7 Building HR Functions Metrics: Workforce Planning, Recruitment, and Training

7.1 Why Function-Level Metrics Matter

A scorecard that does not work at the level of a single sub-function will not work at the level of the whole HR organisation.

The foundational chapters so far have argued for HR metrics at the level of the whole programme: a dashboard contract, three lenses, a strategic cascade. This chapter goes one level deeper. Each HR sub-function — workforce planning, recruitment, training — has its own set of metrics that have to be designed, computed, and visualised on their own terms before they can be rolled up into the organisation-wide scorecard. A scorecard that fails at the sub-function level will fail at every level above it.

Workforce planning, recruitment, and training are the three sub-functions that determine whether the workforce of the future will exist, will join the firm, and will be ready to do the work. As Thomas P. Bechet (2008) argues in his foundational treatment of strategic staffing, the planning sub-function is where the organisation either anticipates or absorbs its workforce risk; the metrics that flow out of it set the agenda for the recruitment and learning teams that follow. The recruitment sub-function is where capacity is built, and its metrics combine speed, cost, and quality in a way that no other sub-function does. The training sub-function is where capability is built, and as Donald L. Kirkpatrick & James D. Kirkpatrick (2006) codified in the four-level evaluation framework, the metrics here have to span reaction, learning, behaviour, and results to be credible.

The visualisation lens runs through all three sub-functions and binds them together. A workforce-planning chart that shows a future capability gap, a recruitment funnel that shows whether the gap is being closed, and a training cohort chart that shows whether the new hires can do the work — these three pages, designed to be read together, turn three sub-functions into one strategic story.

The function-metrics contract

Every sub-function dashboard answers the operational question its team owns and the strategic question the organisation is asking of it.
The metric definitions are stable enough to roll up into the enterprise scorecard without redefinition, even when the sub-function chart shows them in more detail.
The three sub-function dashboards link to one another so that a workforce-planning gap, a recruitment funnel, and a training cohort can be traced as one connected story.

7.2 Workforce Planning Metrics

Workforce planning is the discipline of matching the workforce the firm will need to the workforce the firm will have, across a horizon long enough that decisions made today are still load-bearing. The metrics describe demand, supply, the gap between the two, and the actions being taken to close the gap. The dashboard for this sub-function is more forward-looking than any other in HR.

Workforce Planning Metrics

Metric family	Example metric	What it captures	Visual
Demand	Forecast headcount by role family, span-of-control target	What the business will need	Forecast line with confidence band
Supply	Projected headcount, retirement curve, attrition forecast	What the firm will have if nothing changes	Stacked area chart
Gap	Demand-supply gap by role family, critical-role coverage	Where the workforce will fall short	Heat map with red-amber-green
Action	Build, buy, borrow, bot, bind ratios	The mix of how the gap will be closed	Stacked-bar with action codes
Scenario	Optimistic and pessimistic supply paths	The range of plausible futures	Fan chart with named scenarios

From plan to dashboard

The workforce-planning dashboard is the only HR page that is read forward. The audience is the chief people officer and the chief operating officer, and the decision is whether to commit budget to hiring, training, redeployment, or automation. The chart that earns the page is the demand-supply-gap chart with the action mix layered on top. Every other planning visual supports that one.

7.3 Recruitment Metrics

Recruitment metrics describe whether the firm can find, choose, and bring in the people the workforce-planning dashboard says it needs. They combine three dimensions — speed, cost, and quality — and the dashboard that shows only one of the three is the dashboard that gets the recruitment team into trouble. A perfectly fast funnel that produces low-quality hires, or a perfectly cheap funnel that takes too long, fails the business in ways that no single metric can flag.

Recruitment Metrics by Funnel Stage

Stage	Example metric	Level	Visual
Sourcing	Applicants per requisition, source mix, source quality	Efficiency to effectiveness	Funnel with conversion
Screening	Pass-through rate, interview-to-offer ratio	Efficiency	Funnel chart
Assessment	Selection-test validity, decision-time per candidate	Effectiveness	Distribution by score
Offer	Offer acceptance rate, time from offer to acceptance	Efficiency to effectiveness	Trend line
Onboarding	Ninety-day retention, ramp time to productivity	Effectiveness to impact	Cohort chart
End-to-end	Time to fill, cost per hire, quality of hire	All three levels	Combo chart

The recruitment dashboard as a funnel

flowchart LR
  A[Sourcing] --> B[Screening]
  B --> C[Assessment]
  C --> D[Offer]
  D --> E[Onboarding]
  E --> F[Productive Hire]
  style A fill:#E8F0FE,stroke:#1A73E8
  style F fill:#E6F4EA,stroke:#137333

The recruitment dashboard is fundamentally a funnel chart. Every stage is a place where candidates drop off, and every stage has its own time, cost, and quality metric. The visual that earns the recruitment page is the funnel that shows conversion at each stage with a benchmark or target attached. From that single visual, the team can see where the funnel is leaking and where the leak is worst.

7.4 Training and Development Metrics

Training and development metrics describe whether the workforce can do the work the strategy requires. The classic four-level framework codified by Donald L. Kirkpatrick & James D. Kirkpatrick (2006) — reaction, learning, behaviour, results — maps directly onto the efficiency-effectiveness-impact lens of this book, and it is the most reliable way to design a training scorecard that survives an executive review.

The Four Levels of Training Evaluation

Level	What it captures	Example metric	Where the data lives	Visual
Reaction	Did the learners enjoy and value the experience?	Net Promoter Score, satisfaction rating	LMS, post-programme survey	Distribution gauge
Learning	Did the learners acquire the knowledge or skill?	Pre-test to post-test gain, mastery rate	LMS assessment	Before-and-after chart
Behaviour	Did the learners apply it on the job?	Manager-rated behaviour change at ninety days	Performance system, manager survey	Heat map
Results	Did the business outcome change?	Productivity uplift, sales lift, error-rate reduction	Operational system, finance	Cohort comparison chart

Designing the training scorecard

The temptation in training measurement is to live at level one, because reaction data is easy to collect and almost always glows green. The scorecard that earns its place reaches at least level three for any programme that runs for more than a quarter, and reaches level four for any programme that consumes a meaningful share of the L&D budget. The visual that anchors the page is the four-level heat map that shows, for each major programme, how far up the levels the measurement has actually reached.

7.5 Visualising the Three Sub-Functions Together

The three sub-function dashboards are most powerful when they are designed to be read together. A workforce-planning chart that ends in a gap, a recruitment funnel that closes part of the gap, and a training cohort chart that builds the rest of the capability tells one connected story. The reader follows the gap from the moment it is identified to the moment it is closed, and the story is what makes the budget conversation go differently.

Linking the Three Sub-Function Dashboards

Page	Question it answers	What it hands to the next page
Workforce planning	Where will the gap be in twelve to thirty-six months	The gap by role family with a target close date
Recruitment	Are we filling the gap with new hires fast enough and well enough	The number of hires landing per role family with quality scores
Training	Are the new and existing employees being made ready in time	The capability uplift by cohort linked to the original gap

The closing-the-gap arc

The three pages share a single thread: the gap. The workforce-planning page surfaces it, the recruitment page closes part of it, and the training page closes the rest. A scorecard that lays the three pages out side by side, with a gap-trace that runs through all three, lets the audience see whether the closing actions are working without leaving the dashboard. The conversation moves from “is recruitment fast enough” to “is the gap closing on time” — which is the strategic question all three sub-functions exist to answer.

7.6 Hands-On Exercise: Building the Workforce Pulse Dashboard

Aim, Scenario, Dataset, Deliverable

Aim. Build a one-page Workforce Pulse dashboard that surfaces headcount, attrition, recruitment funnel, and training coverage for the three sub-functions covered in this chapter. The lab follows the workshop-to-showroom translation introduced in Chapter 12: definitions and pivots in Excel, then a publication-grade page in Power BI.

Scenario. You are the HR analytics lead for an organisation that has asked for a single weekly page combining workforce-planning, recruitment, and training signals. Use the workforce extract and the recruitment funnel data, joined by employee identifier and role family.

Dataset. Two files from the HRMD dataset library:

Random HR Data (Excel) — workforce records with EmployeeID, Department, Status, TrainingCompletionStatus, and related fields.
Recruitment Data (Excel) — funnel records with Job Posting Date, Hire Date, Recruitment Cost, Offers Made, Offers Accepted, and related fields.

Deliverable. A Workforce-Pulse.xlsx workbook with the four headline measures pivoted by department and role family, and a Workforce-Pulse.pbix Power BI file with the dashboard described in the steps below.

7.6.1 Step 1 — Stage and clean the data in Excel

Download both files into a single working folder. In a fresh Excel workbook, import each as a Table (Insert > Table). Rename the tables Workforce and Recruitment so later formulas read clearly. Confirm the date columns are typed as dates and that the categorical columns (Department, Status, TrainingCompletionStatus) have no stray casing. Add a Date table covering the full reporting horizon on its own sheet.

7.6.2 Step 2 — Compute the four headline measures in Excel

In a sheet called Definitions, write each measure with its formula and a one-line description. Use the formulas below.

Code

Excel Formula

Headcount         = COUNTA(Workforce[EmployeeID]) - COUNTIF(Workforce[Status], "Exited")
Attrition Rate    = COUNTIF(Workforce[Status], "Exited") / COUNTA(Workforce[EmployeeID]) * 100
Time to Fill      = AVERAGE(Recruitment[Hire Date] - Recruitment[Job Posting Date])
Training Coverage = COUNTIF(Workforce[TrainingCompletionStatus], "Completed") / COUNTA(Workforce[TrainingCompletionStatus]) * 100

7.6.3 Step 3 — Build the pivots for slicing

Insert four pivot tables on a Pivots sheet, each fed by Workforce or Recruitment. Slice Headcount, Attrition Rate, and Training Coverage by Department; slice Time to Fill by Recruitment Channel. Add a slicer on Department that controls all four pivots so the audience can filter the page in one click.

7.6.4 Step 4 — Sketch the first chart

Add a pivot chart for each of the four measures. Render Headcount and Training Coverage as bar charts, Attrition Rate as a sparkline-style trend, and Time to Fill as a horizontal funnel. Iterate the charts until each reads in under five seconds without further explanation. This is the workshop draft you will promote to Power BI.

7.6.5 Step 5 — Promote to Power BI

Open Power BI Desktop. Use Home > Get Data > Excel to load both source files plus your Definitions sheet. In the model view, mark the Date table as the date table and connect the two source tables to it through their respective date fields. Confirm the relationships are one-to-many.

7.6.6 Step 6 — Build the four headline measures in DAX

Add a Measures table and create the four measures.

Headcount =
DISTINCTCOUNT(Workforce[EmployeeID])
    - CALCULATE(COUNTROWS(Workforce), Workforce[Status] = "Exited")

Attrition Rate =
DIVIDE(
    CALCULATE(COUNTROWS(Workforce), Workforce[Status] = "Exited"),
    DISTINCTCOUNT(Workforce[EmployeeID])
) * 100

Time to Fill =
AVERAGEX(
    Recruitment,
    DATEDIFF(Recruitment[Job Posting Date], Recruitment[Hire Date], DAY)
)

Training Coverage =
DIVIDE(
    CALCULATE(COUNTROWS(Workforce), Workforce[TrainingCompletionStatus] = "Completed"),
    DISTINCTCOUNT(Workforce[EmployeeID])
) * 100

Surface each measure’s definition in its Description property so it appears as a tooltip on every chart.

7.6.7 Step 7 — Lay out the page

Place four KPI cards across the top of the page — Headcount, Attrition Rate, Time to Fill, Training Coverage — each with a sparkline of the trailing twelve months and a conditional colour against a target. Below the cards, add a department map of attrition, a recruitment funnel by hiring stage, and a training-coverage heat map by role family.

7.6.8 Step 8 — Apply the dashboard contract

For each visual, write the decision the chart supports in the title. “Where is voluntary attrition climbing this quarter” reads decision-led; “Attrition rate by department” does not. Add a Department slicer at the top of the page. Confirm that hovering on any measure reveals its definition from the Description property in Step 6.

7.6.9 Step 9 — Publish and instrument

Publish the report to a Power BI workspace, set a daily refresh, and turn on usage metrics so the team can see whether the page is actually opened by the audience it was built for. Save the .pbix and the .xlsx to your working folder for the closing deliverable.

Connect to the Visualisation Layer

The page assembled in this lab is the operational anchor of the workforce-planning, recruitment, and training discussion. It pairs with the strategic-readiness scorecard from Chapter 5, the three-lens scorecard from Chapter 6, and the reward-and-retention page from Chapter 8 to form the foundational HR dashboard described in Module 1.

Files and Screen Recordings

Workforce-Pulse.xlsx, Workforce-Pulse.pbix, and ch7-workforce-pulse-walkthrough.mp4 will be attached at this point in the published edition. The screen recording walks through Steps 1 to 9 with the Excel workshop and the Power BI showroom shown side by side.

Summary

Concept	Description
Why Function-Level Metrics Matter
Sub-function metrics	Each HR sub-function has its own metric set that has to work on its own terms
Function-level scorecard	A scorecard that fails at the sub-function level fails at every level above it
Connected sub-function story	Planning, recruitment, and training pages are designed to be read together
The gap thread	A single gap is followed from forecast through hiring through training
Shared definition discipline	Sub-function definitions roll up into the enterprise scorecard without redefinition
Workforce Planning Metrics
Demand forecast	What the business will need by role family across the planning horizon
Supply projection	What the firm will have if no new action is taken
Demand-supply gap	Where the future workforce will fall short of demand
Action mix	The build, buy, borrow, bot, bind mix used to close the gap
Scenario range	Optimistic and pessimistic supply paths shown as a fan
Recruitment Metrics
Sourcing metrics	Volume and source quality of candidates entering the funnel
Screening metrics	Pass-through and interview-to-offer ratios at the screening stage
Assessment metrics	Validity of selection tools and decision-time per candidate
Offer metrics	Offer acceptance rate and offer-to-acceptance time
Onboarding metrics	Ninety-day retention and ramp time to productivity
End-to-end recruitment metrics	Time to fill, cost per hire, and quality of hire reported across the funnel
Recruitment funnel chart	The visual that anchors the recruitment page
The Four Kirkpatrick Levels
Reaction level	First Kirkpatrick level: did the learners enjoy and value the experience
Learning level	Second Kirkpatrick level: did they acquire the knowledge or skill
Behaviour level	Third Kirkpatrick level: are they applying it on the job
Results level	Fourth Kirkpatrick level: did the business outcome change
Four-level heat map	Visual that shows how far up the levels each programme has reached
Visualising the Three Together
Linked sub-function pages	Three sub-function pages designed and labelled to be read together
Gap-trace across pages	A single visual line that follows the gap through all three pages
Shared role-family colours	Each role family is rendered in the same colour across all three pages
Capability uplift by cohort	Training-level outcome that ties each cohort back to the planning gap