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Human resources KPIs: 5 key indicators
The KPIs of human resources are more important and vital than many people think. Learn which ones are essential.
Isabel García
HR Consultant
26 of February, 2025
Currently, it is important for any company to understand the impact of the strategy they are executing. For this reason, today we will discuss what human resources KPIs are and their importance in the company.
In other words, KPIs are key performance indicators that, through measurements, give you relevant information about whether a specific action is on the right track. It is essential that you choose your indicators that allow you to control and monitor activities. These activities should optimize the performance of your business.
What are KPIs?
The meaning of KPI will always be the same, whether expressed in singular or plural: Key Performance Indicators. In theory, a KPI is a parameter that gives you the opportunity to know if the strategy you are developing works correctly. Or, on the other hand, if there is a possibility of improving it. In addition to this, they are widely used in various fields, so there are several types of KPI. Among the ones we can find: sales KPIs, human resources KPIs, quality KPIs, production KPIs, and so forth.
These indicators are essential for areas such as marketing and are very important within the human resources department. Using your indispensable KPIs in a dashboard will help you in human resources management, showing you a complete view of the path your company is following. In summary, these indicators are metrics with specific characteristics that allow you to evaluate each step of your strategy. This will enable you to make better decisions in any area of your company or business.
An easy way to have precise and measurable human resources KPIs is by implementing the S.M.A.R.T methodology. This methodology will help you make a much more comprehensive and efficient evaluation.
- Specific.
- Measurable.
- Attainable.
- Relevant.
- Time Bound.
Human Resources Indicators
To choose the ideal human resources indicators, you must define the essential HR KPIs for good management. These should consider the following:
- Scouters: They should allow a thorough evaluation of as many details as possible about the company’s operations. In this particular case, from the human resources department.
- Concise: The fewer the number of indicators in which relevant information for the company can be measured, the better. This will simplify the discharging and quantification of the gathered information.
- Easy to process: The process of deciphering and understanding the effect of the results obtained should be easy.
- Simple: Users should easily understand what each indicator is based on and what value each KPI has.
- Referenced: The origin and context that favor the choice of each human resources indicator should be evident to users in companies.
- Corresponding: Each indicator must be attributable or concern some individual directly.
- Correlatives: The interaction among various indicators should lead to obtaining the type of results expected to be known.
- Guaranteed: Every measure to be known must be obtained unconditionally. This leaves no room for employees to evade them.
- Balanced: They should consist of measures that cover economic factors and some others that do not cover economic factors. Financial measures are relevant just as they cannot be overlooked. They should not monopolize attention at any time.
- Comparable: All KPIs must have the same hierarchy within the correlation. None can subordinate to another.
The 5 most important human resources KPIs
- Training. This refers to the acquisition of technical, practical, and theoretical knowledge for the correct development of professional activity. This indicator should give clues on how to improve labor productivity in relation to the hours each employee performs in their position. This, including a basic concept like constant and permanent training.
- Average time to achieve a goal. Companies must plan general and specific objectives for the company and assign a time frame to achieve them. This HR KPI measures the effectiveness of an organization’s employees.
- Staff turnover. This indicator focuses on calculating the level of employee retention in the company. The ideal figure is that the staff turnover is less than 5%. The higher the staff reform due to employee resignations, the more necessary it is for the company to intervene.
- Occupational accident rate. The ideal figure for this would be zero, although it seems almost impossible to avoid some lost hours. This latter, mainly due to an incident in the workplace.
- Work absenteeism. This measures the absences of workers at their workplace within normal periods. Whether due to absences, permits, or delays. It is a crucial index that can indicate symptom trends not only of the worker, but also of the company’s own operations. It is one of the HR KPIs that are most commonly applied today.
The Sesame HR human resources software allows you to manage all human resources information so you can easily achieve all your goals. Streamlining and centralizing the management of all your employees’ processes will save you time and costs.
Need help?
I'm Isabel, HR consultant at Sesame HR. Book a meeting with my team to help you.