The art of becoming an HR reporting whiz (without having done Math Sup)

By Axelle Drack

Published: 25 October 2024

Far from being the preserve of colleagues in the finance department, in recent years reporting has spread to other departments within the company.

It has to be said that, given the need to remain competitive in the face of the competition, assiduously monitoring the performance of each function is an effective way of steering the company and taking the best possible decisions.

But as an HR Manager, figures and you are two different things, and building an HR report on an Excel spreadsheet can make you break out in a cold sweat (without exaggerating). The good news is that Business Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence are increasingly joining the party to make your HR management task easier.

But first, let's get back to basics: what is HR reporting and what are its objectives? Then we'll give you our advice and tools for creating high-quality HR reporting.

See all software HR Data Management

What is HR reporting?

Definition of HR reporting

HR reporting is a communication tool that includes various performance indicators over a defined period, to help with strategic decision-making.

It provides a clear, concise overview of the situation at a given point in time, making it easier to identify the HR department's various strengths at a glance, as well as any bottlenecks or areas for improvement.

👉With the right choice of indicators and a careful visual layout, HR reporting enables you to make more accurate and informed decisions based on facts.

The objectives of HR reporting

Let's talk in more detail about the different objectives of HR reporting. HR reporting helps to improve the management of the department's overall performance:

by identifying strengths
highlighting what's already working so that it can work even better,
and by pinpointing the areas where things are not going so well, so that you can identify the cause and take action to rectify the situation.

In this way, you'll be in a better position to

be more efficient in the recruitment process,
identify development opportunities,
promote your actions to all employees,
demonstrate to management your contribution to the company's overall performance.

🦸‍♀️Votre mission, if you accept it: to contribute to the company's good performance by facilitating strategic decision-making.

HR reporting is different from the HR dashboard

HR reporting or HR dashboard: the same battle? Although they may seem similar, they should not be confused. But why? We'll explain:

Firstly , their role. They don't serve exactly the same purpose, because :

the HR dashboard is used by the whole team on a day-to-day basis to check that their tasks (recruitment campaigns, for example) are progressing in real time and that objectives are being met;
whereas reporting is used to summarise the department's performance for management and to present an analysis that can be used to make decisions (for example, revising objectives or hiring skills that are lacking).

The purpose of the dashboard is therefore operational, whereas that of reporting is strategic.
Secondly, the content differs. Firstly

the dashboard is synthetic and dynamic, updated automatically as progress is made. It is made up of HR indicators (KPIs), tables and graphs;
reporting presents fixed results, and summarises the results for a given period. It contains data, may include graphics, but above all includes a written section commenting on the results presented, and sometimes recommendations for improvement. Its format is longer than the dashboard, sometimes spanning several pages.

The differences between the 2 tools are summarised in the table below:

HR Reporting	HR dashboard
For management	For the team
Fixed data	Dynamic data
Strategic level	Operational level
Long format	Synthetic format

💡 Please note, however, that these two tools are complementary when it comes to managing your human resources, and it's not a question of using one to the benefit of the other!

How do you create high-quality HR reporting? Our advice

1. Make sure the data you use is credible

Everything starts with the data! If the data is unreliable, your report is likely to sound false (or hollow) and not very convincing. Anyone who hasn't already spent hours checking for errors or deleting duplicates should raise their hand 🙋‍♀️.

Then, using the data, you need to select the most relevant indicators or KPIs for your reporting.

So make sure that the HR data you use is :

✅ from reliable sources
✅ harmonised,
✅ without duplication,
✅ up-to-date.

2. Automate the reporting creation process

Some companies carry out their HR management by collecting data manually and then doing all the calculations themselves. Unfortunately, this poses a number of problems:

it's tedious
it can be very time-consuming, depending on the volume of data to be processed,
and there is a risk of error.

To truly manage your human resources without spending all day on it, you need to automate your reporting. The key? Major benefits:

✅ data that is reliable, centralised, secure and complete, and that you can use without any doubts;
✅ automatic exploitation of data through business intelligence (sorting, filters, cross-referencing, automatic creation of graphs, etc.);
✅ generation of pre-formatted reports in just a few minutes, which you can then customise.

We'll come back later in the article to the different tools for automating the creation of reporting.

3. Adapt your reporting to the objective and the recipient

Before launching headlong into the production of your report, ask yourself the question: who is going to read my report, and why?

Having the answers to these questions will make it easier for you to :

selecting the indicators to be presented
and in the way you comment on the results or projections, so that each piece of information is of interest to the recipient.

4. Careful presentation

As a decision-making tool, your HR reporting must be presented in such a way that the recipient quickly understands the context and the situation in order to decide what action to take. And careful presentation helps!

Here are a few tips for a professional and attractive presentation:

Highlight it with colour. The aim is not just to look pretty, but above all to highlight essential information. Ideally, choose the colours from your company's graphic charter, and use them sparingly (too much colour kills colour!).
Insert visuals. Whether they're illustrations, photos (or even emojis, why not), visuals help to lighten the reading experience by creating micro-pauses. They're ideal for keeping your audience's attention throughout the reading process.

Use graphics. They add another dimension to the data and other indicators, and are often easier to understand than a table. They can take different forms: curves, pie charts, bar charts, etc.

Examples and tools to help you create your HR reporting

Examples of reporting applications

Here are a few examples of HR reporting that you may need to produce:

monthly reporting to management to monitor your department's performance,
one-off reporting to shareholders who need to know about financial projections,
reporting on absenteeism within the company,
reporting on the department's operating costs if you need to reduce company costs.

HR dashboard template

To give your reporting more context, don't hesitate to put it into perspective with an HR dashboard.

See our article dedicated to the HR dashboard with several examples to inspire you.

What tools can make reporting easier?

OK, you've got it, we try to avoid doing our reporting in Excel so as not to waste time, unless you're a spreadsheet whiz, in which case, knock yourself out (and respect 🙌).

Here are a few examples of tools to use:

HR data management software,
business intelligence software,
some HRIS also have the necessary modules.