Human resource measures are quantifiable indicators that show HR performance, workforce health, and financial impact.
Measurement sits on three layers:
- Operational: day-to-day process metrics (e.g., time to hire, case resolution).
- Efficiency: resource and cost metrics (e.g., cost per employee, HR-to-employee ratio).
- Value: business impact metrics (e.g., revenue per employee, training ROI).
Why tracking matters: hiring speed directly affects time-to-productivity, turnover drives replacement cost and lost capacity, and engagement predicts retention and performance.
Practical advice: start with 8–12 core metrics aligned to strategic goals and add one predictive metric (for example, turnover risk). This guide consolidates formulas, worked examples, downloadable templates (PDF/Excel), and clear mapping to MiHCM features so teams move from measurement to action.
What we mean by human resource measures
They are repeatable calculations based on defined inputs (dates, FTE counts, cost buckets, survey responses) that produce comparable values over time and by segment.
How metrics move HR from reaction to prediction:
- Operationalise: embed formulas into live dashboards and alerts.
- Automate: reduce manual reconciliation with scheduled reports.
- Predict: layer historical trends into models that flag risk before it manifests.
Core human resource measures you can implement this week
Top 10 quick metrics to start measuring this week:
- Time to hire
- Cost per hire
- Quality of hire
- Turnover rate
- Revenue per employee
- Absenteeism rate
- Training cost per employee
- HR-to-employee ratio
- Engagement score (pulse/eNPS)
- Early turnover (first 6 months)
Two formulas to automate first (spreadsheet-ready):
- Time to hire (avg days) = AVERAGE([OfferDate] – [JobPostedDate]). See government guidance on standard measurement windows (OPM, 2020).
- Turnover rate (%) = (Number of separations ÷ Average headcount) × 100. This is a widely used benchmark formula (CEDNC, 2022).
Quick wins with MiHCM:
- Auto-populate recruitment timelines from requisition data.
- Schedule weekly turnover reports and threshold alerts.
- Build an attendance dashboard to calculate absenteeism rate automatically.
Downloadable assets mentioned later include a 1-page cheat-sheet and Excel template to copy into existing payroll or recruiting sheets before switching to MiHCM automation.
Immediate actions: what to measure in the first 30 days
- Implement Time to Hire and Turnover Rate; validate data sources.
- Start weekly attendance reporting for absenteeism.
- Set owners and cadences for each metric.
Core human resource measures and formulas
Quick formulas (spreadsheet-ready)
| Metric | Formula (spreadsheet) | Unit | Cadence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to hire | =AVERAGE(OfferDate – JobPostedDate) | Days | Weekly / Monthly |
| Cost per hire | =SUM(InternalCosts, ExternalCosts, OnboardingCosts) / NumberOfHires | Currency | Monthly / Quarterly |
| Turnover rate | =(Separations ÷ AVERAGE(BeginHeadcount, EndHeadcount)) × 100 | % | Monthly / Quarterly |
| Revenue per employee | =TotalRevenue ÷ Headcount (FTE) | Currency | Quarterly |
| Absenteeism rate | =(AbsentDays ÷ TotalWorkingDays) × 100 | % | Monthly |
| Training cost per employee | =TrainingSpend ÷ Participants (or Headcount) | Currency | Quarterly |
| HR-to-employee ratio | =HR FTEs ÷ Total Employees | Ratio | Annually / Quarterly |
| Early turnover | =(Separations ≤ 180 days ÷ Hires in period) × 100 | % | Quarterly |
| Offer acceptance rate | =(OffersAccepted ÷ OffersMade) × 100 | % | Monthly |
Units and recommended cadence: Use days for time-based metrics, currency for cost metrics, and percentages for rates. Align cadence with actionability—recruiting weekly, turnover monthly, revenue-per-employee quarterly.Worked example — Cost per hire
Inputs: External agency fees $30,000; job board & marketing $5,000; Internal recruiter salaries allocated $12,000; Interview travel $1,000; Onboarding costs (training materials + admin) $2,000. Total hires in period = 10.
Calculation: Cost per hire = (30,000 + 5,000 + 12,000 + 1,000 + 2,000) ÷ 10 = $5,000 per hire. Industry guidance on cost components aligns with this approach (NACE).
Worked example — Revenue per employee
Inputs: Annual revenue $12,000,000; average FTE headcount 120.
Calculation: Revenue per employee = 12,000,000 ÷ 120 = $100,000 per FTE. Use FTE counts for seasonally variable staff and compare by department for benchmarking (APQC, 2024).
Common pitfalls and normalisation:
- Inconsistent date ranges and mismatched headcount definitions (headcount vs FTE) distort trends.
- One-off large hires or contract conversions skew averages; use medians or trimmed means as needed.
- Adjust revenue-per-employee for seasonality by using trailing12month revenue and average headcount over the same period.
Recruitment and hiring metrics
Time-to-hire vs time-to-fill — which to track? Time-to-hire measures candidate experience and speed from job posted to accepted offer; some organisations measure time-to-fill (opening to placement). Define start and end points before reporting—government guidance provides common approaches for standardisation (OPM, 2020).
Cost per hire — full formula and allocation tips: Core components: external recruiting fees, job board and marketing costs, internal recruiter salary allocation, assessment and background checks, candidate travel, and onboarding expenses. Formula: (External costs + Internal recruiting costs + Onboarding costs) ÷ Number of hires. For methodology guidance see NACE and ISO recommendations (NACE; ISO, 2017).
Tips for allocating shared costs:
- Prorate employer branding and events by search volume or period.
- Separate one-time executive search fees from ongoing operational costs.
- Use perrequisition tags in your ATS to assign marketing spend at source level.
Quality of hire — building a composite: Combine early performance ratings, retention at 6–12 months, and hiring manager satisfaction into a composite score. Example weighting: 40% early performance, 40% retention at 12 months, 20% manager satisfaction. Score ranges standardise comparisons across roles.
Offer acceptance rate and source-of-hire: Tracking offer acceptance and source-level conversion reveals recruiting ROI by channel. Use ATS tagging to capture source automatically—MiA and Analytics in MiHCM can auto-tag sources and show channel funnels for recruiters and hiring managers.
How MiHCM helps:
- Automated requisition timelines and candidate-to-hire funnels.
- Dashboards that surface bottlenecks (stage drop-offs, long timetooffer).
- Source-tracking and scheduled reports for recruiter KPIs (time to hire, cost per hire).
Cost efficiency and ROI metrics
Calculating revenue-per-employee and benchmarking tips: Revenue per employee = Total revenue ÷ Number of employees (FTE preferred). This metric indicates average revenue contribution and varies widely by industry; benchmark internally by department or function for actionable insight (APQC, 2024).
Cost per employee: Formula: (Total payroll + Benefits + Training + Overhead) ÷ Headcount. Use this metric for budgeting and to compare real cost of employment across locations or business units. Include employer contributions and statutory costs for multi-country comparisons.
Cost of hire vs lifetime value: Tie recruiting expense to expected contribution: estimate a hire’s forecasted revenue or productivity uplift, then compute payback period = Cost of hire ÷ Annual contribution. This links recruiting spend to a financial return decision.
Example — reducing time-to-hire impact: If reducing time-to-hire by 20% shortens vacancy by 12 days and increases first-year productivity, the reduced vacancy cost and earlier revenue contribution lower effective cost-of-hire and shorten payback. Use MiHCM Analytics to model scenarios and quantify savings.
Payroll and reimbursement analytics: Use MiHCM to flag unexpected cost drivers—high travel claims, overtime spikes, or irregular reimbursements—so compensation teams can investigate root causes and control spend.
HR service delivery and efficiency metrics
Operational metrics that show HR team capacity:
- HR-to-employee ratio = HR FTEs ÷ Total employees. Use as a baseline for staffing levels—benchmarks vary by company size and complexity (CIPD, 2017).
- HR cost factor = HR operating cost ÷ Total payroll (expressed as %). Useful for centralised HR functions to measure efficiency.
- Case resolution / request turnaround = AVERAGE(ResolutionDate – RequestDate) for peopleops tickets; track SLA breaches separately.
Measure impact by correlating HR-to-employee ratio with average turnaround times and manager satisfaction. This shows whether additional HR headcount yields faster service or better outcomes.
Operationalising:
- Push case-based SLAs into MiHCM workflow builder; auto-assign and escalate queries.
- Track and alert on SLA breaches; report monthly on resolution time and satisfaction scores.
Training & development metrics
How to measure training impact without a complex model:
Start with simple, repeatable measures:
- Training cost per employee = Total training spend ÷ Headcount or ÷ Participants for programlevel clarity.
- Learning hours per employee = SUM(training hours) ÷ Headcount; track completion rates for mandatory vs elective courses.
- Program completion and assessment scores: use pre/post assessments to estimate learning lift.
Training ROI (simplified): Approximate formula: (Posttraining performance delta × Revenue impact − Training cost) ÷ Training cost. Use conservative estimates for revenue impact and validate with representative samples before scaling to full cohorts.
Skill uplift and internal mobility:
- Measure promotion rate among program graduates and time-to-competency improvements.
- Use MiHCM Data & AI to cluster outcomes and predict which programs yield the highest retention and performance lift, then reallocate training budget to highvalue programs.
Performance and productivity metrics
Select metrics aligned to how the business creates value: billable hours and utilisation for services firms; revenue-per-employee or product output per head for product companies.
High-performer ratio: Definition: percent of workforce rated above a defined performance threshold (e.g., top two quartiles). Use absolute thresholds rather than forced distributions where possible to reflect genuine improvement.
Link performance to compensation and development
- Visualise quartiles and movement over time to guide pay adjustments and development plans.
- Monitor whether high-performer ratios are stable or concentrated in specific teams.
Use case: Identify teams with high overtime and declining productivity by combining timesheets and performance ratings in Analytics; this helps isolate workload, leadership, or process issues. SmartAssist can flag teams with falling engagement and rising low-performer rates for targeted interventions
Diversity, inclusion and soft HR metrics
Soft metrics—engagement score, eNPS, pulse surveys, manager effectiveness—are leading indicators for turnover and performance. Convert survey scales into index scores and track trends by demographic groups (gender, tenure, role) to surface disparities.
Quantifying soft metrics:
- Standardise scales (e.g., 1–5) and convert to a 0–100 index to compare across surveys.
- Segment by cohort to detect statistically meaningful differences before acting on small swings.
Leadership effectiveness: Combine 360 feedback, retention of direct reports, and promotion rates into a leadership score. Use cohort comparisons and trend analysis to identify development needs.
Best practices
- Focus on cohort trends and statistical significance rather than singlesurvey fluctuations.
- Use MiHCM dashboards for diversity breakouts, schedule pulse surveys, and automate follow-up tasks via SmartAssist when scores fall below thresholds.
Examples and templates
Worked example: calculating cost per hire (step-by-step)
- Collect cost inputs: agency fees $20,000; job advertising $3,000; recruiter salary allocation $8,000; background checks $1,000; onboarding $1,500.
- Sum costs = $33,500.
- Divide by hires in period (e.g., 7) → Cost per hire = $4,785.71.
- Interpretation: compare to prior period and to source-level costs to prioritise channels.
Worked example: absenteeism rate
Inputs: Absent days = 120; Total working days across workforce = 12,000. Absenteeism rate = (120 ÷ 12,000) × 100 = 1.0%.
Implementation checklist:
- Data sources required: HRIS (hire/termination dates), payroll, ATS, LMS, time & attendance.
- Headcount normalisation rules: define FTE conversion, exclude contractors if required.
- Frequency & owner: assign a metric owner and cadence (e.g., recruiting KPIs weekly owned by Talent Acquisition lead).
Comparison — spreadsheets vs HRIS/people analytics
When a spreadsheet is fine — and when to move to MiHCM
| Scenario | Spreadsheets | MiHCM/HRIS + Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Early-stage company (<50 employees) | Low cost, flexible, manual | Optional; consider when growth makes reconciliation painful |
| Mid-market (250+ employees) | Brittle, error-prone when multiple owners | Single source of truth, scheduled reports, access controls |
| Enterprise, multi-country | High risk: compliance and scale issues | Required for automation, statutory payroll, and predictive analytics |
Decision criteria:
- Move to an HRIS when headcount exceeds ~250, reporting requests are frequent, or multiple countries require statutory compliance.
- Simple TCO example: automating three monthly reports can save dozens of personhours per month in reconciliation and distribution.
How to get started: Pilot three metrics (recruiting, turnover, attendance) in MiHCM Analytics, validate outputs against spreadsheets, then expand to a 12-metric executive dashboard. MiHCM’s HR Analytics provides visual dashboards, demographic breakdowns, and scheduled exports to support the migration.
Quick start checklist: first 30/60/180 days
- 30 days: pick 8 core metrics; validate data sources; create spreadsheet backups for initial reporting.
- 60 days: automate 3 metrics (recruiting, turnover, attendance) in MiHCM; assign owners and SLAs.
- 180 days: add predictive signals (turnover risk, absenteeism forecasts) and schedule executive PDFs.
Legal and privacy: ensure metric reports respect employee privacy and follow local data protection laws.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are core human resource measures?
How to calculate cost per hire?
Sum internal and external recruiting costs plus onboarding, divided by number of hires; methodology guidance from NACE and ISO supports this approach (NACE).
How to calculate revenue per employee?
How to calculate revenue per employee? Total revenue divided by FTE count—use trailing12 months and average headcount for seasonality adjustment (APQC, 2024).
