The Ultimate

Guide to
Employee
Experience
Metrics
The Top 15 KPIs for Measuring HR
and Employee Success
Written by Phil Mandelbaum
No matter how talented your outsourced
consultants and workers may be, they’ll
never understand your business as well as
you or your internal employees. That’s why
it’s so important to recruit top talent, and
to provide the right employee experience,
benefits and corporate training so you can
retain your top talent too.
Without the keys to measuring employee
and organizational people-management
performance, you’ll never know why
‘what works’ works — or how to
replicate it. So, your HR leaders must
prioritize the behaviors, culture and
competencies needed to achieve your
larger organizational goals, as well as the
methodologies for measuring success
against these goals.
As such, your HR strategy should:
• Be based on an analysis of the
organization and the external
environment
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• Guide the direction of the HR department
• Shape the company culture
• Dictate the allocation and deployment of
organizational resources
• Target and measure performance
against quantitative key performance
indicators
• Are revised on a yearly basis, and
whenever necessary
Additionally, your HR strategy could include:
• Assessing staffing and skills needs
• Analyzing competitors’ recruitment and
retention practices
• Establishing a dynamic, future-forward
approach to corporate training and
professional development
• Developing and maintaining competitive
employee compensation and benefits
packages
• Designing and managing team and
individual performance and rewards
systems, based on KPIs
In developing your HR strategy:
1. Conduct a strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis
of your organization
2. Envision and articulate a desired future,
and create a vision statement that is
inspirational, aspirational, compelling and
concise
3. Provide clear objectives that recognize
your organization’s strengths and
weaknesses; can be achieved and
measured; reflect the organization’s
overall strategy; and can be effectively
communicated and supported firmwide
4. Identify the steps required to achieve
your objectives — and set milestones,
plan contingencies, and determine
necessary resources
5. Establish a process for evaluating
progress — based on KPIs — and
identifying opportunities to adapt,
streamline and/or optimize
The HR and Employee
Experience 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
include applicant tracking.
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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 not receiving (proper) training? Is your
and EPR interchangeable. I recommend
measuring your employee productivity in
one of two ways: by dividing total output (in inclusion concern?
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 Even more so than the training participation
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
training program producing graduates
equitably, or might there be a diversity and
8. Internal Promotion Rate
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

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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
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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. Percentage of Representation by
Employee Category
It may seem right to hire employees with
similar backgrounds, or from the same
networks, and it may feel uncomfortable
to discuss cultural differences in the
workplace; nevertheless, studies show that
organizations that are intentional in hiring
— and developing and retaining — diverse
talent are 19% more innovative, earn 140%
more revenue, have more than twice as
much cash per employee, and are 35%
more likely to outperform their competitors.
Plus, investing in DEI is the right thing to do.
To calculate the percentage of
representation by employee category:
1. Establish your employee categories (e.g.,
associates, managers, VPs, directors,
etc.)
2. For each of the protected classes, divide
the number of representative employees
by the total number of employees in
each employee category (that’s your
ratio)
3. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage
To determine the effectiveness of your DEI
efforts
• Develop an internal dashboard for
tracking, analysis and reporting (some
highly rated business intelligence
dashboard tools include Tableau, Domo,
EOX Vantage, Sisense, and DBxtra). And
continually analyze and adjust for gaps
and opportunities in your employee
recruitment, hiring, development and
advancement efforts.
• Survey your staff (there are free
templates on the internet) on issues
of fairness, discrimination, personal
belonging, trust, respect and purpose,
decision making, hiring and onboarding,
diversity and inclusion, and opportunities
and resources (equity). Then, analyze for
gaps and opportunities in your employee
recruitment, hiring, development and
advancement efforts.
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15. Ratio of Compensation by Employee
Category
To measure the difference among salaries
for your whole company or for each
department, use a group “compa-ratio;” this
calculation can be useful in determining any
disparities in pay across departments and
employee categories — and can also
highlight differences among protected
classes and between protected and
non-protected classes.
1. To determine the market average for
a given role, use a salary comparison
tool from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Indeed, PayLab, ZipRecruiter, PayScale,
Glassdoor or Salary.com
2. To measure the compa-ratio for each
employee category and/or job type,
divide the employees’ current salaries by
the market averages, and then multiply
by 100
3. To identify pay inequities (i.e., gaps in
your DEI program), compare the
compa-ratio of protected classes versus
that of non-protected classes
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 — whether on Glassdoor, PayScale
and similar sites, or via employee
surveys — absolutely does matter.
To run a successful organization, you need
to know how your employees — and
prospects — feel, during recruitment, hiring
and onboarding, and throughout their
career. What’s most important isn’t which
benefits or perks you provide, but that you 9. Continually monitoring employee
listen to, respect and value your employees wellness, morale, engagement, efficiency
and reward hard work. and productivity, iterating and optimizing
benefits and perks as necessary
How’s this done? By listening, first, repeat-
edly, and methodically. So, instruct your HR
director to lead their team in: The Top 15 HR Software
1. Signing up to all third-party company
Solutions for Employee
review and employment sites, optimizing Management
your profile, responding to questions and
complaints, and using what they learn to Now that you have all this new employee
improve your company data from measuring your employee
2. Developing an employee survey using experience and HR efforts against the 15
AskNicely, GetFeedback, LimeSurvey, metrics that matter, you need a place to
Qualaroo, Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey or store and analyze it. That’s where HR
Zoho Survey software comes in. These are the 15 best:
3. Gamifying the exercise and offering
incentives for completion 1. ADP Workforce Now
4. Promoting through your HR or internal 2. BambooHR
comms team the importance of the 3. BerniePortal
survey to ‘their’ employee experience 4. Cezanne HR
and future benefits 5. Engagedly
5. Disseminating and tracking the survey 6. Freshteam by Freshworks
through your HR portal (see below) 7. Gusto
6. Leveraging the survey data to ascertain 8. monday.com
what your employees most 9. Namely
appreciate — and would most appreciate 10. Paychex
7. Identifying creative incentives and other 11. Paycor
workplace solutions you could offer 12. Paylocity
beyond the traditional benefits 13. Rippling
8. Researching and partnering with the best 14. Workday
providers 15. Zenefits

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