What Your Executive Team Wants from HR Reports [Infographic]

In our latest study, we found that both executives and HR professionals agree that measuring HR and its impact on an organization is critical. In fact, many executives want to hear from their HR teams more frequently and with more detailed HR reports.

What this means is that HR metrics are no longer nice-to-haves—they are a must for any HR team that wants to help build a solid, data-driven management strategy for their organization.

Measuring the Effectiveness of HR Is Critical

In our survey, over two-thirds of respondents said that it is very important or extremely important to measure the impact that HR initiatives have on their organization. This is a good sign for HR professionals because, in Peter Drucker’s words, “What gets measured gets improved.” And to take that quote a bit further, what gets measured matters: a full 87 percent of respondents said that HR reports influence their organization’s strategy to varying degrees. 

It’s clear that HR is no longer a second-class department in many organizations. The initiatives and efforts that come out of it are worth measuring, improving, and factoring into strategic decisions.

Executives Want More

As important as measuring HR alignment and effectiveness is, it seems that some HR teams aren’t delivering as much information as their executive teams would like. Among the non-HR executives we surveyed, nearly one-third said their HR team doesn’t report often enough, and 16 percent said they have no idea how often their HR team reports. 

While 51 percent of the respondents did agree that their HR teams report frequently enough, the numbers suggest that many organizations still have room for improvement. Therein lies a great opportunity for HR. Understanding the reporting needs of your executive team, and then meeting those needs, can open the way for you to become a more strategic force in your organization.  

Measuring Employee Experience Needs to Be a Priority

It isn’t frequency alone that HR professionals can improve when it comes to their reporting. We asked respondents for the types of HR reports they currently use to measure the impact of HR, as well as the types of HR reports they wish they had. From a list of various options, almost a quarter of respondents selected employee satisfaction as a report they would like to have, and 20 percent selected employee engagement.

Since HR is meant to serve the people of an organization, the employee experience should be an important part of the HR measuring process. Are HR initiatives helping to boost employee satisfaction and engagement? Or are they hindering these things? Reports that can help answer these questions are critical.

The good news is that 46 percent of respondents are already using employee satisfaction reports for measuring HR alignment. Hopefully, this is a number that will continue to grow. 

What HR Professionals Can Do

From our recent study, it’s obvious that both HR professionals and executives want greater insight into how HR initiatives impact their organizations. And not just for curiosity’s sake: this insight can have an important influence on an organization’s overall management strategy.

HR professionals shoulder the responsibility to prepare and share these reports to help their teams and organizations succeed. But this doesn’t have to be a daunting task. BambooHR provides over 30 pre-built HR reports on key metrics like turnover, performance, and more—all accessible with a few clicks. Get started with a free trial of BambooHR today, and give your organization the best in HR reporting.