An executive committee rarely reads more than three HR figures a month. It skims the rest of the dashboard, or only discovers it on the day an indicator goes off track. Building a good HR dashboard is therefore not about stacking up charts: it is about choosing the right indicators, calculating them consistently, and knowing which ones to highlight depending on the period. This article presents the role of an HR dashboard, the indicators an HR manager tracks every month, the calculation pitfalls of turnover and absenteeism, how to present figures to leadership and how to showcase this skill on your CV.
What an HR dashboard is for
Three different uses
The same dashboard serves three purposes, which are best kept apart:
- steering: spotting a tension early (rising departures, absenteeism picking up, recruitments dragging on) so as to act before it becomes costly;
- reporting: informing leadership, managers and, for part of the data, employee representatives;
- deciding: basing a trade-off (training budget, new position, organisation of working time) on facts.
For whom
The content changes with the audience. A site director wants their headcount, absences and ongoing recruitments; a finance director wants payroll costs and variances against budget; a CSE works council wants the indicators required by regulations and agreements. A good dashboard has one common summary page and appendices by audience.
The link with legal obligations
Part of the HR data also feeds mandatory documents: the economic, social and environmental database made available to the CSE, gender equality indicators and, in companies of a certain size, the social report (bilan social). Building a consistent monthly dashboard makes preparing these documents much easier.
The essential indicators
Headcount
This is the basis of everything. It is tracked as a physical headcount (number of people) and in full-time equivalents, by site, type of contract, category and sex. Always state the reference date: headcount on the last day of the month is not the average headcount for the month.
Movements
Starters and leavers in the month, by reason (resignation, end of fixed-term contract, mutual termination, dismissal, retirement, transfer). Departures during the probationary period deserve a separate line: they say a lot about the quality of recruitment and onboarding.
Turnover
A rate that summarises movements over a period, often tracked as a rolling twelve-month total to smooth out seasonality.
Absenteeism
The volume of absences relative to planned working time, ideally broken down by reason (illness, workplace accident, other absences) and by department.
Payroll costs
The total cost of salaries and contributions, compared with budget, with an explanation of variances: the effect of hires, departures, pay rises, overtime. It is often the indicator the finance department cares about most, and it is built with management control. If you work closely with that function, the management controller job 🔗 will help you understand what it expects from your figures.
Recruitment
Open roles, hires made, average time to hire, roles open for a long time. Our article on recruiter metrics details these measures.
Training
Completion of the skills development plan, training hours, share of employees trained, budget used.
Health and safety
Workplace accidents, associated days off, near misses if the site tracks them. In manufacturing and logistics, these indicators are often presented first.
Calculating turnover and absenteeism without errors
Turnover: choose a definition and stick to it
There is no single formula. Dares, the French Ministry of Labour’s statistics department, uses in its work on labour movements a turnover rate equal to the average of the entry and exit rates, relative to headcount. Many companies use a simpler version, limited to departures, or even only voluntary departures. None is wrong; the mistake is to change definition from one month to the next, or to compare two sites that do not use the same one. Write the definition under the figure, every time.
Turnover pitfalls
- counting transfers between establishments as departures, when they do not leave the company;
- mixing planned ends of fixed-term contracts with unplanned departures;
- dividing by end-of-period headcount rather than average headcount.
Absenteeism: define the denominator properly
The absenteeism rate relates hours (or days) of absence to the theoretical working time of the population concerned. The most frequent errors concern the denominator: using headcount instead of theoretical time, forgetting part-time staff, counting paid leave as absence. Decide in advance which absences you include (illness, workplace accidents, unjustified absences) and which you exclude (paid leave, training, statutory family leave).
A stable method
Write a short definitions sheet: for each indicator, the formula, the data source, the reference date and the scope. It avoids debates in committee and makes the dashboard easy to hand over to a colleague. For the calculation mechanics in a spreadsheet, our article on Excel for HR works through a complete example.
Presenting figures to leadership
Three figures on the first page
Each month, choose the two or three indicators that deserve attention, depending on what is happening: payroll costs if they are drifting, departures if a team is emptying, absenteeism if a site is falling behind. The rest can go in an appendix.
Always a comparison
A figure on its own says nothing. Compare it with the previous month, the same period last year, the budget or a target. A simple chart over twelve months is often better than a dense table.
One sentence of analysis
Under each key indicator, one sentence: what explains the change and what you suggest. “Departures at the production site are concentrated in the night team; a meeting with the team leader is planned, with a review of the schedule.” This is the sentence leadership will remember.
Confidentiality
HR data is personal data. A dashboard presented to a committee must not make it possible to identify an employee: group small populations together and avoid personal details.
Showcasing HR reporting on your CV
A sought-after skill
Recruiters look for HR profiles who can produce and explain figures, whether HR officers, site HR managers or HRBPs. Reporting is also the gateway to people analytics roles.
Writing it with its context
Before
Produced the monthly HR report.
After
Built and presented monthly to the executive committee an HR dashboard for three sites: headcount, movements, absenteeism by reason and payroll costs against budget, with a definitions sheet shared with management control.
Mention an effect
If your dashboard triggered an action, say so: an absenteeism plan for a department, a schedule review, recruitment planned ahead. Our article on how to quantify your HR achievements will help you phrase these effects without exaggerating.
Models
The people analytics analyst CV example and the site HR manager CV example show how to present reporting at different levels. To go further on HR data, read the article on the people analytics CV. Then create your CV for free: the tool takes care of the layout, and the document stays readable by screening software, which is not the case for a CV that displays its skills as charts.
Sources
- Dares, For ten years, turnover has been in step with economic activity 🔗: definition of the labour turnover rate.
Frequently asked questions
How many indicators should an HR dashboard contain?
Around ten tracked indicators, with two or three highlighted each month, are enough in most companies. Beyond that, the dashboard becomes hard to maintain and to read.
Do you need a specialised tool?
Not necessarily. A well-built spreadsheet is enough for a smaller company. Visualisation tools or the HRIS reporting module become useful as the volume of data or the number of recipients grows.
Who should produce the dashboard?
Most often HR, with support from payroll for pay data and from management control for payroll costs. In large companies, a people analytics team may be in charge.
Does the CSE have access to the dashboard?
Not to the internal dashboard as such, but to a lot of social data through the economic, social and environmental database. Make sure the figures presented in committee are consistent with those made available to employee representatives.