The Dashboard: A Strategic Staff Management Tool

These are the key words that are making the rounds in the business world. The management dashboard is now part of business directors’ tool boxes. Thanks to sophisticated technologies, it is now capable of synthesizing a chosen quantity of key data and allowing you to track your company’s key performance indicators. In particular, it helps to monitor finances or operational performance.

Besides their sophisticated reporting function, these well-structured tools can help you truly understand the state of your business. These visual representations can also let you see the big picture so that you can make informed decisions and keep up with your targets.

In this article, we will look at the main categories of management boards, how you could use them to manage your staff and their performance, and how to use them for strategic recruitment planning.

What is the purpose of a company dashboard?

According to BDC Advisory Services specialists, who train business owners on operational efficiency, the use of the tool we are talking about goes beyond the need to measure specific factors. The information gathered is best used if it forms part of a continuous performance improvement plan and communication within the company. Performance metrics can raise important issues and be used as a basis for discussions leading to strategic or tactical decision-making. In other words, when used well, dashboards lead to concrete measures and actions.

The profile extracted from the measurement of indicators can also be a motivational tool for the company by showcasing strategy and targets, as well as the main areas of improvement for better performance.

The main categories of the dashboard

The idea here is to provide a complete overview that is easy to look at, generally in graphic form, and based on real data. It often brings together the main key performance indicators (KPIs) determined by management: cash flow, profit margins, revenue, and expenditure. Nevertheless, you can formulate decision-making strategies that will measure workforce performance and staff needs. These can relate to revenue per employee, the wait time for incoming calls, the staff turnover rate, or the absenteeism rate.

These measurements, which can be directly linked to staff efficiency and client satisfaction, can help you become aware of certain gaps or operational areas that need to be discussed, reviewed, and improved.

Among the decision-making dashboards, there are three main categories:

1. Strategic dashboards are for the company’s C-suite. They may contain information that is confidential or reserved for certain levels, such as revenue per employee or pay grades.
2. Operational dashboards relate to a specific service. They measure its efficiency or performance. It may relate to training costs, success rates of hiring campaigns, or number of work-related accidents.
3. Budgetary dashboards allow you to see the gaps between expectations and reality in order to determine the reasons why something has happened, and to make the necessary decisions.

These days, Industry 4.0, or the company’s intelligence technologies, can automate data collection and analysis to display it in real time, from equipment to transactions and machines.

Using the dashboard to overcome recruitment challenges

Do you find yourself in a market suffering from a labour shortage? The human resources performance metrics profiles may prove to be a key decision-making tool to optimize recruitment and staff retention, according to your key performance indicators. Many companies are facing a huge challenge since the pandemic. Effectively,  several sectors of the Canadian economy are now affected by high dissatisfaction levels, strikes and the mass resignation of employees, particularly in production, food services, nursing, tourism, and construction. In 2021 in Canada, 36% of blue-collar workers resigned, compared to 21% of white-collar workers, according to data from Randstad.

Managing the workforce

Workforce management consists of finding a constant balance between available resources and the skills needed during a defined period. But it can also involve formulating strategic action plans to improve staff satisfaction levels, increase retention, and address some of the gaps in inclusion and diversity.

Dalhousie University, in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) conducted a study on the topic in 2019. The conclusion is that the vast majority of top executives (91%) claim that promoting diversity and inclusion is a mission that they value and to which they are committed. Despite this commitment to promote diversity and inclusion as a business strategy, only 73% reported a focus on diversity and inclusion in their business strategies. Only 68% confirmed that they frequently communicate with their employees on the subject of diversity and inclusion.

• In its most simple version, the dashboard can show a graph of the total payroll or total workforce for each service. You can also see the distribution of employees by gender or age, and the pay gap between men and women.
• A profile of staff turnover or lack of workforce in certain sectors of the company allows you to focus on what discussions and actions are needed.
• The dynamic version of representation in terms of human resources can reveal gaps in training, the results of your internal employee questionnaires, or the expenses incurred for training compared to the planned budgets.

According to a survey carried out in 2017 by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), almost 70% of workers stay with their employer for more than three years after having participated in an excellent orientation and training program. With that in mind, these metrics make much more sense.

In this regard, the human resources dashboard can become an important tool for hitting your targets for employment, recruitment, and staff retention. It allows you to check in with your talent managers and create an environment for continued discussion and improvement, based on real data.