Human resource reporting and analysis are the guarantees for doing an excellent job in human resource monitoring and management. Reasonable human resource reports (also called HR reports) allow the HR department to access the employees’ critical data and key performance. With the data, HR could have clear ideas about the employees’ calendars, payments, working schedules, attendance, and other necessary information to make informed decisions. 

This article will introduce the what, why, and how of practical human resources reporting to help you understand and apply it in your work. Just check it out!

1. What is HR Reporting?

Human resources reporting (HR report) includes all the essential and detailed information of employees in the company, giving a panoramic view of human resources activities and general performance. The content could be flexible according to your needs. Usually, human resource reporting covers employees’ personal information and working performance in different sessions.

Under normal conditions, the human resources reporting system contains more than two individual HR reports, such as calendar management reports, payment check reports, working schedule reports, attendance reports, and so on.

2. Why You Need HR Reporting?

The human resources reporting system is an integral part of your business as employees are the company’s greatest asset. In fact, a well-structured and actionable HR reporting system serves as support to hiring, training, performance management, employee information management, and organizing HR events.

Comprehensive HR Reporting equips companies with predictive analytics capabilities, enabling them to forecast future HR events and effectively plan for risk mitigation. Utilizing human resources reports on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis offers several compelling reasons to embrace their power:

1. Problem identification: These reports enable analysis-driven tracking of issues, fostering transparency. Managers and professionals can assess turnover rates per manager, pay close attention to employee retention efforts, and implement improvements based on the consolidated HR data accessible through a KPI dashboard. This facilitates quicker responses to potential issues, leading to better HR management information reports and solutions.
2. Information management: Monthly or annual templates provide in-depth insights into ongoing developments within teams and departments, flagging risks like prolonged replacement periods when an employee is about to leave. Efficiently managing HR information is vital for success, and regular reporting practices enhance efficiency significantly.
3. HR monitoring: Businesses can monitor critical workforce metrics, identify trends and opportunities early on, and address problems before they impact the organization. Automating the monitoring process allows professionals to allocate more time to other essential tasks and goals.
4. Effective planning: An HR reporting structure serves as a foundation for planning strategies and initiatives, from hiring to employee engagement, by presenting a clear, data-driven picture. This empowers informed decision-making with tangible long-term results. Accessing data promptly through modern analytics processes facilitates more effective and strategic planning.
5. Predictive forecasting: Building upon the previous point, HR reporting enables predictive forecasting by analyzing digestible data aligned with short-term and long-term business goals. Making accurate, informed decisions backed by quality visual data leads to improved performance. The introduction of predictive analytics in HR and other corporate areas has expedited decision-making and enhanced efficiency.
6. Enhanced communication: The flexibility and user-friendliness of HR monthly and annual reports allow all stakeholders within and outside the HR department to extract value from the data. With access to live dashboards on multiple devices 24/7, communication throughout the organization is improved. Automating the monitoring process using modern solutions and presenting information through TV dashboards during HR meetings further facilitates effective communication within the team.

Furthermore, HR reports play a pivotal role in facilitating informed decision-making and granting partners, investors, and stakeholders valuable insights into the organization. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses must leverage modern dashboarding methods that augment HR processes. Consolidating all information into a unified platform, coupled with visual capabilities, allows for immediate issue identification, eliminating the need to manually search for information or sift through numerous spreadsheets and files.

BI dashboards consistently deliver substantial value across various business models and industries, thanks to their accurate management reporting capabilities. This succinctly captures the tremendous value they offer.

3. Types & Samples of HR Reporting

Next, let’s take a look at the 4 main types of human resources reports and you’ll be more clear on their functions. The templates are all made with FineReport. Also, lots of HR Report templates have been built into the software.

Note: All the HR report templates shown in this article are created by FineReport, a powerful reporting software that has been honorably mentioned by Gartner Magic Quadrant for ABI Platforms in 2023. You can download FineReport for free and have a try!

3.1 Personal Information management

Under daily conditions, the HR department is supposed to collect and collate the employee’s personal information, especially their working experience and turnover patterns. These data could help HR make better hiring decisions with more effective forecasting and planning.

For example, suppose you were a recruiter, and the human resource report showed that employee experience is likely to lead to higher productivity and stability while lowering risk. After gaining this insight, you would be more rational in defining the right talent and placing them in the right place. Also, suppose the HR analytics tells you that people aged between 23-25 may be more inclined to leave for promotional opportunities or higher pay. In that case, you could pay extra attention to this group to reduce the turnover rate.

Human resources reports could provide the best and most valuable insights. With such insights, the HR team could ensure they’re building the proper hiring and retention strategies to attract qualified employees at less cost.

3.2 General Performance Monitoring

Many companies require employees a seasonal or yearly performance presentation and accordingly evaluate their general performance. However, we still find information gaps often exist between the decision-makers and the employees. Why? Most of these presentations are static with Slides or PDF HR reports. The writing process is tedious, and information often tends to be subjective and dated. As a way out, human resources reporting could provide real-time data and picture the staff’s working performance followed by specific critical metrics.

For example, the above image shows a dashboard to present the overall attendance and salary information. As shown in the dashboard made by FineReport, HR could know employees’ check-in information. You can also add some other necessary metrics like sales performance to customize. With these real-time data, HR could effectively monitor and manage the performances, enhance recruitment and promotion, or prevent adverse problems that might impact the organization.

3.3 Segmented Department Analysis

Human resource reporting not only displays individual performance but also offers sharp insights into the achievement of the whole department. By analyzing the key metrics, decision-makers could quickly overview the progress and evaluate if the planning and strategies are working. Hence, they can timely take initiatives to adopt some incentives or adjustments to increase productivity and ensure efficient growth.

3.4 Cost Display and Payment Check

Believe it or not, company recruitment costs are often higher than you think. The HR department needs to report all the costs to the financial department. Additionally, HR is responsible for employee performance feedback and setting fair salary structures. As a result, HRs have to collect data such as salary, benefits, and bills from different directories and integrate them with a unified form. However, it takes a large amount of time and energy. 

A human resource report serves as a method to sort out and reflect all the necessary data concerning human resources costs and payments. With well-oiled HR reporting, the HR team can collate the hiring cost, salaries and bonuses, fines, and other financial data timely. Therefore, CEOs and HR managers can make more informed decisions and plans over the HR events.

4. How to Write an Effective HR Reporting?

Before starting to design human resource reports, you should have clear ideas about what to show in your report. In other words, you should gear the report content to the actual needs of the audience. Depending on your objectives, you can mix the relevant information within one report or apart information in different sections. But do remember, that the information provided in the report will be critical in the decision-making process, so arranging all the necessary information in a brief, clear, and understandable way is a must.

4.1 Deliver Clear Messages

It’s crucial to deliver clear messages in human resources reporting. As said before, you should avoid putting all things together without a clear focus, which will cause a waste of time to look for the information you need. All the information on the report should be necessary and inter-connected. Apart from this, the information displayed should be brief, up to a point. Any information that will cause misleading should be avoided.

4.2 Provide Accurate Information and Choose the Right Frequency

It would be best if you were careful when selecting data. Any inaccurate data is unfair to employees. Also, don’t ignore updating the data to keep them fresh. Static and outdated data in HR reports will cause an information gap and affect the assessment of the related employee and department. Some companies prefer to run their reports daily, while some prefer a weekly update. It’s all depending on your needs. Choosing the right update frequency is essential in discovering any negative patterns before the situation goes out of control. We suggest that the frequency goes no longer than a month since it might be too late to take proactive actions.

4.3 Provide In-time Feedback

After sorting out all the information and data, you are suggested to actively communicate with the decision-makers to adjust the strategies when necessary. If things are going well, it’s better to show your process and ideas to the employees to keep their engagement and motivation.

5. HR Reporting Structure and Metrics

Although you can customize HR reports according to your purposes, some key indicators are HR-centric and you should measure them. These metrics can help you get the numbers right, and you can drive analytics to find answers in the data.

Personal Information

• Age
• Sex
• Education level
• Time since hire/last promotion
• Job title

Cost and Payment

• Training costs
• Recruitment costs
• Cost of labor

Performance Management

• Active employees
• Check-ins and check-outs
• Absences
• Financial gains(e.g. sales)

Organization

• New hires
• Turnover
• Early turnover rate
• Recruitment statistics

Human resource reporting is to gather information from multiple systems and analyze them in an integrated way. Using proper metrics and KPIs in a clear logical structure could make further decision-making more data-driven.

6. Summary of HR Reporting

Human Resources Reports are of absolute importance to a well-functioning company. Human resources reporting could help HR better monitor and manage the employees and ensure that all the employees are engaged and creating value for the company, not fishing in troubled waters.

Following these suggestions might help you understand and design high-quality HR reports.

FineReport used in the article is a professional reporting software designed for creating and managing enterprise reports. It would revamp your human resource reporting with advanced reporting technologies, visualization, and automation. You can download it for a free trial.

Feel free to make an appointment for a live demo with product experts from FineReport and work together to discover your needs and see how FineReport can help you and your organization transform data into value.