For as long as I can remember HR people have been trying (often failing) to gain credibility from CEOs. HR professionals can develop all HR strategies they want, implement processes and best practices, but unless those are quantifiable they’ll be hard pressed to win over the C-suite.

Fortunately, there are a number of metrics HR can capture, track to gain credibility then add value to the business and operations.

1. Costs

Training costs, average salary, salary deviation by job, cost of benefits compared to salary or as a percentage of revenue.

2. Employee engagement and job satisfaction

Survey findings, work-life balance, complaints/legal cases, level of commitment, level of empowerment, compensation satisfaction, opportunities to advance, internal promotion rate, clarity of organizational vision and effectiveness of learning & development.

3. HR pipeline

Employee salary by level, number of employees by band, employee productivity by position, attrition by level.

4. Issue management

Number of complaints, time to resolve, legal fees and cost of settlement.

5. Performance management

Average rating, problem employee rate, rehab rate for problem employees, termination rate for problem employees and average cost to terminate.

6. Productivity

Revenue per employee, profit per employee, absence rates and salary raise vs. revenue increase.

7. Recruitment

Cost per hire, time per hire, fill rate, offer acceptance ratio, interview no-shows, performance indicators met by new hires, manager satisfaction level with new hires/recruitment process, employees recruited from target competitors, voluntary and involuntary terminations in year one and costs of attrition.

8. Retention

Involuntary and voluntary termination rates, average retention period, employees eligible for retirement/early retirement and average tenure.

9. Talent and key employees

Key employee satisfaction rate/retention rate/cost rate/eligible for retirement and bench strength.

10.  Workforce diversity and inclusion

% of employees from under-represented minorities such as gender, race, disability, age and sexual orientation.