HR scorecard for publishing industry is gaining popularity. There is a tough competition in the market of both online and offline media. Thats why efficient use of human resources is a precondition for success. Publishing business is not an exception here.

Perhaps, the right choice of key performance indicators for HR scorecard in publishing business is the most important stage of BSC implementation. It is very important to find critical success factors for an effective HR policy. Publishing business has its own peculiar features, business environment and specific nature. It should be taken into account when creating key performance indicators in all categories of balanced scorecard.

Lets review a couple of indicators that might be very helpful in assessment of HR efficiency for publishing industry.

Average equipment cost per employee. Such an indicator is truly considered to be very representative. Personnel uses various equipment in publishing business, like printing machines, powerful computers etc. Inefficient use of equipment may result in huge expanses. In order to optimize production expenses per employee, it might be very helpful to keep track on this KPI. On the one hand, an employee should get everything he or she needs to fulfill duties. On the other hand the company should not overpay. Based on the evaluation results, human resource managers may think of the ways to optimize expenses by forming teams of the right size, allocating the right amount of resources, office space and equipment. Employees may share the same equipment without feeling uncomfortable which will decrease average equipment cost per employee, and thus the company may save money which can be used, for example, for training or personnel coaching.

New hire turnover during the first 12 months. Publishing business involves advanced knowledge and experience in working with specialized equipment. Thats why if a company hires and educates new employees it sometimes spends a great amount of money. If the new employee eventually leave the company having worked less than 12 month, the company is more likely to suffer losses. It is very important to create suitable working conditions for freshly hired personnel, so that newcomers can use obtained knowledge to benefit the company. New higher turnover is a very indicative measure that directly evaluates efficiency of human resource department. Logical leap, the lower turnover is, the better for the company.

Finally, it should be mentioned that when evaluating HR performance one needs to keep balance between interests of personnel goals of the company.

As known, Balanced Scorecard consists of four categories: financial, customer, internal business processes, learning and growth. What makes Balanced Scorecard unique? Unlike similar performance evaluation systems of Balanced Scorecard evaluates nonfinancial indicators as well. In terms of a hotel industry these indicators refer to customer satisfaction, improvement of hotel personnel professional level, optimization of internal processes, for example laundry, dining services, housekeeping and cleaning, reception services etc.

No less imagine such a situation hotel top managers have developed a strategy and selected a set of key performance indicators that fall into the above mentioned four categories. Now is the time to start using Balanced Scorecard and evaluate the selected KPIs. It needs mentioning that key performance indicators should be measurable and understood. As time passes by the first results are obtained. This is perhaps the most important stage since top managers have to find out whether are not they have made the right choice and assigned the right weights for indicators. For instance, such a key performance indicator as room occupancy may not matter much as visitors tend to stay for more than three days in a hotel and maintenance of vacant rooms requires little expenses. This is just a hypothetical example.

Having obtained the first results, top management needs to analyze them. KPI evaluation results show progress or regress of a hotel on its way to implement strategic goals. Thus, hotel managers and owners locate problematic areas and make decisions as to necessary improvements. For instance, if your kitchen performance prevents hotel from optimize an overall performance, relevant decisions need to be made (e.g. hiring new chef, changing food supplier etc.). Balanced Scorecard will work only in case the information it provides is actually used to initiate changes. Balanced Scorecard will not change the situation by itself but rather offer important and valuable information for top managers and business owners.