations use objective measures, such as turnover rates, combined with subjective measures like hiring manager reviews. Here are some of the metrics Survale clients rely on to get an accurate overall “quality of hire” measurement:
- Turnover/retention rates
- Cultural fit (measured by quality of hire survey data)
- Successful completion and satisfaction of full onboarding process (as measured by survey data)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Time to productivity (as measured by survey data)
- Employee engagement levels
- Employee referrals
- Manager assessment of fit, skill levels and performance, along with a determination of whether they would rehire
- New employee assessment of cultural fit, skill utilization along with a determination of whether they would accept the role again.
- Termination data, reflecting both the hiring manager and employee point of view
How to Create an Overall Quality of Hire Metric
Some organizations find it useful to combine items in the list above and create an overall index from quality of hire surveys. Here are 3 different samples on how to calculate a Quality of Hire Index:
- Hiring Manager Feedback (Rehire + Culture Fit + Exhibiting Skills + Customer Service + Productivity Level Expectations) / N
- (Hiring Manager Feedback ( Rehire + Culture Fit + Exhibiting Skills) + Retention)) / N
- (New Hire Feedback(Reaccept offer + Culture Fit + Skills are matched for role) + Hiring Manager Feedback ( Rehire + Culture Fit + Exhibiting Skills) + Retention)) / N
These metrics are then summarized over the life of the new hire evaluation period. Typical time frames include 90 Days and/or over 180 Days, or 360 Days
Retention is the percentage of new hires still onboard at each phase of the measured time frame.
“N” is the number of indicators used in the formula. You could add other metrics into the formula, and then “N” would be the total number of metrics used.
Doing a measurement in this way yields a percentage figure, which can be used to compare quality of hire measures over time. To be clear, this overall quality of hire index is a benchmark. Each metric within the index can, and should, be analyzed and tracked separately.
As you can see, there are many different ways to measure Quality of Hire. We recommend starting slow and adding criteria after successful cycles.
When to measure
90 days. Measuring at 90 days from the new hire start date is a perfect way to ease into Quality of hire. Requesting feedback from the Hiring Manager with questions such as:
- Given the opportunity, would you rehire this person
- How well does the employee work with the team and fit within the culture
- To what extent are they personable and friendly; with solid customer service skills in working with employees and clients
If you have not defined quality of hire criteria for you company, starting with the above questions in a quality of hire survey and applying an index to each answer is the best way to begin.
In this step and all future steps, providing an option for managers to give feedback about turnover is crucial to capturing retention data. If a new hire leaves your company under 1 year of employment, this is considered turnover and affects your retention rate. Capturing why you are experiencing turnover should be implemented when the manager tells you the new hire is no longer with you the company. Survale automatically helps capture this data.
180 Days. Moving to a slightly more advanced measurement phase where you repeat the above measurements with quality of hire surveys at time intervals such as, 180 days and annually.
Ongoing refinement. Once the basic quality of hire process is moving along, organizations begin adding criteria to their quality of hire metrics. For example, surveying new hires during the above time frames (90 days, 180 days) and calculating scores into the Quality of hire metric is a common process.
New Hire Turnover Quickly Identified
One of the great opportunities for improvement that quickly becomes evident is reducing turnover due to poor onboarding. Fifteen percent or more of new hire turnover is due to poor onboarding within the first week of employment, with a nearly equal amount following at 30 days. . Once turnover data is combined with employee/manager feedback, there’s an opportunity for it to be quickly remedied. Survale will quickly identify regions, departments, and hiring managers that need some training on how to lower their new hire turnover.
The same is true for more subjective measures like cultural fit, skills and time to productivity. The manager/employee feedback produced through the use of Survale is invaluable in identifying gaps between recruiters, managers and new hire expectations that can be assessed and addressed to improve these other key measures.
