Insight
An HR dashboard is trusted exactly until the first time it is confidently wrong.
Most people analytics oversells: six fields become an attrition explanation, a headcount chart becomes a workforce strategy. One bad inference in a board meeting and nobody opens it again.
What is there
Six views, computed as at a date you choose.
Headcount by department and by work location, as at any date rather than only today. Attrition across a window you set, as exits per month with a headline rate. Tenure distribution. Gender split. Leave utilisation per leave type for an accrual year.
Each is a question a founder or an HR head asks monthly, and each is answerable from the record rather than from a survey.
- Headcount by departmentwhere people are, as at any datenot why a team grew
- Headcount by locationthe same, geographically—
- Attritionexits per month, and a headline ratenot broken down by reason
- Tenurehow long people have stayed—
- Gender splitthe composition as it standsnot a pay-gap analysis
- Leave utilisationper leave type, per year—
- As at a date, not just now —
Headcount and tenure take a date, so a question about last March is a question rather than an archaeology project.
- It reads the record, not a survey —
Everything here comes from the employment record itself — joins, exits, assignments, leave. Nothing depends on anybody filling in a form.
- Gated separately —
Reporting access is its own permission, because who may read company-level composition is not the same question as who may open an employee.
What is deliberately not there
It measures attrition. It does not explain it.
Attrition is counted — exits per month, a rate against headcount at the start of the window. What it does not do is break that down by reason or exit type, and nothing analyses exit-interview notes.
That is a real limit and worth stating rather than implying. The exit type is recorded on the settlement and the interview notes are on the exit, so the raw material exists; the roll-up does not. If attrition-by-reason is what you need on a board pack, ask for it directly rather than assuming a dashboard called attrition contains it.
What a founder asks
Mostly about what they can safely quote.
›How is the attrition rate calculated?
Exits inside the window against headcount at the start of it. It is a simple, stateable formula rather than an industry-standard annualised one, and you should know which you are quoting before it reaches a board pack.
›Can we see why people are leaving?
Not as a chart. Exit type is recorded on the settlement, and interview notes are on the exit — both readable, neither rolled up.
›Can we compare departments on attrition?
Headcount splits by department; attrition does not. That asymmetry is real and we would rather name it than let a demo imply otherwise.
›Does the gender view do pay-gap analysis?
No. It reports composition. Pay equity is a different analysis with different obligations, and a composition chart is not it.
›Who can see this?
Whoever you give reporting access to — a separate permission from opening an employee record.
›Can we export it?
The views are on screen. If a board pack is the destination, tell us what it has to contain and we will show you what actually comes out rather than promising a format.
- Pull headcount as at a date twelve months ago
- Set the attrition window and check the formula against your own
- Open leave utilisation for last year
- Ask where attrition-by-reason would have to come from