As part of human resource planning, it is essential to constantly monitor the various metrics that could indicate the effectiveness of the human resources department. This paper will present three metrics used today at American Airlines and many other airlines worldwide. The average time needed to close an opened vacancy, the percentage of people fired after a specific time, and the rate of return per employee allows a company to gauge the effectiveness of its personnel and the performance of those who hire them. All these metrics are used and calculated to adjust the work of the company’s HR department. Their prevalence in the field of assessment of the HR policy of organizations of any direction makes them universal assessment tools.
The Average Time to Close the Vacancy
The average time to close the vacancy is a metric that measures how much time passes between when a vacancy occurs in an organization and when it closes (Subhashini et al., 2019). This metric helps gauge the efficiency of the human resources department in terms of speed. It is often the case that a company may be in urgent need of a large number of employees, and an uncovered job will mean a decrease in the efficiency of the entire company. In the case of American Airlines, this could mean fewer flights, more people in line, and less passenger comfort. Therefore, the average time a vacancy is closed is one of the most critical metrics determining the degree of professionalism and the speed at which the job is completed.
Percentage of People Fired
The percentage of employees who leave is usually calculated based on a certain amount of time. Usually, airlines use a time frame of three months to determine the number of those who stayed on and those who were laid off (Ontrup et al., 2021). A high percentage of those laid off in the first few months of employment may indicate a low level of competence in the hired employees and inefficiency in the HR department (Ontrup et al., 2021). To calculate this metric, the number of fired employees is multiplied by one hundred percent and divided by the total number of people hired. In addition, this parameter is effective in internal HR department analysis. This metric is also calculated for each employee in the department separately, depending on how many people they have personally accepted and recommended. Moreover, it helps to determine which areas of the company have more incompetent employees than others. This information can be a reason to conduct additional audits or organize staff development activities.
Income Per Employee
The company’s income divided by the number of employees is one of the essential metrics in assessing the effectiveness of the human resources department. On the one hand, this metric determines the level of value of each company employee in the numeric equivalent. On the other hand, it allows one to determine what optimal number of employees the company needs and how much money can be spent to create conditions for keeping certain specialists at their workplace. This metric is versatile in its practicality, as it allows a large amount of valuable data on the effectiveness of an individual employee and an entire department (Hazarika et al., 2019). Also, the effectiveness of this metric stems from the fact that a company can use it to determine its future HR policies. With an understanding of what value each employee brings and the optimal number of employees the company needs, the company can over or underestimate its hiring requirements.
In conclusion, large companies use many metrics to determine how well their human resource planning departments perform. These metrics allow a company to identify weaknesses in its HR policies and promptly make changes. All these essential tools are used not only by American airlines but also in other industries, but the air transport industry is susceptible to the competence of its employees. Their professionalism determines the quality of services, passenger safety, and comfort. Moreover, searching for highly qualified personnel for this company usually takes a long time, which means lost profits for the organization, whose activities are directly related to establishing logistics and schedules. Long-term absences or open positions can mean entire teams, lines, and planes are idle, something a company like American Airlines cannot afford because of the magnitude of the sums she might lose from it.
References
Hazarika, I., Albeshr, M., Cho, B., & Jumde, A. (2019). Role of HR metrics in enhancing the firm performance of selected UAE airline companies. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 18(6), 1-8.
Ontrup, G., Schempp, P. S., & Kluge, A. (2021). Choosing the right (HR) metrics: Digital data for capturing team proactivity and determinants of content validity. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 9(2), 212-232. Web.
Subhashini Durai, D., Rudhramoorthy, K., & Sarkar, S. (2019). HR metrics and workforce analytics: It is a journey, not a destination. Human Resource Management International Digest J, 27(1), 4-6. Web.