Case Incident Data Will Set You Free

Ford CEO Alan Mullaly is known for starting meetings by saying Data will set you free and for trying to change Fords culture to one that is based on increased accountability, more information sharing, and hard metrics. You cant manage a secret, he is also fond of saying. Although its not clear whether Mullalys approach will work at Ford, which is known for its self-contained fiefdoms where little information is shared, some companies have found that managing people according to hard metrics has paid off. Consider Freescale Semiconductor, a computer chip manufacturer based in Austin, Texas.

Freescale has discovered that in order to have the right people at the right time to do the right job, it needs an extensive and elaborate set of metrics to manage its 24,000 employees in 30 countries. Of particular concern to Freescale is retention. Theres no greater cost than human capital, especially in the technology industry, says Jignasha Patel, Freescales director of global talent sourcing and inclusion. When youve got a tenured employee that decides to walk out the door, its not just one person leaving, its that persons knowledge and network and skills.To manage talent and prevent turnover, Freescale holds line managers accountable for recruiting, hiring, and retaining employees. To do that, managers need to project their talent needs into the future and reconcile those with projected availabilities. Patel provides line managers with census data that helps them make their projections, but at the end of the day, the responsibility is theirs. What we have done is taken all of our inclusion data, all our metrics, and weve moved the accountability over to the business unit, Patel says. Patel also provides Freescale managers with benchmark data so they can compare their effectiveness with that of other units. The benchmark data include the number of people hired, turnovers, and promotionsand breakdowns by demographic categories. Theres [a return on investment] for everything we do, says Patel.

In general, what do you think are the advantages and limitations of such metrics? Based on what you have learned from Organizational Behavioral Science, how would you deal with acquisition and retention of employees you supervise if you were a manager?