‘Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort’ – a valuable piece of advice from Paul J Meyer, the guru and pioneer in business improvement.

Are you measuring productivity in your business or team? Do you know not only your financials on a per head basis, but also all the key input activities – and how they are trending? This data has never been more important, as we experience an economic phase of rising inflation and interest rates, which will bring with it some headwinds that challenge us.

Being aware of your net fee income (NFI) per head is paramount – and the per head bit is really important. Most recruitment businesses have been hiring over the last 12 months, combine that with an extremely healthy market, and an increasing company NFI line can become delusional – a rising tide lifts all boats, so make sure your boat has a realistic set of instruments!

Other weekly/monthly key metrics to measure include:

• Number of roles registered
• CVs submitted
• 1st interviews
• Time to hire
• Conversion rates

Make sure you only present data on metrics vs a target, as well as analysing trends by reporting month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter, year-on-year etc. Make sure you have real clarity on what the monthly or quarterly trend is; this is what should be driving so many of your decisions around performance management and investment.

Measure lost revenue – both in terms of placements lost to counter offers/multiple offers and of candidates on your database who have been placed by a competitor. Highlighting and creating awareness of this in your team will not only focus the mind but will alert you to any learning & development needs and also give you the opportunity to set an improvement target in this area.

The effective deployment of recruitment technology should have a significant impact on productivity. Automate as much as possible – as a minimum:

• CV screening
• Auto responses
• Video offering
• Auto posting
• Coding
• Management of sales leads
• Campaign management

Have an objective of synchronising all platforms where possible and ensuring all is optimised for mobile. We all know recruitment tech is developing at speed, and we can already see machine learning supporting productivity acceleration through the analysis and subsequent prediction of trends and client/candidate behaviours.

An effective and consistent suite of reporting in your business will support productivity. Regularly review what your reporting looks like.

Improve the candidate and the client experience, and you will improve sales and increase productivity levels. If you are not already, I would highly recommend using the Net Promotor Score method. NPS is a widely used market research metric that typically takes the form of a single question, asking respondents to rate the likelihood that they would recommend your business. If you include the verbatim comments option, you can solicit valuable information and intel, all hugely useful to create awareness and set a plan to improve where necessary.

Finally, do not let any of this be a shock to new hires! Don’t let their first day be the first time they hear about the productivity measurements and expectations in your business. Have a really great onboarding plan that supports productivity from the get-go – with the emphasis on the support structure around them that not only allows them to understand what looks good (as it’s measured) but also has the expertise to improve their skill set, constantly.

And (definitely finally) – remember, if productivity falters, the answer is ALWAYS in your data, so measure it!

Tara Ricks is co-chair of Elite Leaders and director of Consulting Eve