The 30 Most Important HR Metrics You Need to Track

The HR world is constantly transforming. Teams need to navigate a variety of evolving factors—from AI becoming part of daily life to the rising cost of living pressures. And after several turbulent years of quiet quitting and an increasingly competitive job market, drive for better people data and HR metrics has never been stronger.

HR metrics and analytics, such as Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS) , offer a valuable insight into your workforce, how your HR strategies are working and how motivated or happy your team is.

Not having a grasp on HR metrics leaves your business vulnerable to poor decision making. Plus, not knowing how your employees really feel could leave you blindsided and negatively impact team retention.

We’ve created this guide to help you understand what HR metrics are, the best metrics to track and 30 essential HR metrics examples you can start measuring today.

What are HR metrics?

HR metrics (or human resource metrics) are key data points that help you track your organization’s human capital. They show you how well your HR strategies and initiatives are performing, and areas that need improvement.

Metric tracking—including what’s working well, what needs improvement, and what trends to expect in the future—helps organizations measure their HR success.

How to define and track the best KPIs

Your key performance indicators (KPIs) are the data points you monitor and communicate across your organization. These consist of your HR metrics but may also link to specific goals that indicate your team’s progress, for example, decreasing time to hire by 25% in a calendar year.

Measuring HR metrics and their effect on your organization is critical. This means workforce metrics are no longer nice-to-haves, they are a must for any HR team looking to build a solid, data-driven management strategy.

Your HR metrics and KPIs should focus on your strategic vision, as they help to establish where your organization should direct their efforts. If your company hopes to make informed, strategic choices for the future, HR metrics need to be a piece of that puzzle.

What do executives really want to see in reports? ‌

Understanding your executive team's reporting needs, and meeting them, can open doors for your team to become more strategic within your organization.

Every organization is different, so your HR reporting strategy will depend on the size of your company, priorities, and the structure of your HR team. Equipped with that information, you can establish which HR metrics are most relevant now and in the future.

The 30 most important HR metrics

Let’s look at 30 essential HR metrics your team should focus on to measure performance. We’ve broken these down into key categories:

4 HR service and software metrics

1. Cost of HR per employee: The total amount your organization spends on HR functions divided by the total number of employees.

1. HR software employee participation rate: The number of employees who actively use your HR employee management software, divided by the total number of employees. This can then be multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.

1. Ratio of HR professionals to other employees: The number of employees in your organization per HR professional on your team.

1. ROI of HR software: The difference between how much the software costs your organization and how much money it generates or saves.

6 HR metrics for recruitment

1. Acceptance rate:  The number of offer letters your organization extends divided by the number of candidates who accept an offer.
2. Cost per hire:  The average cost of hiring a new employee. You can generate this number by adding up both internal and external hiring costs then dividing that total by the number of employees you hired in a given period.
3. Demographics: The characteristics of your workforce such as age, gender, education level, and length of service.
4. Headcount: The total number of employees in your organization or within a specific department you may be tracking.
5. New-hire turnover: The number of new hires who leave within a set period of time, such as within their first year of employment.
6. Time to hire: The average number of days between when a job is posted and when a candidate accepts your offer.
7. Time to productivity: The time it takes for new hires to become acclimated at your organization and start working at full productivity, measured by role-specific KPIs.

5 engagement and employee retention HR metrics

1. Employee satisfaction:  The number of employees who’d recommend your company as a good place to work versus the number of employees who wouldn’t. This can be measured using tools like eNPS*.
2. Retention rate: Divide the number of employees who remained in your organization over a given period by the number of total employees—the opposite of turnover rate.
3. Retention rate per manager: The retention rate broken down by individual teams and managers.
4. Time since last promotion: The length of time in months between the last internal promotion, which can be useful in determining why talent leaves your organization.
5. Talent turnover rate: The rate of turnover among your organization’s high-performing and high-potential employees.
6. Total turnover rate: The number of employees who leave your organization within a given period divided by the average number of total employees (then multiplied by 100 to come up with a percentage).
7. Voluntary turnover rate: The turnover rate including only those employees who leave your organization voluntarily.

*Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.

3 time tracking HR metrics

1. Absence rate: The average number of days employees are absent in a given time period, not including approved PTO (also known as absenteeism). An absence management system should make this easy to track.
2. Absence rate per manager: The absence rate broken down by individual teams and managers.
3. Overtime hours: The number of overtime hours worked by employees in a specific time period.

5 HR metrics for performance management

1. Company performance: A high-level comparison of how well employees are performing versus how engaged and valued they feel.
2. Employee performance: You can track employee performance through self-assessments, peer reviews, manager assessments, or a combination of all three.
3. Goal tracking: Monitor progress on employee goals and how these goals connect to larger company goals.
4. Performance and potential: Tools like the nine-box model allow you to categorize employees according to their performance for better succession and leadership planning.
5. Revenue per employee: The total amount of revenue divided by the total number of employees.

4 training and development metrics

1. Training completion rate: The number of employees who completed a given training program divided by the total number of employees. You can then multiple this figure by 100 to get a percentage.
2. Time to completion: The average amount of time it takes for an employee to complete a given training program.
3. Training effectiveness: There are several methods for measuring training effectiveness, including running tests or assessments to generate a pass/fail rate.
4. Training expenses per employee: The total cost of your organization’s training resources divided by the total number of employees.

What are HR analytics tools?

Now that you’ve identified your HR metrics, what’s the next step? Here’s where HR analytics tools come to play. They help transform complex data about your company into user-friendly reports.

BambooHR offers HR metric and analytical tools to take the guesswork out of people management. Our eNPS surveys can help to shed some light on employee experience and satisfaction within your organization.

Tracking HR metrics saves HR departments valuable company time. With automated reports, harness AI with our automatic reporting capabilities to organize and aggregate the results to see employee suggestions. You can quickly and easily prepare for meetings, stay up to date with HR performance, and establish clear goals to ensure that the company can grow sustainably.

How to make your HR data work for you

Data is a valuable business currency. The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) suggests that the challenge isn’t acquiring more data, it’s filtering out the useful insights. Producing lots of data can bring a false sense of productivity—don’t get caught in the trap of collecting data for the sake of it.

• Identify valuable data. Valuable versus non valuable data comes down to how it connects to business outcomes. The main four metrics to track relate to engagement, value retention, success factors and the health of your workforce.
• Identify the right audience for each HR metric.  Not every team will find the HR metric reports you generate relevant to their department. Certain metrics such as new-hire turnover, and time-to-hire may be more fitting for your recruiting team compared to middle managers.
• Apply data to decision making. Your data needs to inform action—you shouldn’t collect it just for the sake of it. For example, if you’re using data to identify why employees leave, use these insights to improve the issues driving away talent.
• Determine your own goals and targets. Every organization is different. For example, there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for determining the ideal staff training cost. Set specific, measurable goals for each metric that reflect your organization’s unique needs.

FAQs about HR metrics

Why are HR metrics important?

HR metrics, specifically people metrics, provides you with the data you need to create a solid people strategy. They help you identify successful areas of the business, areas where you can improve, and any future trends on the way.

What are some HR metrics that matter?

There are a range of important HR metrics you can consider, depending on what your team needs to know and the challenges you’re facing. For example, ‘Time to hire’ is useful if you’re noticing a shortfall in capacity—is it because you’re struggling to hire replacement roles? While ‘Retention rates by manager’ will help you to understand where management upskilling might be required.

How frequently should HR metrics be measured?

HR metrics should be measured regularly, typically annually or quarterly. Having clear, concise and regularly measured HR metrics can ensure nothing vital gets missed and trends can be followed such as:

• Employee happiness
• Expenses
• Productivity
• Costs

Can HR metrics help address staffing problems?

Yes, HR metrics can be very helpful in addressing staffing problems. By analyzing HR metrics you can gain valuable insights into various aspects of your workforce. For example, Mercer report that both high levels of overtime and absenteeism are warning signs for employee disengagement and burnout, which can both lead to turnover.

Get ahead in HR by tracking powerful metrics

We all know that investing in your people is important for any company to succeed. But without tracking key HR metrics and analytics, it’s difficult to measure whether you’re making a difference or need to reevaluate your plans.

If you aren’t measuring HR metrics right now, sit down with your executives and HR teams and identify which data you need to start tracking today. If you've already started, double-check that all your data is helping your organization reach its goals.