The 14 Most Important Employee Experience and HR Metrics

How to Measure Employee Satisfaction, Productivity, Turnover, and More

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Philip Mandelbaum
05/17/2022

A dark wood hour glass with blue sand, standing slightly titled in small rocks

I’ve shared my top tips for talent recruitment as well as how work flexibility and diversity, equity and inclusion can keep your top talent on staff. But what good is my advice if it isn’t paying dividends? This is why you need to know how to measure your performance too. How much are we spending to attract job candidates? What’s our turnover rate? How satisfied are our employees? As is true of digital marketing and CX, the only way to determine the effectiveness of your HR and employee experience strategies is to establish and measure your performance against the right employee experience and HR metrics.

The Employee Experience and HR Metrics that Matter

1. Average Recruitment Time

Average recruitment time refers to the average number of days that elapse from the moment you post the job online until the new recruit starts. To ensure accurate results, measure over a long period of time or only compare candidates for the same role. Most of the top HR software solutions (see below) include applicant tracking.

2. Recruitment Costs

To find out how much you’re spending to recruit one new employee, add up everything you’ve spent on recruiting, from employment portal subscriptions and online ads to software and employee costs, and divide that total by the number of employees recruited during that same time period. If you’re spending more to bring them on board than they’re returning to you in revenue, something needs to change — whether it’s who you’re recruiting or how you’re onboarding or training.

3. Recruitment Conversion Rate

Like a conversion rate in digital marketing and sales, your recruitment conversion rate refers to the rate at which you convert on your recruitment efforts; in recruiting, a conversion typically refers to a recruit who joins the firm, but it can also be used to measure the percentage of candidates who respond to a particular recruitment marketing campaign or the percentage of candidates who pass a certain phase of the application/interview process. To measure conversion rate (percentage), divide the number of converts by the total number of candidates and multiply by 100.

4. Employee Absence Rate

Absence rate refers to the percentage of work time, expressed as workdays, that the average employee is absent during a specific time period. To calculate your absence rate (or percentage of absenteeism), divide the number of unexcused absences in a given period by the total number of employees times the number of working days per employee within the given period.

5. Employee Productivity Rate

Of all the HR and employee experience metrics, employee productivity rate (EPR) seems to be the most hotly contested; some even consider revenue per employee and EPR interchangeable. I recommend measuring your employee productivity in one of two ways: by dividing total output (in dollars) by total input (in hours) to measure the value generated per hour of work, or by dividing total output (in dollars) by total number of employees to measure the value produced per employee.

6. Employee Turnover Rate

More than any other employee experience KPI, employee turnover rate can tell you, indisputably, whether your work environment, company culture and development and advancement opportunities are conducive to employee success and retention. To measure your turnover rate, divide the total number of employees who leave the organization during a specific time period by the organization’s average total number of employees during that same period, and then multiply the total by 100 for your percentage rate. Then, compare your rates to your industry average (hint: everyone’s rates are much higher than they used to be).

7. Training Participation Rate

As you know from your recruitment efforts, growth and development represent a key component of ‘the package’ you offer top talent. To find out the level of employee engagement in your corporate training program, divide the participants by your total number of employees. Then, dig deeper: Which managers have the most team members in training? Which have the fewest? Are there stages in the corporate ladder where participation dwindles or accelerates? Are there specific job types not receiving (proper) training? Is your training program producing graduates equitably, or might there be a diversity and inclusion concern? (If you’re not yet adopted an adaptive learning model, read this.)

8. Internal Promotion Rate

Even more so than the training participation rate, the internal promotion rate can be used to promote your organization with potential recruits. To ascertain whether you have something gloat about in your recruitment marketing, divide the number of employees promoted by your total number of employees. Then, take a deeper look at who has been promoted to ensure you’re maintaining equity in the workplace.

9. HR Expenses Per Employee

To calculate your HR expenses per employee, divide all the costs incurred by your human resources department in a given period by the total number of employees working for the organization during that same period. If your HR expenses per employee rate increases while your HR effectiveness decreases, you may have an efficiency problem; or, your HR department may not be caring well enough for your employees, which we know could impact employee morale and productivity.

10. Revenue Per Employee

Revenue per employee is measured by dividing total revenue by total number of employees.

11. Profit Per Employee

To determine your profit per employee, calculate your profit by subtracting your operating costs from your revenue, and then divide that total by your total number of employees.

12. Employee Net Promoter Score

Like the net promoter score (NPS), which measures the likelihood that a customer will recommend you, the eNPS measures how likely your employees are to recommend you. To determine your employee net promoter score, develop a survey with a single question or multiple questions geared toward promoting and sharing, on a scale from 0 to 10, from “not likely at all” to “very likely.” Employees who provide (average) scores between 0 and 6 are considered detractors; passive employees typically score between 7 and 8; and your employee promoters will give you a 9 or 10. To calculate your eNPS, simply subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Then, compare your eNPS to benchmarks and industry averages.

13. Employee Satisfaction

The employee satisfaction rate measures — you guessed it — satisfaction. Create a survey similar to your eNPS survey, but gear your question(s) toward happiness, wellness, comfort, inclusion, acceptance and other similar concepts. Then, add up all the scores and divide the total by your total number of employees. If your average lands between 7 and 10, you’re on the higher end of the scale. You can probably find a suitable sample employee satisfaction survey online.

14. Bonus: Employee Reviews

This isn’t exactly an employee experience or HR metric, but what your employees are saying about you in their employee reviews on Glassdoor, PayScale and similar sites absolutely does matter. In fact, you can probably expect more honesty when you’re not the one asking the questions; although, on the other hand, you can also expect at least one review from someone you probably shouldn’t have hired, who was more than a little mad to be relieved of their duties. Fortunately, like all your recruitment and retention efforts, you can manage your reputation on these sites. Sign up, optimize your profile, respond to questions and complaints, and use what you learn to improve your company.

The Top 14 HR Software Solutions for Employee Management

Now that you have all this new employee data from measuring your employee experience and HR efforts against the 14 metrics that matter, you need a place to store and analyze it. That’s where HR software comes in. These are the 14 best: