Workflow 12

HR Analytics & Reporting

Dashboards and the cadence that makes them matter

Illustrative current-practice design

This is one worked example of how the process is commonly run, not a standard and not advice. Timings, thresholds and percentages are illustrative. Verify anything legally sensitive against local law and your own counsel.

Use it as a complete starting point, then adjust it for your company's strategy, culture, workforce, jurisdiction, collective agreements, technology, risk appetite and future-of-work direction.

Content last reviewed 28 July 2026.

Philosophy

A metric with no owner and no decision attached is decoration. Every recurring report names the decision it informs.

Cadence

Monthly operational pack, quarterly business review, annual people report

The steps

  1. 01

    Monthly

    • Headcount vs plan, attrition (regretted and total), open roles and ageing, time-to-fill by segment
    • Case volume and cycle time from Employee Relations
  2. 02

    Quarterly

    • Workforce reforecast inputs, engagement and event-instrument traces, 9-box and succession health
    • Pay equity check and merit spend against pool
  3. 03

    Annual

    • People report to the executive: capability, risk, diversity representation, and the year's talent investment case outcomes
  4. 04

    Governance

    • Definitions published once and reused; no metric changes definition mid-year without a note
    • Personal data minimised: report at the level the decision needs, not the level the system allows

Who does what (RACI)

StepResponsibleAccountableConsultedInformed
Data qualityHR OpsHR Ops LeadITHRBP
Dashboard buildPeople AnalyticsCHROFinanceBU Leaders
Interpretation to the businessHRBPCHROPeople AnalyticsBU Leaders

Future-of-work considerations

  • Continuous listening signals alongside periodic surveys
  • Skills data as a reporting dimension
  • Privacy, bias and explainability standards for any predictive model
  • Named human accountability for decisions informed by analytics

Models used here