For small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), HR is no longer just an administrative function, it’s a strategic powerhouse. As teams scale and competition for top talent heats up, making smarter, faster people decisions with fewer resources becomes critical.
In large enterprises, HR professionals often hold the title of “Business Partner,” directly connecting HR initiatives to business outcomes. Most decisions are backed by data.
But what about organizations that aren’t quite at that scale yet? If you’re leading HR in a company with 20 to 499 employees, your reality looks a little different. Here, roles blur. HR teams are typically small but mighty, with typically one to eight people wearing multiple hats daily. In this environment, knowing your HR-to-employee ratio isn’t just a number. It’s a strategic anchor that helps you stay ahead.
You probably know where you stand today. But how do you get where you need to go next? That’s where we come in.
We’ve gathered insights from Konica Minolta’s HR team — the same team that helped earn a spot on the Forbes 2025 list of Best Large Employers. These aren’t vanity metrics. They’re practical, decision-driving numbers with real impact. And now, they’re here to help you.
If you’re leading HR at a growing organization, these are the metrics you can’t afford to ignore in 2025.
First up: your HR-to-employee ratio
The HR-to-employee ratio can vary on factors like your internal processes, location, workforce makeup (full-time, part-time, contractors), industry, technology tools and more. But no matter the specifics, knowing your HR-to-employee ratio is crucial.
When your HR team is understaffed, the ripple effects are fast and far-reaching – from performance and morale to customer experience.
So, what’s a good starting point? The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offers these general guidelines for HR staffing:
Use this as a baseline and adjust based on your organization’s unique needs.
Time to Fill Open Positions
If you’re a small or mid-sized business, you know top talent isn’t always flooding your job postings. And when roles sit open too long, it’s more than a delay – it’s a direct hit to business performance. Every open role usually fills a critical gap, making quick, efficient hiring essential.
That’s why tracking time to fill matters. It shows how fast your HR team can bring in talent compared to industry benchmarks. According to SHRM, the average global time to fill is 44 days. If you’re faster, you’re ahead of the curve. If it’s taking longer, it may signal the need for more resources, streamlined processes or better technology.
Quality of Hire
Fast hiring without the right fit can cost more than slow hiring, because when a new hire doesn’t work out, you’re right back at square one (and out valuable time and money).
The goal is to balance speed and precision. To track quality of hire, monitor your new hire retention rates (especially at 6 and 12 months), performance review scores and hiring manager satisfaction. These insights can help you fine-tune your recruitment process and build stronger teams from the start.
Voluntary Turnover Rate
High voluntary turnover usually signals deeper problems, whether it’s cultural issues, management gaps or unclear role expectations. Beyond the obvious disruption to productivity, high turnover can tank morale across the board.
What should you track?
This will help you spot patterns early, track trends and make proactive changes.
First-year Attrition
If employees are leaving within their first year – or worse, within their first 90 days – it’s a red flag. But you’re not alone. One-third of all employees hired in the U.S. quit their job within the first six months. It typically points to missteps in hiring, onboarding or setting expectations.
To stay ahead of this trend, track the percentage of new hires who leave within 90 days and within the first 12 months. Watch closely for high early exits by team or role to pinpoint where adjustments are needed most. Exit interviews are one of the best tools to pin down the root cause of the turnover.
Offer Acceptance Rate
In today’s competitive market, getting offers accepted is just as important as finding great candidates. A low offer acceptance rate can hint at misaligned compensation, a poor candidate experience or a weak employer brand. According to LinkedIn’s workforce confidence survey, employees’ confidence in finding or keeping a job has reached lower than it was at the peak of pandemic uncertainty.
Given the current market conditions, it’s understandable. To keep a pulse on this trend, track the number of offers extended versus offers accepted and break it down by job level and location. This way, you can spot and fix issues before they start costing you top talent.
Absenteeism Rate
Frequent unplanned absences can quietly chip away at team output and energy and often signal burnout or disengagement.
To stay ahead of absenteeism issues, track total unscheduled absence hours per employee over time. Look for patterns by team or manager so you can address root causes before they become bigger problems.
Training ROI
With leaner budgets, proving that upskilling efforts pay off is more important than ever.
Tracking training ROI should go beyond course completion rates and focus on tangible business outcomes.
Measure skill improvements through assessments and connect training initiatives to productivity gains or promotion readiness. Showing impact turns training from a nice-to-have into a business priority. Some of the best ways to measure the business impact of employee training include tracking engagement and retention rates.
HR Efficiency
SMB HR teams are often small but juggle massive workloads. Manual, time-consuming processes don’t scale as your business grows.
Start by tracking how much time your team spends on core tasks like onboarding, document management, and approvals. These insights can help you build a strong case for investing in HR automation because it doesn’t just save time, it frees your team to focus on more strategic work.
Curious about where to start your automation journey or just want to explore what tools are out there? Check out our HR automation guide. It’s packed with practical tips to help you do more with rising HR responsibilities.
Finally, a bonus tip: Action beats observation
Tracking these metrics is critical, but acting on the insights behind them is where real impact happens. HR automation platforms can surface these numbers in real-time and help eliminate bottlenecks causing you the biggest challenges. Don’t just measure progress, accelerate it.
