HR annual report step by step guide

17 of October, 2022

Everyone who works in the human resources department knows what the end of the year means: HR annual report. January is the perfect month to initiate new actions, look back over the past year and recap all the work that has been done in the department. It’s the time to review important aspects such as staff management, time tracking, salary, work climate or employee turnover rate.

Here’s how to prepare an annual human resources report.

Steps to prepare an HR annual report

The first step in creating an HR performance report is to keep metrics and analytics in mind.

What metrics should the annual HR report include?

The key here is to include the result of relevant metrics that represent well what has happened during the year, these data are usually the most basic ones.

• Turnover rate: How many new people have joined the company? How many have left? This data must take into account the costs of recruitment processes and the necessary months for a worker to be productive after joining the company.
• Talent retention: Is the company making employees want to stay? Are employees motivated? Employee seniority determines whether the company’s talent retention strategy is being successful.
• Average company age: Knowing the current average age of your company is important to be able to manage and understand the needs of your workforce. Such as, for example, the type of social benefits that suit them better.
• Average salary: Is the company offering fair pay, and how does its compensation compare with the one of its competitors? This is important information to know whether to take steps to improve employee compensation, like offering flexible pay.
• Work absenteeism: Unexcused absenteeism can become a major problem for companies, since it entails a series of costs and leads to employee demotivation.

How to display data from the human resources department?

Now that you have already gathered all data in the HR reports and done all the relevant calculations, what is the best way to showcase them? From our experience, it is not enough to just show your data, you should also explain your conclusions and potential plans for improvements.

The role of the human resources department should be to process information from data, draw conclusions and plan actions to either improve or maintain the results during the following year.

The usual way to deliver all this information is through a file with all the data to be used as support in an annual company meeting. It is usually presented in PDF format with hard copies and accompanied by a presentation.

Once you know the main steps to create an annual HR report, it is time to implement them in your company. At the beginning of the last quarter of the year, your HR department should start collecting all the information from your employees as well as other interesting data to complete the report. This way they will be able to showcase your annual results. 

If you have more questions about HR reports, you can find really useful information about this matter in our blog.