Safety & WorkforceFree referencePDF, Excel, Word exportManufacturing

Plant HR and Labor KPI Definitions: Formulas for Absenteeism, Turnover, TRIR and More

Plant HR, EHS and operations teams often argue about KPI formulas before they argue about results. This table lists the workforce measures used in manufacturing with the standard formula, unit and a note on how to interpret each.

Download:

KPI	Formula	Unit	How to read it
Absenteeism rate	Unplanned absence days / scheduled work days x 100	Percent	Define whether approved leave counts. Track by shift and department.
Bradford factor	S x S x D, where S is number of absence spells and D is total days absent	Points	Penalizes frequent short absences more than one long absence.
Employee turnover rate	Separations in period / average headcount x 100	Percent	Annualize if the period is shorter than a year.
Voluntary turnover rate	Resignations in period / average headcount x 100	Percent	Excludes layoffs, retirements and dismissals.
90 day attrition	New hires who left within 90 days / new hires in cohort x 100	Percent	A signal of onboarding or role fit problems.
Time to fill	Offer acceptance date minus requisition approval date	Days	Report the median as well as the mean.
Cost per hire	(Internal recruiting cost + external recruiting cost) / number of hires	Currency	State which costs are included.
Vacancy rate	Open positions / total authorized positions x 100	Percent	Pair with time to fill.
Overtime percentage	Overtime hours / total hours worked x 100	Percent	Persistent high values suggest understaffing or poor scheduling.
Labor utilization	Productive hours / available paid hours x 100	Percent	Productive hours are those booked to jobs or operations.
Labor efficiency	Earned (standard) hours / actual hours x 100	Percent	Above 100 means faster than standard.
Labor productivity	Output units / labor hours	Units per hour	Compare like products and routings.
Direct labor cost per unit	Direct labor cost / units produced	Currency per unit	Include burden separately if you track it.
Revenue per employee	Revenue / average headcount	Currency	High level measure, sensitive to outsourcing.
Span of control	Number of employees / number of supervisors	Ratio	Typical production spans differ by process complexity.
Training hours per employee	Total training hours / average headcount	Hours	Split mandatory safety from skills training.
Training completion rate	Employees with completed required training / employees requiring it x 100	Percent	Report by course and expiry date.
Skills coverage	Stations with at least 2 qualified operators / total stations x 100	Percent	Shows single points of failure.
TRIR (total recordable incident rate)	Recordable cases x 200,000 / employee hours worked	Per 100 full time workers	200,000 equals 100 workers at 2,000 hours a year (OSHA basis).
DART rate	Cases with days away, restricted or transferred x 200,000 / hours worked	Per 100 full time workers	Shows injury severity beyond recordable cases.
Lost time injury frequency rate	Lost time injuries x 1,000,000 / hours worked	Per million hours	Used in many countries. Basis differs from TRIR.
Severity rate	Days lost x 200,000 / hours worked	Days per 100 workers	Check your own definition of days lost.
Schedule adherence	Hours worked as scheduled / hours scheduled x 100	Percent	Useful for shift based lines.
Internal fill rate	Positions filled internally / total positions filled x 100	Percent	Shows career path strength.

Definitions vary between companies and countries. Write down your own convention for each KPI, including what counts in the numerator and denominator, and keep it constant over time so trends are valid.

One workforce KPI view from your ERP

Optional: a short review of which workforce KPIs can be built from your ERP and time data.

Optional. The tool and every export work without this. No spam.

How to use the table

Search for the KPI you must report, such as turnover or TRIR, and copy the formula into your dashboard specification. Export the list to Excel to build a KPI dictionary for your plant. Add the data source and owner beside each row, because a KPI without an owner usually stops being updated within a year.

Formulas worth getting exactly right

The incident rates are standardized. TRIR multiplies recordable cases by 200,000 and divides by hours worked, which expresses cases per 100 full time workers. The Bradford factor squares the number of absence spells before multiplying by total days, so ten single-day absences score 1,000 while one ten-day absence scores 10. Labor efficiency compares earned standard hours to actual hours, so it needs reliable routing standards.

Annualize turnover for periods shorter than one year
Use average headcount, not end of period headcount
Keep contractors and agency staff in a separate view

Where the data comes from

Absence and overtime come from time and attendance, headcount from HR, and earned hours from ERP production reporting. Incident data comes from your EHS log. Mismatches between systems are the main cause of disputed numbers, so reconcile employee IDs and calendar definitions before building reports.

Common mistakes

Frequent errors are mixing hours bases across rates, using different absence definitions between plants, counting temporary workers in only one of numerator or denominator, and reporting efficiency when standards are outdated. Always show the denominator beside a rate so a small sample does not mislead.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good absenteeism rate in manufacturing?

It varies by country, shift pattern and how absence is defined, so compare against your own history and similar plants. A rate that rises on particular shifts or days of the week is more useful to investigate than a single plant wide number.

Why is TRIR multiplied by 200,000?

The OSHA convention assumes 100 full time workers working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks, which is 200,000 hours. Multiplying by this base lets plants of different sizes be compared as incidents per 100 full time workers.

How do I calculate Bradford factor for a team?

Calculate it per employee over a rolling 52 weeks using S squared times D, then report distribution across the team rather than an average. The score is a trigger for conversation, and policies should account for disability and protected absences.

Should turnover include retirements?

Total turnover includes every separation, including retirements, dismissals and end of contract. For retention analysis, also report voluntary turnover, which excludes them. State which one you show on every chart.

If these KPIs sit across HR, time and ERP systems, we can help build one read-only view with documented definitions.

Talk to an Expert Explore More Free Tools

Related Tools

Safety & Workforce

More Safety & Workforce tools

See all

Back to All Tools