The HR Metrics Library
45 metrics with the formula, a worked example, what good looks like, and the mistakes that make each one misleading. No sign-up, no gate — built for people teams who have to defend a number in front of a finance director.
Workforce & Retention
Headcount, turnover, tenure and cost metrics that tell you whether your organisation is holding on to the people it depends on.
Employee Turnover Rate
Also called Turnover Rate, Staff Turnover
Employee turnover rate is the percentage of employees who leave an organisation over a set period, divided by the average headcount for that period. It is the headline retention metric most HR teams report to their board, and it covers both voluntary resignations and involuntary exits.
Formula & benchmarkVoluntary Turnover Rate
Also called Voluntary Attrition, Resignation Rate
Voluntary turnover rate is the percentage of employees who choose to leave — resignations and retirements — as a share of average headcount. Isolating it from involuntary exits is what turns a turnover number into a retention signal, because only voluntary departures reflect decisions your organisation could have influenced.
Formula & benchmarkRegretted Attrition Rate
Also called Regrettable Attrition, Regretted Turnover
Regretted attrition rate is the share of departures the organisation would have preferred to prevent — typically strong performers, people in critical roles, and those with scarce skills. It is the retention metric that correlates most directly with business impact, because it strips out the exits that were neutral or beneficial.
Formula & benchmarkEmployee Retention Rate
Also called Staff Retention Rate
Employee retention rate is the percentage of employees who remain with the organisation across a defined period, measured against the headcount present at the start. Unlike turnover, it only counts people who were already employed at the start of the period, so new hires who join and leave within it do not distort the figure.
Formula & benchmarkNew Hire Turnover Rate
Also called First-Year Attrition, Infant Attrition, Early Turnover
New hire turnover rate is the percentage of new employees who leave within a defined early window — most often 90 days, six months or one year of joining. It is a hiring and onboarding metric rather than a retention one, because departures this early usually trace back to selection, role clarity or the first-weeks experience.
Formula & benchmarkCost of Employee Turnover
Also called Turnover Cost, Cost per Departure
Cost of turnover is the total financial impact of an employee leaving and being replaced, combining direct replacement costs with the productivity lost while the role is vacant and while the replacement ramps up. It is the number that converts a retention conversation into a budget conversation.
Formula & benchmarkAverage Employee Tenure
Also called Average Length of Service
Average employee tenure is the mean length of time current employees have been with the organisation, usually expressed in years. Read alongside turnover it shows whether your workforce is accumulating institutional knowledge or continuously resetting.
Formula & benchmarkAbsenteeism Rate
Also called Absence Rate, Unplanned Absence Rate
Absenteeism rate is the percentage of scheduled working time lost to unplanned absence. It excludes booked holiday and approved leave, isolating the unscheduled absence that disrupts coverage and often signals burnout or disengagement before turnover does.
Formula & benchmarkInternal Mobility Rate
Also called Internal Movement Rate, Internal Fill Rate
Internal mobility rate is the percentage of open roles filled by existing employees through promotion or lateral move, rather than external hire. It is one of the strongest available indicators of whether an organisation offers a visible career path — and it correlates closely with retention.
Formula & benchmarkPromotion Rate
Also called Internal Promotion Rate
Promotion rate is the percentage of employees promoted to a higher level during a period, measured against average headcount. It quantifies how much upward movement an organisation actually delivers, as distinct from how much it describes in its career framework.
Formula & benchmarkSpan of Control
Also called Management Span, Manager-to-Employee Ratio
Span of control is the average number of direct reports per manager. It is the primary structural metric for organisation design: too narrow and you are paying for management layers that slow decisions, too wide and managers cannot give their people meaningful attention.
Formula & benchmarkRevenue per Employee
Also called RPE, Revenue per FTE
Revenue per employee is total revenue divided by average headcount, expressing how much top-line output each person supports. It is the most common bridge between workforce data and financial performance, and it is the metric a CFO is most likely to already track.
Formula & benchmarkHR to Employee Ratio
Also called HR Staffing Ratio, HR Headcount Ratio
HR to employee ratio is the number of HR staff per 100 employees, measuring how much HR capacity supports the organisation. It is the standard reference point for judging whether an HR function is under-resourced, appropriately staffed, or carrying work that should be automated.
Formula & benchmarkFlight Risk Score
Also called Attrition Risk Score, Turnover Risk Model
A flight risk score is a modelled probability that a given employee will voluntarily leave within a defined horizon, usually the next six or twelve months. Unlike turnover rate, which reports what already happened, it is a forward-looking estimate built from tenure, engagement, compensation position, manager history and internal movement data.
Formula & benchmarkCompa-Ratio
Also called Compensation Ratio, Salary Comparison Ratio
Compa-ratio compares an employee's actual pay against the midpoint of their salary band, expressed as a decimal or percentage. A ratio of 1.0 means the person is paid exactly at midpoint; below 1.0 means below midpoint, above means beyond it.
Formula & benchmarkGender Pay Gap
Also called Pay Gap, Gender Wage Gap
The gender pay gap is the difference between average pay for men and women across an organisation, expressed as a percentage of men's pay. It is a measure of workforce composition and progression, and is distinct from equal pay, which concerns whether people are paid differently for the same work.
Formula & benchmarkWorkforce Diversity Ratio
Also called Representation Rate, Diversity Representation
Workforce diversity ratio is the share of employees belonging to a given demographic group, reported by level and function rather than as a single company figure. Reported by level, it shows where representation is lost as seniority increases — which a company-wide percentage cannot.
Formula & benchmarkBench Strength
Also called Succession Coverage, Successor Readiness
Bench strength measures how many ready or near-ready internal successors exist for critical roles. It answers a specific question: if the people in your most important positions left tomorrow, could you fill those roles from inside, and how quickly?
Formula & benchmarkEngagement & Experience
Survey-derived measures of how people feel about the work, the manager and the organisation — and whether that is trending the right way.
Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
Also called eNPS, Employee NPS
Employee Net Promoter Score is a single-question measure of advocacy: how likely employees are, on a 0–10 scale, to recommend the organisation as a place to work. The score is the percentage of promoters (9–10) minus the percentage of detractors (0–6), producing a number between −100 and +100.
Formula & benchmarkEmployee Engagement Score
Also called Engagement Index, Engagement Rate
An employee engagement score is a composite index built from several survey items covering commitment, discretionary effort and intent to stay. Unlike eNPS it is designed to be diagnostic, so the sub-scores that make it up matter as much as the headline figure.
Formula & benchmarkSurvey Participation Rate
Also called Response Rate, Survey Completion Rate
Survey participation rate is the percentage of invited employees who complete a survey. It determines whether every other number from that survey can be trusted, because a low response rate skews results toward whichever group was most motivated to answer.
Formula & benchmarkEmployee Satisfaction Index (ESI)
Also called ESI, Employee Satisfaction Score
The Employee Satisfaction Index is a composite score, usually built from three questions covering satisfaction with the workplace, how well it meets expectations, and how close it is to the respondent's ideal. It measures contentment with conditions, which is related to but distinct from engagement.
Formula & benchmarkManager Effectiveness Score
Also called Manager Quality Index, Leadership Effectiveness Score
Manager effectiveness score is a composite of survey items rating a manager on the behaviours that most affect their team — clarity, feedback, support for development, fairness and recognition. It is reported at team level and is consistently among the strongest predictors of both engagement and voluntary turnover.
Formula & benchmarkPsychological Safety Index
Also called Team Psychological Safety, Safety Climate Score
A psychological safety index measures whether people believe they can raise problems, admit mistakes and disagree without penalty. It is measured at team level rather than individually, because psychological safety is a property of a group's norms rather than of any one person.
Formula & benchmarkEmployee Well-being Index
Also called Wellbeing Score, Burnout Risk Index
An employee well-being index combines survey items on workload sustainability, energy, stress and work-life boundaries into a single measure of how well people are coping. Read alongside absenteeism and engagement, it is the earliest reliable indicator of burnout risk in a team.
Formula & benchmarkExit Survey Completion Rate
Also called Exit Interview Participation Rate
Exit survey completion rate is the percentage of departing employees who complete an exit survey or interview. It determines whether your exit data represents the people who left or only the ones who felt safe saying why.
Formula & benchmarkLearning & Skills
Metrics that connect training investment to capability, so L&D spend can be defended in terms of outcomes rather than attendance.
Training ROI
Also called Learning ROI, L&D Return on Investment
Training ROI expresses the financial return of a learning programme as a percentage of its cost, calculated as net benefit divided by total cost. It is the metric that moves an L&D conversation from attendance and satisfaction to business outcome.
Formula & benchmarkTraining Completion Rate
Also called Course Completion Rate, Learning Completion Rate
Training completion rate is the percentage of enrolled learners who finish a course or programme. It is the most basic L&D delivery metric, useful for compliance assurance and for spotting content that people abandon — but it says nothing about whether anything was learned.
Formula & benchmarkKnowledge Retention Rate
Also called Learning Retention, Post-Training Assessment Score
Knowledge retention rate measures how much of what was taught remains after a delay, assessed by re-testing learners weeks or months after a programme. It is the metric that separates training that changed capability from training that was merely completed.
Formula & benchmarkSkills Gap Score
Also called Skills Gap Analysis, Capability Gap Index
A skills gap score quantifies the distance between the capability an organisation currently has and the capability its roles require, usually as an average gap across a defined skills framework. It converts a qualitative capability conversation into something plannable.
Formula & benchmarkLearning Hours per Employee
Also called Training Hours per Employee, L&D Hours per FTE
Learning hours per employee is the total hours of training delivered divided by headcount, over a defined period. It is a volume measure of L&D investment — useful for tracking commitment over time, but easily mistaken for a measure of learning effectiveness.
Formula & benchmarkCost per Learner
Also called Training Cost per Employee, Cost per Participant
Cost per learner is the total cost of a learning programme divided by the number of participants who completed it. It is the primary efficiency measure for L&D delivery and the basis for comparing formats against each other.
Formula & benchmarkTime to Productivity
Also called Ramp Time, Time to Full Productivity, Time to Competence
Time to productivity is how long a new hire takes to reach the expected performance level for their role, measured from start date. It connects hiring, onboarding and learning to a single business-relevant outcome, and it is the largest hidden component of turnover cost.
Formula & benchmarkCertification Attainment Rate
Also called Credential Attainment, Qualification Rate
Certification attainment rate is the percentage of employees holding a required or targeted credential within a defined population. In regulated sectors it is a compliance measure; elsewhere it is a proxy for verified capability rather than self-reported skill.
Formula & benchmarkTalent Acquisition
Speed, cost and quality measures across the hiring funnel, from first application to first-year performance.
Time to Hire
Also called TTH
Time to hire measures the days between a candidate entering your pipeline and accepting an offer. It is a candidate-experience and process-efficiency metric, and it is distinct from time to fill, which starts when the role is approved rather than when the candidate applies.
Formula & benchmarkTime to Fill
Also called TTF, Requisition Cycle Time
Time to fill measures the days from requisition approval to the new hire's start date. Because it includes sourcing, selection, offer and notice period, it is the metric that hiring managers and workforce planners care about — it describes how long the work goes uncovered.
Formula & benchmarkCost per Hire
Also called CPH, Recruitment Cost per Hire
Cost per hire is the total internal and external recruiting spend divided by the number of hires in a period. It is the standard efficiency measure for talent acquisition and the basis for comparing sourcing channels against each other.
Formula & benchmarkQuality of Hire
Also called QoH, New Hire Quality Score
Quality of hire is a composite measure of how well new hires perform and how long they stay, typically combining early performance rating, ramp speed, retention and hiring-manager satisfaction. It is the metric that tells you whether recruiting is producing good hires rather than just fast, cheap ones.
Formula & benchmarkOffer Acceptance Rate
Also called OAR, Offer Yield
Offer acceptance rate is the percentage of extended offers that candidates accept. It is the clearest single indicator of how your compensation, employer brand and candidate experience compare against the alternatives your finalists are considering.
Formula & benchmarkCandidate Drop-off Rate
Also called Candidate Withdrawal Rate, Funnel Drop-off
Candidate drop-off rate is the percentage of candidates who withdraw from the hiring process before reaching a decision, measured overall and at each stage. It is the most direct quantitative measure of candidate experience available.
Formula & benchmarkRecruitment Funnel Conversion Rate
Also called Pipeline Conversion Rate, Stage Conversion Rate
Recruitment funnel conversion rate is the percentage of candidates progressing from one hiring stage to the next. Read stage by stage it shows exactly where your pipeline narrows, which is what turns a general 'we need more candidates' instinct into a specific fix.
Formula & benchmarkApplicants per Opening
Also called Applications per Requisition, Applicant Volume
Applicants per opening is the average number of applications received per open role. It is a top-of-funnel volume measure, and it is only meaningful when read against how many of those applicants were actually qualified.
Formula & benchmarkInterview to Offer Ratio
Also called Interviews per Hire, Interview Efficiency
Interview to offer ratio is the number of candidates interviewed for each offer extended. It measures selection efficiency — how well earlier stages are filtering — and it directly determines how much interviewer time each hire consumes.
Formula & benchmarkSource of Hire
Also called Hiring Source Mix, Channel Effectiveness
Source of hire records which channel produced each hire — job board, referral, agency, direct sourcing, careers site or internal move — usually reported as a percentage mix. It is the basis for every recruiting budget decision, and it is most useful when combined with cost and retention data per channel.
Formula & benchmarkCandidate Net Promoter Score (cNPS)
Also called cNPS, Candidate NPS
Candidate Net Promoter Score measures how likely candidates are to recommend your hiring process to others, on the same 0–10 promoter-minus-detractor scale as eNPS. Surveying rejected candidates as well as hires is what makes it a genuine experience measure rather than a satisfaction survey of people who got the job.
Formula & benchmarkCommon questions
What are the most important HR metrics to track?
Start with four: voluntary turnover rate, engagement score, time to hire and training ROI. Between them they cover retention, experience, hiring efficiency and development return. Add regretted attrition and quality of hire as soon as you can define them, because those two tell you whether the first four are measuring the right things.
How many HR metrics should a people team report on?
Fewer than most teams do. A reporting set of eight to twelve metrics, reviewed monthly and segmented by team, produces more action than a forty-metric dashboard reviewed quarterly. Metrics that nobody has ever changed a decision over should be retired.
What is the difference between HR metrics and people analytics?
HR metrics describe what happened — turnover was 16%, time to hire was 32 days. People analytics explains why and predicts what happens next, by combining those measures with other data to test relationships. Metrics are the inputs; analytics is what you do with them.
How often should HR metrics be reviewed?
Calculate monthly, report on a rolling twelve-month basis, and review with business leaders quarterly. Monthly calculation gives you a trend early enough to act on; the rolling annual view stops you reacting to seasonal noise.
Stop calculating these by hand
PeoplePilot Analytics tracks every metric in this library from your existing HR data — segmented by team, manager and tenure, updated continuously.