HR articles

HR KPIs: How to Choose Them, 25 Examples by Goal and a Free KPI Builder

2026-10-16 21:32
SHORT ANSWER

An HR KPI is an HR metric chosen as a target for a company goal: it has a formula, a current value, a target value, a deadline and an owner. Do not pick HR KPIs from a list. Start from the company goal for the year, decide what has to change in how people are hired, kept or developed, then choose three to five measures that show that change — and balance speed with quality.

Course on this topic: KPI Development Course: Build a KPI System

Most HR KPI lists I see are copied from somewhere: twenty indicators, no owner, no target, and nobody looks at them after the first month. Below is the method I use instead — from the company goal to three to five HR KPIs — with 25 examples grouped by goal and a free HR KPI builder that turns your choice into a ready table.

What is an HR KPI?

An HR KPI (key performance indicator) is an HR metric that you have chosen as a target for a company goal. A working KPI has five parts:
  1. Formula — written down, so everyone counts it the same way.
  2. Current value — from your own data, not from a benchmark.
  3. Target — the value the goal needs.
  4. Deadline — when you will check it.
  5. Owner — one person who can influence it.
Without any of the five it is just a metric. That is fine — you need many metrics to understand the workforce — but only a few of them deserve to be KPIs. For the metrics themselves and their formulas, see HR Metrics: 27 Formulas With Examples and a Free Calculator.

Four types of performance indicators and the 10/80/10 rule

In my KPI course I start with a distinction from David Parmenter's work that saves a lot of confusion. Not every indicator is a KPI:
  • Key result indicators show the overall result of an area over a long period — for example, annual employee turnover. Good for the board, useless for deciding what to do on Monday.
  • Result indicators show what a team achieved — for example, vacancies filled last month.
  • Performance indicators show what a team does — for example, the share of candidates who received feedback within two days.
  • Key performance indicators are the few performance indicators that most affect the critical success factors of the business.
The rule of thumb is 10/80/10: about 10 key result indicators, up to 80 result and performance indicators, and about 10 KPIs for the whole organisation. For HR that means a handful of real KPIs, not a page of them.

How to choose HR KPIs in four steps

  1. Start from the company goal for the year. Grow the team, keep key people, control people costs, build capability, raise performance. One goal per set of KPIs.
  2. Decide what has to change in people management. “Grow the team” means hiring faster without losing quality. “Keep key people” means fewer regrettable exits and a reason to stay.
  3. Choose three to five measures that show that change. Mix types: if you have a speed or volume measure, add a quality or satisfaction measure next to it.
  4. Fill in the card. Formula, current value, target, deadline, owner. Then agree it with the manager who owns the result — a KPI imposed on a team that cannot influence it will be ignored.
The builder below does steps 1, 3 and 4 for you and warns when the set is unbalanced.
FREE TOOL · HR KPI BUILDER

Build your HR KPI cards

Pick the company goal, tick up to five KPIs, add the current value, target, owner and deadline — and copy the table into Excel or Google Sheets.

The full method — critical success factors, the four types of indicators and a workshop to agree KPIs with managers — is in the KPI Development course.

FROM MY PRACTICE · RECRUITMENT KPIS

As a manager I sometimes got the indicators wrong myself. At one point I measured recruiters by the number of interviews they held. They started chasing the number of interviews and stopped thinking about quality.

Then I made the number of closed vacancies the indicator. The recruiters began pushing a stream of people to hiring managers — they did not care about quality, they wanted to get as many candidates through as possible, as long as the manager hired someone.

Only when I balanced the speed of closing vacancies, hiring manager satisfaction and the quality of assessment did I get the result I needed.

One isolated indicator creates the wrong behaviour. Balance speed with satisfaction and quality — that is why the builder warns you when your set has only volume or speed measures.

— Mike Pritula

25 HR KPI examples by goal

Goal: grow the team fast
  • Time to fill = days from opening a vacancy to offer accepted.
  • Cost per hire = hiring costs ÷ hires.
  • Offer acceptance rate = offers accepted ÷ offers made × 100%.
  • Hiring manager satisfaction = average score after each hire (1–5).
  • First-year turnover = hires who left within a year ÷ hires × 100%.
Goal: keep key people
  • Voluntary turnover, annualized = resignations ÷ average headcount × 12 ÷ months in the period × 100%.
  • Regrettable turnover = key people who left ÷ all leavers × 100%.
  • Retention of key roles = key people still employed at period end ÷ key people at start × 100%.
  • eNPS = % promoters − % detractors.
  • Internal promotion rate = promotions ÷ average headcount × 100%.
Goal: control people costs
  • Payroll as % of revenue = payroll ÷ revenue × 100%.
  • Revenue per employee = revenue ÷ average headcount.
  • Overtime rate = overtime hours ÷ hours worked × 100%.
  • HR cost per employee = HR function budget ÷ average headcount.
  • Absence rate = absence days ÷ (average headcount × working days) × 100%.
Goal: build capability
  • Training hours per employee = training hours ÷ average headcount.
  • Training spend per employee = training spend ÷ average headcount.
  • Share of trained people applying the skill = people observed using the skill 60–90 days later ÷ people trained × 100%.
  • Bench strength = key roles with a ready successor ÷ key roles × 100%.
  • Internal fill rate = vacancies filled internally ÷ all vacancies filled × 100%.
Goal: raise performance
  • Performance reviews completed on time = reviews completed by the deadline ÷ reviews due × 100%.
  • Employees with agreed goals = employees with written goals ÷ headcount × 100%.
  • Low performers with an improvement plan = low performers with a plan ÷ all low performers × 100%.
  • Revenue per FTE = revenue ÷ full-time equivalents.
  • Managers trained in feedback = managers trained ÷ all managers × 100%.
You can calculate most of these from one set of numbers in the free HR metrics calculator.

Why measuring changes behaviour

FROM MY PRACTICE · THE HYGROMETER

Doctors recommend keeping humidity at home at around 50%, but few people do, because few have a hygrometer — they simply do not know what their humidity is. In winter my family kept getting ill, so I ordered a hygrometer. It showed 30% — too low. I ordered a humidifier.

A humidifier is a lazy thing: you have to keep filling it with water. I once had one before, without a hygrometer, used it a couple of times and it just stood there. Now that I have the hygrometer, I look at it, see the humidity dropping and know it is time to refill.

Because a metric appeared, I started paying attention. A company works the same way: what gets measured gets done — which is exactly why a wrong KPI is dangerous.

— Mike Pritula

Seven traps that break HR KPIs

  1. KPIs copied from a list. If you cannot name the company goal a KPI serves, delete it.
  2. Only volume or speed. Interviews held or vacancies closed alone push quality down. Pair them with quality or satisfaction.
  3. No current value. A target set without a baseline is a guess, and the team knows it.
  4. No single owner. “HR team” is not an owner. One person who can influence the number is.
  5. Too many KPIs. More than five per goal and nobody remembers what matters.
  6. Measuring what costs more than it is worth. If collecting the data takes a week of manual work every month, choose a simpler measure.
  7. Annual review only. A KPI you look at once a year cannot change anything. Review monthly or quarterly, with the trend.
How to find the critical success factors of your business, design KPIs that avoid these traps, sell the system to managers and agree it in a workshop is what the KPI Development course covers in eight lessons. If your focus is HR reporting and dashboards rather than the KPI system itself, look at the HR Metrics course.
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an HR metric and an HR KPI?

A metric is any number you track. A KPI is a metric you have committed to as a target for a specific goal, with a current value, a target, a deadline and an owner. You may track dozens of metrics but should have only a few KPIs.

How many HR KPIs should an HR team have?

Three to five per goal and no more than seven in total. More than that spreads attention and nobody remembers what matters.

What are examples of HR KPIs?

Voluntary turnover, regrettable turnover, time to fill, cost per hire, offer acceptance rate, hiring manager satisfaction, first-year turnover, training hours per employee, internal promotion rate, absence rate and payroll as a share of revenue.

How do you set a target for an HR KPI?

Take the current value from your own data, look at the trend over the last periods, and set a target that the goal actually needs and the team can influence within the deadline. A target without a current value is a guess.

Why do KPIs sometimes make results worse?

Because people optimise the number, not the result. A single quantity KPI — interviews held, vacancies closed — pushes quality down. Pair every speed or volume measure with a quality or satisfaction measure.