5 Metrics to Help You Track the ROI of Your Employer Brand
Simply Hired Staff
The Hudson RPO study found that 66 percent of responding HR managers anticipated an increase in the importance of employer brand, but only 16 percent measured their employer brand in the first place.
While you aren’t expected to play the role of a full-time data scientist, there’s no denying that the role of HR has expanded to include supervising and quantifying a company’s employer brand. Tracking and measuring this data helps you gain a more complex understanding of your company’s employer brand in the marketplace and also allows you to understand the ROI of your time investment.
Tracking this information manually is more difficult than connecting with social listening and intelligence tools available on the market. But for many HR managers, it’s the most cost-effective way to stay on top of their employer brand without making it a second full-time job. As you begin to monitor your employer brand, here are several metrics you can track to show your progress.
Employee retention rate
While many factors contribute to a company’s retention rate, such as location, the local candidate pool and company growth, your overall retention rate provides a reliable temperature gauge of your employer brand.
If employees enjoy working at your company, they will stay. Depending on the size of your company, track this number monthly or quarterly to see if your performance is improving or stagnating. The more you work on the pillars of your employer brand, such as attracting the right candidates and living out the company’s belief system, the higher your retention rate should climb.
Cost-per-hire
Similar logic works for the cost-per-hire metric and employee retention rate. Many external factors affect this metric, but it’s a helpful source of information about how your recruitment efforts are changing over time. The more accurate your company’s hiring pages and the better your word-of-mouth reputation become, the lower this metric should sink.
Employee referrals
The number of employee referrals you receive is also a good indication of your employer brand. How many referrals do you receive per month and per year? Are your employees recommending their friends and families to the company, or do you receive 100 percent of your incoming applicants from job search engines?
If none of your employees are referring their network to your openings, it may indicate that they are not recommending the workplace. The more authentic your workplace becomes, and the more you hire employees who match it, the more referrals you should see coming from those employees.
Simply Hired’s Employer Brand Index
Perhaps it goes without saying, but Simply Hired’s Employer Brand Index is an excellent metric in two different ways. First, it allows you to see how other brands perform over time in the top 25 Trending Now scores. You can also track your own progress on the index to see how your employer brand is translating into more clicks and views for your company’s open positions.
Mentions per month, quarter and year
Of course you should also monitor the fine line between employer brand and employer PR by monitoring mentions of your company each month, quarter and year. Set up a Google Alert for press mentions, employee reviews and other mentions for your brand and collect them over time. Track how many mentions you receive each month, quarter and year to catch identifiable trends as they develop.
Social media “scores”
If your organization generates a good deal of content, use its social media “score” to track general reach and progress. For example, logging into a Klout account will give you access to a Klout score that may adjust each month according to your efforts. Keep in mind, however, that this score is not directly tied to your employer brand. It’s a better measure of your brand’s authority within its industry. Still, this is a good metric to keep in mind in terms of market saturation and awareness, which do filter into your employer brand.
Ongoing surveys
Finally, don’t overlook the power of ongoing internal surveys. If you can take the time to set up a short, free survey for your employees, you will gain access to a world of insights. You can also send these surveys out automatically to gain insight into your employees’ changing views and perceptions about your brand. Track these metrics over time to see how the changes you implement and the work you do affects your employees’ perceptions and sentiments.
As you consider which metrics will reveal the most accurate depiction of your employer brand, it’s important to understand that the value of some employer brand metrics will vary according to your situation. For example, enterprise organizations have different needs, expectations and amounts of data. Local and national organizations may also experience a different variety or depth of data. Every company should be able to determine a selection of effective metrics, or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), that can help them understand and manipulate their employer brand.
