HR Reporting: What It Is and Some Essential Reports
Human resources (HR) often get a bad reputation for all the hiring and firing they do. While that is part of their role, it’s far from the only task they do to help companies operate smoothly. This may be hard for some team members to see, but as a project manager, you know how invaluable HR teams are.
Yes, they help with onboarding and having difficult conversations with underperforming staff, but they’re also the backbone when it comes to tracking performance metrics, company turnover, employee satisfaction, and training.
A good project manager should know how to harness this information to help their team grow, achieve goals, and continuously work together to collectively grow the company.
What is HR reporting?
So, what exactly is HR reporting? It refers to the process of collecting, measuring, and analyzing data and key metrics related to human resources and, ultimately, people management. Yes, once again, data is king – knowing how your staff perform, and measuring this performance, is essential.
Through HR reports you can easily measure individual and team performance, time spent working (in general, or on specific projects), employee satisfaction, turnover and recruitment efforts, salaries, and more. It’s a lot of information, but it’ll show you what is and isn’t working for your team. This is invaluable information to have when chasing goals and setting your team up for future success.
Being able to analyze these reports and capitalize on data will inevitably sow seeds of success.
What is the purpose of HR reporting?
HR reporting is more than just gathering data on employees for fun. As we’ve outlined above, these reports are crucial when it comes to managing your team and ensuring everyone can perform their assigned tasks.
Harnessing the power of HR reporting will yield the following benefits:
- Increase employee performance.
- Improve happiness in the workplace.
- Allow you to use data to make informed decisions.
- Measure what is and isn’t working for your team.
- Track training and find gaps in skills and knowledge.
- Improve resource management.
- Make smarter decisions.
- Improve individual and team workflows.
- Shorten recruitment cycles.
Ultimately, HR reporting will fuel your company’s people management and every manager should be onboarded with the way HR reporting is conducted.
Your HR team will be responsible for the way in which reports are created, measured, and shared, but the data gleaned must be beneficial to the people who are using it to conduct work and further business. If they’re reporting on the wrong metrics, it’s a waste of time and valuable resources.
4 types of HR reporting
There are countless types of reports that your company’s HR team conducts, whether or not you know about it. Their job is to manage human resources, and your job as a manager is to use these reports to help bolster your team and ensure staff have the proper tools and resources to get their work done.
If part of your role involves managing people, these are some types of HR reports you’ll want to utilize:
Employee performance report
You need to know if your employees are underperforming, hitting the bare minimum requirements for their role, or overachieving expectations. This is critical when it comes to individual, team, and overall company success.
Employee performance reports measure and include the following:
- Ability to achieve goals and meet deadlines.
- Self-assessment and manager assessment scores.
- Revenue generated (usually specific to sales positions).
Recruitment
Staff turnover, promotions, and hiring new team members are often all tracked under recruitment reports. These may be measured separately or together, depending on your company’s metrics and goals. Either way, knowing how effective recruitment efforts are is essential; the time it takes to fill a role will affect project timelines. Recruitment reports measure and include the following:
- Staff turnover rates.
- Internal promotions.
- Hiring cycle timelines.
- Effectiveness of finding qualified candidates.
- Retention efforts and strategies.
Time off
Many tech companies brag about their “unlimited vacation” policies but how much time off is being taken? Employees who take too many vacation days may have trouble completing projects by deadline, and those who never give themselves a break will likely end up burnt out. Measuring time off and ensuring it’s being used properly will help keep employee satisfaction and performance in check. Time off reports measure and include the following:
- Vacation days booked by employee.
- Sick days booked by employee.
- Staff availability.
- Data relating to payroll, compensation, and benefits based on hours worked versus vacation time taken.
Professional development
Hiring qualified candidates is important, but are they staying up to date on industry trends? Staff members who participate in ongoing professional development will acquire new skills they can apply to their work, which will help improve workflows, project outputs, and KPIs. Professional development reports measure and include the following:
- Total courses completed.
- Hours logged for online training and workshops.
- Success rates of courses started versus completed.
- Promotion/advancement rates based on professional development.
- Employee ratings of course offerings and overall satisfaction with learning opportunities.
Your HR team likely uses specific HR software to help generate these reports, so you won’t need to do anything to put them together. If there’s something you need access to, reach out and ask them! Depending on your role you may only be able to access specific reports or data points, but your HR team can help you get what you need.
Reporting in
No one wants to get bogged down with writing or reading more reports, but you should pay attention to the ones that can help improve your team’s workflow. The next time HR sends out a survey, don’t skip it – they’re likely looking for important feedback on how to fuel their reports, and what areas of the workplace they can help improve.