Top KPIs in HR: Examples & Explanations

Employé devant écran KPI
September 20 2021

In recent years, using HR KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and metrics has become increasingly important in human resources management. Indeed, they allow for simple and reliable analysis and tracking of HR performance throughout your organization.

You may already have perceptions of your performance, but it is difficult not to miss essential information without accurate analysis. KPIs support these perceived situations with reliable data, allowing you to optimize your HR strategies.

What are these statistics, and what HR performance indicators should you use to improve your practices? If you feel a little lost, don’t panic! This article presents the 5 most important indicators to use in your company,with all the information you need to become a KPI professional!

Why Use KPIs?

Before you discover what examples of KPIs are essential to your company, you may ask yourself why you should use KPIs in your Human Resources department.

Here’s a list of benefits that Human Resources KPIs have to offer:

  • Saving time and efficiency;
  • Helping you make decisions or shape your HR decisions;
  • Supporting your insights with numbers;
  • Obtaining clear statistics and putting them to good use;
  • Getting a comparative vision of indicators over time (evolution and efficiency over a period of time);
  • Optimizing recruitment, training, and many other HR tasks;
  • Identifying HR management problems in your company.

As you can see, KPIs are a valuable daily help and a powerful tool for human resource metrics and management.

Click here to learn more about the KPI features offered by Folks HR reporting solution!

How Can You Use KPIs in Your Company?

Are you beginning to be sold on the benefits of KPIs but still need to learn how to use them? Here are the answers to all your questions.

First, let’s talk about implementation. Rest assured; you don’t have to come up with all the performance statistics yourself: KPIs can be effortlessly implemented within your organization

Choosing a Human Resources Information System (HRIS) for your company will allow you to set up the indicators immediately. The calculations will start as soon as they are implemented and evolve over a period of time. In addition, our HRIS offers a dashboard that provides a global view of your performance indicators, all in a few clicks. We can only recommend that you choose HR Software like Folks to benefit from the many advantages of KPIs!

Afterwards, it will be up to you to use the statistics obtained to establish or optimize your HR plans and define strategic goals to improve your business strategy. Furthermore, using these indicators over the long term will allow you to measure the effectiveness of HR actions over a reference period and to continually improve your key business objectives accordingly.

It’s as simple – and as convenient – as that!

Which Key HR Metrics Are Essential for Efficient HR Management?

We have gathered the most critical employee performance indicators that you need to use daily. These core performance indicators reveal issues that have a profound impact on the running of a business and address various concerns such as employee retention, workplace and workforce safety, recruitment KPIs, and much more.

1) Employee Turnover Rate

The staff turnover rate corresponds to the number of employee departures in relation to the total number of employees in the company over a specific period. 

It is a critical metric that allows you to identify the reasons for employee departures and identify voluntary departures. They indicate more precisely the reasons for employee departures in a dedicated module. Therefore, all these indicators are crucial to identifying problems related to the loss of workers in your company and acting strategically to stem the tide of departures

To go even further in this analysis, we can also identify skilled employees (who have more strategic positions in the organization and are more difficult to replace) and their voluntary turnover rate. Since the departure of experienced employees is extremely costly and time-consuming for your company, this KPI will quickly become the pillar of your HR performance optimization plan.

Therefore, the voluntary turnover rate is an essential performance indicator to improve your business model, especially in the current context of the labor shortage in Canada.

2) Absenteeism Rate

If you perceive situations of absenteeism in your company, this indicator is made for you. Indeed, it will support your impressions with clear statistics so that you can make the best decisions to solve these problems. In addition, it is an excellent indicator to quickly obtain data on days of absence and frequency of absences per employee.

Even if you don’t think you have a high absenteeism level in your organization, this performance indicator will offer you, in addition to a statistical value, a clear vision of the reasons given by employees to justify their absences. Absenteeism is always a consequence of other problems that will be easier to solve later on.

This KPI will lead you to work on other notions strategically, but in the meantime, you will have saved time in identifying the specific issues and employees involved.

3) Workplace Accidents

This KPI is useful in the construction and manufacturing industries. It makes it easy to track work-related accidents and store information related to their severity and the days of absence they cause.

Workplace accidents are a source of loss for the company and can indicate material or safety concerns in the workplace. If they are frequent, they will be detrimental to employees and the organization. Some KPIs can even tell you the frequency rate of these accidents to identify the seriousness of the situation. Once again, this KPI will significantly help you save time in strategic human resources management by centralizing HR data to draw valuable statistics for you.

4) Retention Rate

The retention rate corresponds to the percentage of employees who remain employed over a specific time and is currently a hot topic in HR. Labor shortages and the cost of losing qualified employees make this KPI essential to efficient human resources management.

Retention rates encompass the ability to retain employees over the long term and the success of an organization’s recruitment process. It also allows you to track your ability to retain new employees and determine whether your company attracts newcomers. Using this KPI can lead you to rethink your onboarding processes for new hires and your talent management and recruitment strategy. In a world where good employees are hard to find and even harder to keep, it is crucial to know the retention rate statistics in your company.

Do you perceive talent retention issues in your organization? Do you want to measure employee satisfaction and improve employee engagement? The perfect solution would be to use employee engagement surveys to motivate your teams.

5) Demographics

Demographics aren’t strategic metrics per say, but they give you a clear picture of who your current employees are and what categories they fall into (job categories, diversity rate, for example). The purpose here is not to categorize your employees and their personal data for no apparent reason, but to access information that is essential for business intelligence.

It will be a useful indicator to complete annual insurance reports, government reports, etc. Demographic data can also help you make decisions about your organizational strategy. Although it is not a management indicator, it will help you weigh some of your company goals.

Key HR metrics are valuable tools for optimizing your company culture and employee productivity. These indicators are becoming increasingly important in company performance and are bound to diversify and spread in the future.

No need to be a maths fan: everything is simplified to offer you precise and reliable statistics. In addition to saving time, you will undoubtedly reach your business goals!

So, what are you waiting for to try it out?

Do you want to discover the impact of human resources KPIs on your organizational strategy?

Reach your business goals with Folks HR!

Request a free demo

Related articles

How to Convince Your Boss You Need an HRIS

It’s not always easy to convince your management to invest in HR technology to achieve your business goals…

Read more
How an HR Software Helped an SMB Save $175,000 in One Year

We often hear about HR technologies and the value they bring to the organizations that use them, but what about the facts? This case study, conducted by an external human resources consultant, highlights the various positive impacts…

Read more
30+ Employee Retention Statistics You Need to Know

Considering the costs of recruiting and onboarding processes and the loss of skills and expertise associated with high turnover rates, it is crucial to focus on engagement strategies – and on key statistics that showcase the state of retention in companies. Here is everything you need to know about employee retention, and tips to increase retention rates in your organization.

Read more
What’s an HRIS: Definition and Top Features
In recent years, Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) have been at the forefront of HR discussions and are taking on an increasingly important role in companies’ human resources management. But more concretely, what is an HRIS software solution? What are its key features, and above all, how can it help you reach your organizational goals?
Read more
Performance Review Tips for Managers: Dos and Don’ts

There is so much to be said when it comes to annual or quarterly performance reviews. The truth? It is the little things you do for your employee year-round to monitor their progress…

Read more
Human Resources Today