As HR professionals know, employee performance metrics are more than just simple numbers on a screen. They’re a reflection of your team members’ contributions and their impact on your organization. 

By tracking and analyzing these metrics, you can identify high-performing talent and spot several areas that you may need to work on and improve. 

You can get a well-rounded view of your workforce’s performance through a mix of qualitative and quantitative measures. These people metrics will help you make data-driven decisions and successfully plan for tweaks and changes. 

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at 12 of the most critical employee performance HR metrics to keep track of in the modern workplace. 

What are employee performance metrics, and why are they important?

Employee performance metrics are a set of measurable values that gauge your team members’ individual productivity, efficiency, and overall performance. 

The importance of these metrics lies in the fact that you can use them to get a full overview of your team and ensure that everyone’s efforts align with your company’s goals and strategies. 

How to measure employee performance metrics

You can measure employee performance management in several ways. Below we’ve highlighted three examples you can use to gather insights and information about your team members to create a successful performance management strategy

Key performance indicators

The most common method is setting a variety of clear, relevant, and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs), then analyzing the results to get a comprehensive picture of performance. 

You can tailor these KPIs to fit your organization, taking into account things such as the specific roles of your people, what department they’re in, or more general company-wide goals. 

360-degree feedback

This method is a more comprehensive approach that gathers input from peers, teams, supervisors, managers, and other key members who regularly interact with the individual. 

This helps to provide a holistic view of a person’s performance and allows you to highlight specific areas for improvement. 

Self-assessments

Sometimes, the best approach is to ask someone to look inward and evaluate their own performance on a regular basis. You can use multiple-choice questions, surveys, or other methods to help gather insights. 

You can compare these self-assessments to your own expectations and feedback, then work on any discrepancies you identify. 

12 key employee performance metrics 

Now that we have a better understanding of why these metrics are important, let’s take a look at some of the best metrics for measuring employee performance: 

1. Objective management

This metric tracks how well a team member is managing and meeting their objectives. This can span a wide range of goals and aims, from broad factors such as clarity and timeliness to more specific company-oriented goals. 

2. Work efficiency

Your team will work at their best when they can prioritize and get things done as efficiently as possible. This makes work efficiency an important metric to consider as it can help to assess how much work your people can complete within their set hours. Understanding your current work efficiency can also help pinpoint areas for improvement.

3. Quality of work

The efficiency of a team member’s work will not be worth much if what they’re producing isn’t up to scratch. Tracking this metric allows you to ensure that factors such as accuracy and attention to detail are upheld. This metric also enables you to ensure that the work meets the company’s standards. 

4. Engagement

Engagement measures your team members’ commitment to their work, peers, and organization. This metric takes into account factors such as participation, enthusiasm, and a general willingness to get things done. 

5. Teamwork

Teamwork is an important part of any organization. This metric evaluates your people’s ability to collaborate cohesively and work effectively together. It also accounts for factors such as communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution. 

6. Time management

Time management encompasses everything from a person’s ability to efficiently allocate their time across their tasks to making sure they are punctual each day. It can give you insight into a person’s ability to prioritize, schedule, and meet their deadlines. 

7. Errors made

Tracking the number of errors made either by an individual can be a good indicator of whether further training is needed or processes need improvement. For example, a software engineer may have the number of errors made in a certain number of lines of code measured. 

8. Number of sales

A very simple metric, the number of sales, is an easy way to quantify a salesperson’s performance. This can be something as simple as the output of a car salesperson on an average weekday. But sales numbers can also be more complex when more factors come into play, such as the length of the sales cycle, the economy, and the quality of the product. 

9. Number of units produced

A metric often used in manufacturing, the number of units produced is a quantitative metric that gauges how efficient the team member is. For example, this could be the number of physical units a team member produces per hour. But this metric isn’t limited to manufacturing, as you can also use it for people in roles like data entry, where their number of keystrokes per minute will be tracked. 

10. Revenue per employee

This metric calculates the average revenue generated per person within a specific time frame. It also helps you gauge your team members’ overall productivity and efficiency. It can also help you pinpoint specific areas that need improvement.

11. Absenteeism

Absenteeism tracks the frequency and overall duration of a person’s absences from work. This helps you assess the impact of absenteeism on your team’s performance, workload, productivity, and morale. 

12. Overtime

You may think this metric is designed to keep track of people’s overtime hours so you can reward them for working beyond their normal hours. Actually, it’s the opposite. When a team member works more than their set number of hours, it can mean they have too much on their plate or feel pressure to go above and beyond what would be considered normal. 

Keeping an eye on this metric can help you spot inefficiencies and prevent burnout on your team. 

How Bob helps track and analyze employee performance metrics

At HiBob, we’ve developed a modern HR platform tailored to address today’s multifaceted business needs.

For HR professionals, Bob offers a simplified solution for employee performance tracking by consolidating metrics data into an intuitive, user-friendly interface. Bob makes it easy for you to keep track of performance trends, pinpoint areas for improvement, and keep your team running smoothly. 

Managers benefit from immediate access to HR analytics and actionable insights on their team’s performance, helping them be more effective when managing and supporting their teams. 

Allow Bob to streamline your workflow and be your partner in fostering a culture of excellence and growth. 


Tali Sachs

From Tali Sachs

Tali is a content marketing manager at HiBob. She's been writing stories since before she knew what to do with a pen and paper. When she's not writing, she's reading sci-fi, snuggling with her cats, or singing at an open mic.