November 26, 2012

GREAT HR METRICS: Innovation Spend/Effectiveness at Your Company…

I’m on the record as liking Revenue Per Employee as the best macro metric on HR effectiveness.

But that’s macro, let’s get micro. Training $$ per employee? Turnover percentage? Does that include involuntary?

<Yawn>….

Let’s roll out something cool, like evaluating innovation spend vs peers. Check out this chart from Business Insider today that shows R&D spend as a % of revenue (email subscribers, display images or click through for the post)

As they say… daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

So, you can measure your spend on innovation as a percentage of revenue. And when you do that, it tells you some things you would expect – namely, that your competitors are doing what you thought they were doing. Microsoft, Cisco and Google – all leading the pack at over 10% of revenue spent on R&D.

But that of course, tells you nothing about effectiveness. Apple? <insert evil laugh>. Spends about as much Dell – YES DELL – on R&D.

WOW.

Things that make you go “hmmm”

On to the next one.

Signed – in search of metrics that provide clarity on talent issues.

Posted by Kris Dunn on November 26, 2012 at 12:57 PM in Innovation, Talent | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)