Importance of HR Data for a CEO

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: August 9th, 2009

I used to believe that HR Data was useful for HR Departments only since the department was responsible for employee development & management activities. Alternately, the CFO and CEO were only interested in metrics such as cost of hire, total compensation, cost for training etc which were more oriented towards financial goals and treated employee costs as a “cost-center”. My perception changed in a recent customer interaction.

It was during an EmpXtrack training session for one of our clients in India, when their HR Director asked that we provide extensive HR dashboards to their CEO. While these reports were available for the HR Managers, I wasn’t sure if it could benefit the CEO in any way and hence I resisted.

Since the HR Director seemed to be a nice & patient gentleman, I thought of arguing a little and also better understand why he believed that the CEO would want to look at all this data. There were over 25 crucial dashboards already available for the CEO and what could be the benefits of having access to 100s of additional reports. Many questions came in my mind like –

  • Will the CEO have time to go through the reports,
  • What will be the implication of training him in using these?
  • What if one of the reports doesn’t work correctly? (It does happen!!!)
  • Was the CEO from an HR background or believed in Jack Welch’s theory of HR Management etc. etc.

The HR Director was obliging and I got some deep insights into how CEOs think and work. This also helped me better understand the needs of an effective HR department – especially for a company that has global ambitions and aggressive growth plans.

CEO in a VC PresentationThe HR Director said that they are into a Knowledge Intensive Business Services and their core strength lies in the quality of their people. While meeting potential investors and even large customers, our CEO is often asked following questions:

1. What is it about your management team / people that makes them uniquely capable of executing on this business plan?

AND/OR

2. Do you have the Right Leadership?

AND/OR

3. Does the team have passion for the business? Have they done it before: experience; market experience; intimate contact with potential customers, partners, and suppliers; etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Employee Appraisals, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources, Motivation, Performance Management | 1 Comment »