Essential Workforce Metrics Every Growing Business Should Be Tracking

Jul 10, 2025 Read time: 5 minutes

Key Takeaways

HR analytics are essential for businesses to base actions on data, improve hiring and retention efficiency, and predict future workforce needs.
Measurable goals and HR analytics such as turnover rate, absenteeism, and employee engagement are critical to tracking success and making data-driven decisions.
UKG® Workforce Management solutions empower businesses by streamlining employee-related tasks, improving operational efficiency and enabling better outcomes.

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The global workforce has experienced a shift in recent years, with many companies transitioning to virtual operations. Opportunities for both employees and employers expanded significantly, shifting from primarily regional to truly global. This transformation has redefined the expectations of today’s workforce and raised the stakes for employers to provide exceptional employee experiences or risk facing high turnover and retention challenges.

Employee turnover rates have hovered around 50% since 2020, failing to return to pre-pandemic numbers. Today’s employees are seeking workplaces that align with their values, offer flexibility, and provide opportunities for growth. This means you must pay closer attention than ever to workforce trends.

Enter HR analytics: a way for businesses to measure, track, and analyze workforce data to make informed decisions. By leveraging the right metrics, companies can identify problem areas, optimize people strategies, and build a thriving organizational culture. In this blog, we’ll explore the top HR analytics metrics that growing businesses should track and how doing so can drive meaningful, measurable impact.

Why HR analytics matter for growing businesses

As businesses grow, the challenges they face become more complex. From managing larger teams to refining talent strategies, growth introduces new demands on HR departments. This is where HR analytics can transform your growing business. By leveraging data, you can:

Identify trends before they become problems

Make informed decisions rooted in data-driven insights

Improve efficiency across recruiting, onboarding, and development

Enhance the employee experience

Strengthen retention

Predict future workforce needs

In essence, HR analytics helps business leaders move from reactive to proactive management. Rather than relying on gut feelings or subjective conversations, decisions are based on reliable metrics that align with organizational goals.

Top HR analytics metrics to track

Peter Drucker, a well-known management consultant, famously said if you can’t measure something, it can’t be improved. His theories have been widely adopted, especially by organizations that strive to empower employees and create a positive company culture. In line with that, organizations are measuring HR analytics to ensure their workspaces drive productivity, employee satisfaction, and long-term success.

Key workforce metrics for attracting, retaining, and managing talent include:

Employee turnover rate - the percentage of employees who leave an organization during a specified time period. High employee turnover rates may indicate issues with employee engagement, satisfaction, or culture.

Retention rate - the percentage of employees who remain with an organization during a specific time period. A high retention rate is typically a great sign of a strong workforce.

Absenteeism - an important people operations metric, as it can indicate increased costs, lower morale, and lower productivity. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics uses absenteeism as a benchmark metric across industries in their reports.

Overtime costs - additional expenses businesses incur when employees work outside their scheduled hours. Sometimes, high overtime costs signal that better tools are needed to manage employee scheduling.

Cost per hire - the total cost of hiring a new employee. The hiring process can be expensive, and businesses often want to reduce their recruiting costs and reallocate the funds towards revenue-generating tactics. Analyzing cost per hire helps HR teams improve their processes, choose the right recruiting technology, and set the right budgets.

Time to fill positions - the length of time between a job being posted and a new hire accepting an offer. HR analytics examines metrics like cost per hire and time to fill positions to assess recruiting effectiveness.

Headcount - the total number of employees an organization has at any given time. It is one of the most important metrics in HR analytics because it informs workforce planning and budgeting.

Key workforce metrics to measure performance and impact include:

Employee productivity - a KPI looked at by HR and operations departments across all industries. It measures how efficiently and effectively employees contribute to company goals and is a metric that should be used to set achievable and realistic goals.

Employee engagement - a key indicator of the level of an employee’s enthusiasm and dedication towards their role, their team, and the organization as a whole.

Customer satisfaction and performance analysis - how employees contribute to their organization and how that impacts customer satisfaction (CSAT). High CSAT scores and performance analytics can lead to customer loyalty and increased revenue.

Getting started with HR analytics

If your organization is just beginning to embrace HR analytics, the key is to start small and scale gradually. Begin by identifying the most critical workforce metrics aligned to your strategic objectives. Adopting a goal-setting framework can fuel a sense of responsibility and accountability that will motivate your team to dive in and be productive, and choosing metrics aligned to those goals can keep the entire organization on the same page.

Choosing and implementing the right workforce management tech stack can help with tracking goals and measuring HR analytics, ultimately leading to better ROI and a more engaged workforce.

It’s also important to foster a data-driven culture within your HR team. Provide training on how to interpret HR metrics and encourage collaboration between HR and other departments like finance and operations. When HR data is integrated with broader business intelligence, it brings even greater value.

In Summary: Meet long-term goals by prioritizing key workforce metrics

Tracking the right HR analytics empowers growing businesses to make smarter, faster, and more impactful decisions.

As your business grows and you invest in more talent, you also need to dedicate time to analyzing people-centric metrics. From understanding why employees leave to optimizing recruitment and enhancing employee engagement, these metrics provide the insight needed to build resilient and high-performing teams.

Investing in HR analytics isn’t just beneficial; it’s essential for long-term success.

UKG Workforce Management solutions help SMBs and growing businesses adopt effective goal-tracking processes, maximize ROI, and achieve long-term success. Want to explore if UKG Workforce Management is right for your team? Watch a 2-minute tour now.