Employee wellness metrics are the measurable signals HR teams use to track workforce health and program effectiveness. This guide uses the term “employee wellness metrics” to mean both subjective measures (pulse and validated wellbeing scales) and objective behavioural signals (attendance, payroll, claims) so readers have a practical, operational definition from the start.
What employee wellness metrics can — and cannot — show:
- They can identify trends, flag atrisk teams, and quantify direct costs like sick days and claims.
- They cannot on their own prove causation between an intervention and outcomes without controlled pilots and careful segmentation.
Combining subjective and objective signals produces a higherconfidence picture: guidance on integrating these data sources appears in OECD recommendations for measuring wellbeing. See the OECD guidance on mixing subjective surveys with behavioural data for better validity (OECD via NCBI, 2013).
Top outcomes stakeholders care about:
- Reduced absenteeism and presenteeism — fewer lost productive hours.
- Lower healthcare spend and faster access to care.
- Higher engagement and retention.
What this guide covers:
- Practical metrics, formulas (including absenteeism rate and an operational absenteeism cost approach), dashboards, and pilot designs.
- How to operationalise measurement using an HRIS platform (MiHCM) and people analytics (MiHCM Data & AI).
How to use this guide (quick action checklist):
- Read the TL;DR roadmap (next section) and adopt the 90day checklist.
- Use the examples and templates here to build your first dashboard and pilot.
- Prioritise privacy: aggregate and anonymise before reporting to managers.
Highestimpact metrics to track:
- Absenteeism rate (team, role, month).
- Presenteeism proxy (short selfreport + output/hour).
- Program uptake (EAP, coaching, telehealth).
- Pulse satisfaction & a short validated wellbeing scale.
- Healthcare cost per employee and timetoservice for mental health.
Top three actions for the first 90 days:
- Ensure clean attendance & payroll data (standardise IDs, FTE conversion, exclude approved leave).
- Launch a 3question weekly pulse (mood, capacity, urgent needs) via MiA.
- Build an absenteeism cost calculator in MiHCM Data & AI and map owners for each metric.
90day action checklist: Data, Measure, Act
- Data: validate HRIS time & attendance and payroll feeds.
- Measure: run weekly pulse and start monthly absenteeism reports.
- Act: pick one highabsence team for a 3month pilot (coaching + workload review).
Product fit (one sentence): Use MiHCM for attendance, payroll and pulse; MiHCM Data & AI to build dashboards and predict highrisk teams.
What are employee wellness metrics?
Employee wellness metrics span multiple domains and signal types. Treat metrics as indicators that require context — domain, role, seasonality, and demographics all shape interpretation.
Domains of wellbeing and measurable signals:
- Physical: sick days, occupational health referrals, claims for musculoskeletal or chronic conditions.
- Mental/emotional: validated wellbeing scores (WHO5), pulse mood, selfreported stress.
- Social: peer NPS, inclusion indices, team collaboration signals (meeting overload).
- Financial: financialwellbeing survey items, benefit uptake for financial counselling.
- Career: internal mobility rates, learning uptake, manager feedback.
The WHO5 is a short validated wellbeing scale commonly used in workplace measurement; it performs well as a screening and outcome tool (WHO, 2024 and literature review (Topp et al., 2015)).
Leading vs lagging indicators — what to prioritise first:
- Leading indicators: pulse scores, net mood, manager observations, sudden rise in overtime — useful for early intervention.
- Lagging indicators: sick days, medical claims, turnover — confirm impact but change more slowly.
Start with weekly pulses (short) and quarterly deep surveys (validated scales). The OECD and healthsystem practices show that frequent short surveys supplement annual measures to capture change over time (OECD, 2024).
Programlevel vs populationlevel metrics:
- Programlevel: utilisation rate, satisfaction, timetoservice — used to optimise offerings.
- Populationlevel: absenteeism rate, healthcare spend, turnover — used to assess organisational health and ROI.
Measurement cadence & sample sizes:
- Weekly pulse (3 items) for populationlevel trends if response rates stay ≥30% per cohort.
- Quarterly validated scale for deeper measurement and to track reliable change.
Why measure employee wellness?
Wellbeing metrics translate employee experience into business KPIs. Framing measurement in business terms helps secure stakeholder buyin.
From wellbeing signals to business decisions:
- Absenteeism & presenteeism map directly to lost productive hours and output; presenteeism in particular has been found to impose sizeable hidden costs on employers (HBR, 2004).
- Turnover driven by burnout raises hiring and ramp costs; tracking tenure cohorts helps quantify retention gains from wellbeing programs.
- Healthcare spend and claims inform benefit design and vendor negotiations.
How measurement builds accountability:
- Shared metrics create ownership: managers get weekly flags; HR gets monthly trends and executive briefings.
- Measurement enables targeted interventions — for example, targeted mentalhealth access for teams with rising moderate/severe symptom rates.
Handling common stakeholder objections
- Privacy: commit to aggregation, anonymisation, minimum cohort sizes and clear communications before launch.
- “Can’t quantify wellbeing”: use a balanced set of indicators (absenteeism, pulse, program uptake, presenteeism proxy) and run a pilot with control groups where possible.
- ROI timelines: set realistic expectations — behavior change and cost offsets often emerge in 6–18 months depending on program intensity.
Key employee wellness metrics to track
This is the practitioner checklist for an essential wellbeing dashboard. Each metric includes a short rationale and recommended owner.
| Metric | Calculation / Proxy | Cadence | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Absenteeism rate | (Total days absent ÷ (Employees × workdays)) × 100 | Monthly | HR Analytics |
| Presenteeism proxy | Self-reported reduced productivity % × salary | Weekly (pulse) + monthly review | People Ops |
| Program utilisation | % of eligible employees using service | Monthly | Benefits |
| Validated wellbeing score (e.g., WHO-5) | Average score & % moderate–severe | Quarterly | Wellbeing Lead |
| Healthcare cost per employee | Total claims ÷ active employees | Quarterly | Finance / Benefits |
| Time-to-service (mental health) | Average days from request to first appointment | Monthly | Benefits Vendor Manager |
Realtime flags and managerlevel actions:
- Realtime mood drops + overtime spike → manager alert for checkin.
- Rising team absenteeism → workload review and targeted coaching.
Evidence supports tracking both absenteeism and presenteeism because together they capture the largest measurable costs of poor wellbeing (HBR, 2004 and academic cost estimates (Journal study)).
Which metrics to put on an executive vs. manager dashboard:
- Executive: topline wellbeing index, absenteeism & healthcare spend trends, ROI estimates.
- Manager: team pulse, absenteeism by person, utilisation of local services, next steps checklist.
Absenteeism: rate, trends and the absenteeism cost formula
Standard absenteeism rate calculation:
Absenteeism rate = (Total days absent ÷ (Number of employees × work days in period)) × 100 — a commonly used HR formula (SHRM, 2023).
Worked example (operational):
- Company size: 250 employees
- Work days per year (per FTE): 240
- Total expected workdays = 250 × 240 = 60,000
- Observed total days absent in period = 1,250
- Absenteeism rate = (1,250 ÷ 60,000) × 100 = 2.08%
Absenteeism cost — practitioner’s operational approach: HR teams commonly estimate direct absenteeism cost with a practical formula that captures lost revenue and salary burden. One operational approach:
Absenteeism cost ≈ (Average revenue per employee × Average sick days) + (Average salary × Average sick days)
Worked example:
- Average revenue per employee = $200,000
- Average salary = $60,000
- Average sick days = 5
- Cost ≈ ($200,000 × 5/240) + ($60,000 × 5/240) ≈ $4,167 + $1,250 = $5,417 per employee per year (approx.)
Note: costing methods vary; there is no single universally accepted industry standard. Use this operational formula for orderofmagnitude estimates and sensitivity testing, and triangulate with payroll and finance data before reporting.
Segmentation & best practices:
- Segment by cause (sick, caring, mentalhealth) to target interventions.
- Normalise for seasonality and adjust for parttime FTEs.
- Data checks: clean payroll, exclude approved leave, ensure consistent employee IDs.
Presenteeism: what it is, why it’s costly, and how to measure it
Presenteeism occurs when employees are present at work but operating below capacity. Unlike absenteeism, its costs are hidden in lower output, more errors, and reduced quality.
How to measure presenteeism:
- Short selfreport in pulse surveys (example items below).
- Managerobserved productivity dips and quality metrics (error rates, missed SLAs).
- Objective proxies: output per hour, completion rates, and mismatch between hours worked and deliverables.
Three short pulse questions (practical template):
- On a scale 0–10, how would you rate your ability to get your core work done this week?
- Did health or stress reduce your productivity this week? (Yes/No)
- If yes, estimate % reduction in your typical output.
Estimate cost: multiply reported average productivity loss % × affected employees’ salary cost for the period. Studies find presenteeism costs can exceed absenteeism for many conditions (HBR, 2004 and subsequent research (Journal study)).
Limitations & triangulation: Selfreports can be biased; triangulate with performance metrics and HRIS signals (overtime spikes, sudden drop in output). Recommended interventions that reduce presenteeism include mentalhealth access, workload rebalancing, and manager training on flexible practices.
Benchmarks, targets and calculating ROI for wellness programs
Where to find benchmarks:
- Industry associations (e.g., sector HR bodies) and internal historical baselines are primary sources.
- Published studies give ranges — use them cautiously and adjust for industry and country differences.
Setting targets:
- Short term (3–6 months): ramp program uptake (e.g., +15% utilisation).
- Mid term (6–12 months): measurable change in leading indicators (pulse average +X points).
- Long term (12–18 months): 8–12% reduction in absenteeism or comparable healthcare spend decreases depending on baseline.
ROI vs VOI: ROI captures direct financial return (reduced sick days, lower claims). VOI (value of investment) includes retention, engagement, and talent attraction benefits that are harder to monetise. Use both: present direct ROI for finance, and VOI for executive decision making.
Sample ROI calculation (illustrative):
- Baseline absenteeism cost per year = $500,000
- Program investment (annual) = $150,000
- Estimated absenteeism reduction = 10% → savings = $50,000
- Estimated reduced presenteeism & turnover (conservative monetised) = $80,000
- Total quantified benefit = $130,000 → nearterm ROI ≈ −13%; include VOI estimates for full picture and run a 12month pilot to validate.
Pilot & A/B designs:
- Run pilots with matched control groups, pre/post measurement, and ensure sufficient cohort sizes to detect change.
- Use A/B testing on communications or nudges to improve uptake before scaling.
Collecting reliable data
Priority data sources and what they contribute:
- Time & attendance: primary source for sick days and patterns.
- Payroll: salary, FTE conversion, contractor status for cost calculations.
- Benefits claims: cost, diagnosis buckets (where legally permitted and deidentified).
- Surveys: subjective wellbeing and program satisfaction.
- Performance systems: output, quality, error rates for presenteeism proxies.
Data quality checklist:
- Consistent employee identifiers across systems.
- Correct FTE and parttime normalisation.
- Timezone and shift normalisation for global teams.
- Rules to exclude approved leave (vacation, parental leave) from absenteeism.
Privacy & ethics:
- Aggregate and anonymise before reporting — minimum cohort sizes (e.g., n≥10) and teamlevel aggregation help limit reidentification risk.
- Communicate purpose, data uses and retention policies to employees; obtain legal review for local data laws.
- Limit access via rolebased controls and audit trails.
Practical data pipeline:
- Extract: scheduled pulls from HRIS, payroll, and benefits vendors.
- Transform: normalise IDs, map event types, compute FTE adjusted exposures.
- Load: push cleansed datasets into MiHCM Data & AI and maintain an audit log for changes.
Follow OECD guidance on combining subjective and objective measures to strengthen validity when reporting organisational wellbeing (OECD via NCBI).
Using MiHCM and people analytics to measure and predict wellness
MiHCM captures the core behavioural signals — mobile attendance, leave requests, payroll entries, timesheets and pulse inputs via MiA — and feeds them into MiHCM Data & AI for analysis.
How MiHCM turns signals into insight:
- Composite wellbeing scores: merge pulse responses, attendance patterns and overtime into a normalised index for teams.
- Risk flags: models that combine declines in pulse scores + overtime spikes + recent leave to surface atrisk employees or teams.
- Absenteeism prediction: timeseries models that forecast absenteeism months ahead to inform resource planning.
Predictive use cases:
- Earlywarning alerts for rising absenteeism in a team — automated manager notifications with suggested next steps.
- Atrisk employee scoring — case creation for HR with recommended interventions (coaching, benefits nudges).
- Forecasting capacity impacts for planning and hiring pipelines.
Operational workflows & automations:
- Automated campaigns: targeted communications to employees who haven’t used benefits (nudges + navigation sessions).
- SLA tracking: measure timetoservice for counselling and escalate when SLAs are breached.
- Manager playbooks: SmartAssist templates that suggest checkin scripts and referral options when flags appear.
Implementation tips:
- Start with a small pilot group and validate composite risk scores with HR clinicians.
- Iterate thresholds to balance sensitivity and false positives.
- Use dashboard widgets for managers (team pulse) and executives (ROI & trend briefs).
Product features that support these workflows include Employee Wellbeing Monitoring (realtime mood & pulse signals), Attendance & Time Management, MiHCM Data & AI dashboards, MiA pulse surveys, and SmartAssist automations.
Action plan: dashboards, reports and sample interventions
Starter dashboard components:
- Topline wellbeing index (trend and change vs prior period).
- Absenteeism trend (team & role) with heatmap.
- Program uptake by team and utilisation funnel.
- Presenteeism proxy heatmap (selfreport vs output metrics).
- Timetoservice SLAs for mentalhealth access.
Three sample interventions tied to metrics:
- Highabsence team → workload review, temporary headcount support, manager coaching; measure 90day change in absences.
- Low program uptake → A/B test communications + benefits navigation sessions; measure uptake lift and satisfaction.
- Rising presenteeism → manager training on flexible practices and temporary reallocation of tasks; measure pulse and output in 30–60 days.
Report cadence & recipients:
- Weekly manager summaries (top 3 flags and one action recommended).
- Monthly HR analytics deep dive (segmentation & pilot results).
- Quarterly executive briefing with ROI and strategic recommendations.
Manager playbook: 5step intervention flowchart:
- Receive flag → review team dashboard.
- Private 1:1 checkin with affected employee(s).
- Agree shortterm adjustments (workload, schedule) and referral if needed.
- Document case and schedule 2week followup.
- Close case when metrics return to baseline or escalate to HR if no improvement.
Link dashboards to HR workflows (automated case creation, manager checkins, benefits referrals) to convert insight into action quickly.
