What should talent management really care about? Cost of labor, time to fill positions, job fill ratio, alignment with target, time to productivity, performance rating?

In short, all of those metrics are important. But at its simplest expression, it all boils down to one key metric: Return On Workforce (ROW). As noted below: it is the ratio of operating income divided by total labor costs (all costs including salary and overhead as well as all contingent labor).

As a generic metric, many factors will influence the calculation, so it is crucial to know how talent management affects ROW. On the cost side, we see all the main topical discussion points: offshoring, downsizing, and compensation alignment. On the productivity side, we see that skills, utilizations, and motivations are crucial.

But if you have only one metric to discuss with your C-level executives, we would go with ROW! If you want more details on this topic, you can read our article published by Accenture and called Key Metrics for Today’s Talent Economy (available online – free subscription).