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What is an HR Dashboard & HR Report? Examples, Visuals and a How-To

The Human Resource dashboard and human resources report is an integral part of managing HR. Both tools are
important for making informed decisions in HR. Why? Because it is hard to do so when HR business partners and
other stakeholders lack insight into their own organization. Never fear, HR reporting can solve this! How? Well,
that’s what this article is all about. We will outline the value of the HR dashboard.

We’ll explore the advantages of a human resources report as well as the data and metrics which could be included.
We’ll also include an interactive report and a few HR dashboard templates to provide you with some practical
insights on how to get started.

3 functions of an HR report

Reporting on the workforce is one of HR’s essential tasks. When done right, it offers three key benefits for both HR
and management:

 HR Monitoring. Regular reporting enables HR to keep a finger on the pulse of the organizations by tracking
key workforce metrics. New trends and opportunities can be spotted early on and emerging problems can
be addressed before they significantly impact the business.
 Management information. A human resources report can also help managers in doing their job better. An
HR report can inform managers about relevant developments in their teams and department. When, for
example, the marketing department struggles with high turnover and a high time-to-hire, managers will be
more likely to put emphasis on retaining employees and will be aware of risks like longer replacement
times when someone is about to leave.
 Track problem areas. HR reporting also offers a great way to track key problem areas in a transparent way.
Transparency in turnover rates per manager will encourage them to pay closer attention to retaining
employees because their own reputation is on the line! By tracking problem areas, HR can leverage its
position to drive improvements.

How to create a Human Resource report

An HR dashboard is the most efficient way to monitor, manage, track, and report on data. Using this business
intelligence tool enables you to track, analyze and report on HR KPIs (key performance indicators).

Before you start to create your HR report, there are a few considerations to be made about the ‘how’ and ‘when’.

a. Automated vs. manual: A lot of organizations still work with ad-hoc data reports. For example, when a
manager or director wants to know something about the organization’s workforce, they ask HR to send
them a report. After this request, the HR data department will work overtime to produce this report. This is
an example of (inefficient and) reactive reporting. HR reports should be deployed (pro) actively and should,
therefore, be automated. An HR report can be automated, if certain software is used to create it – such as
Excel, Gusto or BambooHR. There are many software options on the market – these are some of the best
HR dashboards.
b. Static vs. dashboard: In line with the previous point, there’s still a considerable number of organizations
that work with manual/paper reports. This isn’t necessarily bad: When the information isn’t likely to
change, paper reports can be quite effective. In addition, an email containing a report might be more likely
to be seen than an infrequent update on an HR dashboard. This is simply because people won’t use
dashboards that don’t constantly add value. David Creelman explains this in his blog Why you produce HR
dashboards no one will use. An HR dashboard is the most efficient way to monitor, manage and track data.
Using this business intelligence tool, enables you to track, analyze and report on HR KPIs (key performance
indicators). It offers the possibility to drill down to the finer details. Turnover may be an interesting metric,
but how much of this turnover consists of regretted loss? You wouldn’t bat an eyelid when a bad performer
leaves, but it’s like shooting yourself in the foot when a high performer leaves. These employees are
potential senior management material. Interactive dashboards enable you to dig down deeper into your
data and make these observations. You can give all HR staff access to this dashboard or provide the
 relevant access or data for the relevant personnel. While the previous dashboards offer simple drill-downs,
more advanced dashboards enable you to predict the future through machine learning algorithms. This
gives insights into how employees will behave, for example, which employees are at risk of quitting. This
information could potentially be of great strategic value. Note: in this case, the dashboard is merely the
means of displaying the information. The predictions are made using specialized analytics tools.
c. Hygiene factor: A final note before we show you an example of the HR report: HR reporting is often seen as
a hygiene factor. This means that, like hygiene, solid reporting is not appreciated. To explain this concept
better – imagine you are out for a meal in a restaurant. You are not likely to comment on a restaurant
being clean. This is what we all expect! But, if you are given dirty cutlery, or the toilets are messy – you
would (rightfully) complain. So, to relate this back to HR; reporting is not noticed much unless errors occur.
Solid reporting, like cleanliness in a restaurant, is essential in maintaining credibility. Luk Smeyer, founder
of iNostix, wrote this about HR reporting a few years ago. We think it captures this sentiment well. Not
every organization is at the ‘highly effective and super-fast’ bit yet. However, every organization should be
extremely effective in its HR reporting.

HR reporting pitfalls

There are several pitfalls in regards to HR reporting. It’s important to address these as they will prevent you from
getting trapped in a never-ending reporting cycle.

 Automate your HR reporting: Don’t try to generate every report manually. This is highly inefficient and will
drain the capacity of your HR data department. All reports described in this article can easily be automated
and auto-generated.
 Provide relevant information: Don’t try to make everyone happy. If you can make 80% of the people happy
with 20% of the information that may well be the best solution. Making an overly complicated dashboard
and reporting on irrelevant data may lead to low engagement with the reports or dashboards and thus
lower the impact.
 Fix mistakes: HR data will have a human error! No matter how efficient your software, processes, and staff
are – there will be mistakes. When mistakes occur, fix them in the source systems. And make sure to
create procedures that are dynamic in the input of data.

Metrics in an HR report

There are several important metrics that need to be included in a human resources report. Note that most of them
are high-level metrics as they provide an organizational overview. We’ve published multiple lists of HR Metrics,
including recruitment metrics and performance metrics on this platform. These can be used for specialized
dashboards. The most common HR metrics that are being reported on, include:

 Seniority
 Gender: A common distinction for drilling into diversity data (see the example HR dashboard below)
 Age: Age is becoming increasingly important in today’s multigenerational workforce. Age is important for
strategic workplace planning and succession planning. It is also often a key focus point for organizations
that want to innovate and reorganize.
 Education level: Educational level should only be included when available and when relevant for the
overarching goals of the organization. Otherwise, it runs the risk of being a ‘vanity metric’ in the HR report.
 Function type: A metric like function type or function clusters might help to distinguish different groups
within the company. An example could be top management, middle management, production personnel,
and support staff.
 FTE: A Full-Time Equivalent is the hours worked by one employee on a full-time basis. The number of FTE is
often lower than the number of total employees. This holds especially true if there are a lot of part-time
workers present in the organization. FTE provides an accurate measure of the total workload in the
organization. In addition, people who work less than 1 FTE can be considered part-time workers.
 Employees Active: This metrics represents the number of employees working at the organization.
  Turnover: This metric represents the number and/or percentage of employees who left in the previous
period. Read here how to calculate employee turnover.
 New hires: This metric represents the number and/or percentage of new employees who joined the
organization within the last year.
 Absence/Absenteeism rate: This metric represents the percentage of time that employees were absent in
the previous period on average. Another representation of this number is the total days of absence per
employee.
 Cost of absence: This metric is not a standard metric but it can make the previously mentioned absence
rate more tangible by attaching it to a financial number.
 Cost of labor: Labor cost is the total amount of money that an organization pays to its workforce. This
number includes employee benefits and payroll taxes. The cost of labor can be split up into direct or
indirect costs. Direct costs are the labor costs associated with people who contribute to the primary
process (an assembly line worker). Indirect costs cannot be traced to a specific level of production (a
security person guarding the factory).
 Training cost: Training cost represents the total amount that a company spends on training new hires and
the existing workforce.
 Recruitment cost: The total cost of recruitment efforts. Typically, it includes the costs of external agencies,
job advertisements, and, sometimes, lost productivity. There is much more to the cost of recruitment.
Examples include the cost of management time in selection and training, and attrition – how long an
employee stays in post.
 Time to fill: We’ve already touched upon time to fill. It’s the number of days between a position opening up
and a candidate accepting that position. This metric will vary significantly between job types: software
developers, big data analysts, and highly qualified salespeople are much harder to find than entry-level
marketers for example.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Other metrics that can be included are:

HR dashboard and HR report templates

To illustrate exactly what we mean, here’s a number of examples of HR reporting in action.

HR Top Dashboard

HR Dashboard: Sickness & Absence

HR Dashboard: Talent 9 Box Grid

HR Dashboard: Diversity
Personnel flow matrix

Simply capturing the number of people who join the organization and who leave the organization is often
insufficient as it doesn’t provide you with the full picture. A solution could be a personnel flow matrix. Such a
matrix offers a great way of representing how many people joined, were promoted and left the company, and also
how these numbers stack up.

This somewhat complex-looking table is a perfect example of a personnel flow matrix. The rows represent the four
personnel categories (A, B, C, and D) and the changes between 2018 and 2019. For example, during the year 2018,
10 people went from a middle management position to a top management position.

The total employees on 1-1-2019 are displayed in the bottom row, while the total employees on 1-1-2018 are
displayed in the rightmost column. The total turnover of 2018 is represented in the turnover column, and the
promotions/demotions are represented in the matrix.

This overview helps to visualize organizational growth, turnover (this organization has low turnover in its
production staff department, but all other departments struggle with turnover levels of well over 10%). It also
visualizes its personnel development (note the 10% increase in top management, from 45 in 2018 to 50 in 2019).

On one hand, a table like this provides a great overview, on the other hand, it helps to identify some key
organizational problem areas.

General HRIS dashboard

This HRIS the report we’re most proud of. It’s part of our People Analytics Certificate Program in which our students
learn how to create this exact report by connecting multiple datasets using Power BI. As you can see for yourself,
the report is fully interactive!

Another great example is the Valuing Your Talent initiative, from the Copyright Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development (CIPD).

CIPD – a professional association for HRM – provides some great resources, including a case study on Capgemini.
This case study was developed with Capgemini’s own people analytics team. The report contains some excellent
examples of HR dashboards (all data is, of course, fictitious).

If you want to learn how to work with data and Excel & PowerBI to create this report, check out the HR analyst
course page.

A final word
HR reporting and HR dashboards are often a stepping stone for organizations that want to move towards HR
analytics – and that’s why this subject is so important. Depending on the company that you work for, different data
will be relevant. Good luck with creating your HR report!

FAQ

What is an HR dashboard?

An HR dashboard is a dynamic overview of the most important HR metrics in one place. The HR dashboard provides
a slice-and-dice overview of the workforce, their performance, absence, and turnover. It is key for strategic
decision-making in HR.

How to make an HR dashboard in Excel?

It is fairly easy to make a basic HR dashboard in Excel. Create a Table (‘Insert’, ‘Table’) with the relevant HR data.
Open a new worksheet and add slicers (‘Insert’, ‘Slicer’) for the HR metrics you want in your dashboard. Arrange
the slicers to create your dashboard.