People analytics data is an untapped resource that People teams use to improve organizational performance. 

But which data matters and how do you surface it?

Instead of spending hours figuring it out, you can take inspiration from our list of 5 people analytics dashboard examples.

These examples are based upon people analytics dashboards our clients use at Mesh (our performance enablement and analytics software).

In this article, we’ll focus on examples that help People teams: 

• assess and track employee performance
• make informed decisions about promotions and talent development
• and optimize HR processes for maximum impact. 

We’ve also included four tips to make people analytics more effective and shared success stories from three companies.

If you're short on time, here's 4 need-to-know highlights:

• At Mesh, we provide out-of-the-box employee analytics dashboards, as well as custom ones to fit your culture.
• Once you get the data, we advise you to not get into analysis paralysis. The data on these HR dashboards should always be interpreted with context. We recommend doing root cause analysis so you can make the right decisions. 
• It’s also important to democratize any data and insights you get from People Analytics dashboards to others in the organization, particularly the managers. This is because managers are the ones directly managing and interacting with employees on a daily basis.
• People analytics conducted before launching an initiative can prevent issues that trigger high-turnover.‍

5 People Analytics Dashboard Examples to Assess and Improve Performance

People analytics data tells you one of two things and prompts one of two considerations:

• Something is working well → how do we do more of it? 
• Something is not working well → how do we fix it?

But in order to reach those considerations and to analyze root causes, the data needs to exist in a digestible format.

Below are five different people analytics dashboard examples Mesh clients use to assess and improve performance. 

Some are more targeted at People leaders while others help managers get insights into their team’s performance. 

We’ll make it clear which is which throughout and the different ways you can use these dashboards to develop your People strategy, provide answers to leadership’s burning questions, and better support employee performance.

The five dashboards are:

1. Goals and Goal Tracking Dashboard
2. Performance Dashboard for People Analytics Leaders
3. Performance Dashboard for Managers
4. Competencies and Feedback Dashboard
5. Manager 1:1 Dashboard

Mesh offers out-of-the-box people analytics dashboards, but we can also create custom ones based on your unique culture and what you want to analyze. Our goal is not to dictate culture, but to digitize it. Ask us about this in a personalized demo with a member of our team. 

→ Looking for people analytics platforms? Check out our 12 Best People Analytics Software guide.

1. Goals and Goal Tracking Dashboard

Who’s setting goals and OKRs? How many are they setting? What are the success rates of goals that get set by team x, y or z?

These are the questions People leaders want answers to because they can provide insights into how teams are functioning and if they’re aligned to the overall business strategy. 

On Mesh, you can create a goals dashboard that analyzes data related to:

• Goal coverage: How many employees have set goals and at what frequency over time
• Goal check-ins: Frequency of updates/discussions on goal progress
• Goal progress: Tracking goals that are on-track, at-risk, or completed
• Factors impacting goals: Variables that may be contributing to or hindering goal achievement 
• Year-over-year comparisons: Analyzing improvement in goal achievement over time by function, role, or tenure range

Here are what these dashboards look like in Mesh, how to use them, and what you can do with the data. 

Goal coverage

To start, the chart below visualizes goal coverage within the organization over time. 

The x-axis represents months, from November 2022 to October 2023, while the y-axis shows the total goal count, with a maximum of 40 goals per month.

Each vertical bar corresponds to a month, with the height representing the total number of goals set during that month. 

The different colors within each bar show the distribution of goal coverage. For example, a bar with a significant portion of blue or purple indicates months with low goal coverage, while more brown or gold signifies better goal setting.

People analytics leaders can use this chart to monitor and enhance goal-setting practices within the organization.

Months with lower goal coverage (more blue and purple) highlight periods where fewer goals were set, signaling a need for increased focus on goal-setting initiatives.

In contrast, months with higher goal coverage (more brown and gold) can be analyzed to understand what practices led to improved goal-setting.

You can also break down down goal coverage by function, job title, tenure, or manager:

And that can show you if one team or person is achieving goals more or less than others. 

💡However, we always warn People leaders not to blindly trust the data. 

For example, in the screenshot above, it might look like the “People & Culture” team is not achieving their goals, and hence they are underperforming.

But, if you dig deeper and analyze further, there might be a very good reason why they’re not reaching their goals that has nothing to do with their performance. 

This is why we always recommend People leaders to interpret data within context, and always do root cause analysis. 

Goal check-ins

In the graph just above, you can see an overall trend of goal check-ins and then those check-ins broken down by function. Along the x-axis of the first graph is the month, with the y-axis showing the number of check-ins.

The bottom graph has an x-axis of goal check-in numbers with the y-axis showcasing the function.

Goal check-in information can tell you if employees are falling into the trap of ‘set and forget’ goals or if they’re actively updating progress and revisiting their targets. 

You can then come up with a strategy to increase check-ins or continue the level of check-ins you’re seeing.

Goal progress

With this table as part of your Goals dashboard, you can see at a glance how many goals are at risk, on track, off track, or already completed.

Above you can see that the top bar chart shows goals distribution by progress status. You can also see what goal completion trends look like over time with the line graph. 

This is useful for spotting if there are specific periods of the year where the organization or a team is more or less able to achieve their goals.

For example, if there was a slump in February as the graph shows, could that be the darker days impacting productivity? 

If so, you could come up with strategies to support your teams. For example, some companies introduce ‘winter hours’ where employees take time in the middle of the day to get outside for a walk while the sun is still up.

Factors impacting goals

Your goals dashboard on Mesh also looks beyond the numbers and finds that all important context for you:

In the image above, you’ll see that Mesh has indicated how specific factors such as demographics are increasing or decreasing the metric. 

These insights could help you understand what groups need more support and what setups, such as having a manager as a goal collaborator, can increase completion percentages. 

It’s important to emphasize again that this doesn’t automatically indicate a certain group is better or worse at goals, it could actually be a DE&I issue that needs to be addressed in your organization. This is why we always recommend you do a root cause analysis.

Year-over-year comparisons

And finally, the goals dashboard has a table that breaks down goal achievement year-over-year. Here you can see if a team is improving its goal completion rates. 

Along the bottom is the percentage of completion rates by team, with the sides listing relevant teams you’re comparing year-on-year. The blue bars show 2023, the green shows 2022 and the purple bar shows the difference in goal achievement. 

You can use this data to understand if an initiative to improve goal completion has been successful or not as well as to understand general trends in performance.

📖 Read more: 6 Best SMART Goal Softwares for 2024 (Achieve More, Faster)

2. Performance Dashboard for People Analytics Leaders

Performance data is critical to understanding the progress and potential of each employee, teams as a whole, and manager cohorts. The data can be used to inform promotions, bonuses, team structures, and more.

These performance dashboards will be targeted at People Analytics Leaders:

• Talent Grid - Performance vs Potential
• Overall performance trends
• Breakdowns by function, role, or tenure
• Average performance score by organization
• Drivers of key performance

Talent grid

You can use your talent grid to answer one of the most prominent questions you and the leadership team always have, ‘how are our people performing right now?’

Along the x-axis, you can see the ‘state’ of performance while the y-axis shows the ‘state’ of potential. The circles with numbers show how many employees fall in that part of the grid. 

In the example, there’s one employee who far exceeds performance and potential expectations while there are four who require development for both.

Ideally, you’d want most of your employees to fall somewhere within ‘meets’ and ‘exceeds’ expectations. 

You can use this data to inform strategies for performance enablement and development. 

Overall performance trends

Beyond the talent grid, you can look at the overall performance trends of the organization with the above chart. 

The x-axis shows month and year while the y-axis shows the number of people who fall into a specific category. 

The categories are: 

• Development required
• Meets expectations
• Exceeds expectations
• Far exceeds expectations

It’s great for getting an immediate understanding of where your people lie and what percentage of high vs low performers you have. 

Breakdowns by function, role, or tenure

Want to hone in on the performance of specific functions, roles, or tenure? That’s what this next chart is made for. 

You can see a breakdown by team to understand if your high performers are well distributed or if some teams have high concentrations. 

If one team is struggling to perform, with everyone falling under ‘development required’, you may want to look into how they’re being managed. 

Whereas, if a team is full of high performers, you may want to see what processes they have in place that are making it possible. From there you can figure out a way to replicate that high performance in other teams. 

Average performance score by organization

This section visualizes average performance scores by organizational hierarchy, starting with the company-wide average of 3.73.

Each node represents a department or individual, showing their respective average scores.

For example, Maya Joaquin's team averages 3.34, while Hattie Cooper stands out with a score of 4.17, indicating high performance. This allows you to see how each department is performing relative to the company average.

Further down, nodes like Ulric Clayton (3.75) and Hattie Cooper (4.17) represent individual employees' average performance scores. This granularity helps you identify high and low performers within each department. 

The "Unknown" node with a score of 0 indicates data that might be incomplete or employees who haven't been assessed yet. This is a critical area to address, as it highlights gaps in your performance data collection.

→ How to use this data

You can compare departmental and individual scores to the company average to identify trends and target interventions.

High performers like Hattie Cooper can be recognized, while lower scores indicate areas needing support. 

It's also important to make sure all employees are evaluated to avoid gaps in performance data. This enables comprehensive and informed decision-making for improving organizational performance.

And here is a line graph of the organizational performance trend over time: 

The y-axis shows the score while the x-axis shows the month and year. You can use this chart to understand if performance is improving, declining, or becoming stable.

If it’s increasing, that can validate performance initiatives you’ve put in place while a decline may instigate the need for a pivot to your people strategy. 

Drivers of key performance

What’s driving performance or decreasing it? This part of the performance dashboard aims to shed light on exactly that. 

On either side you can see factors that influence performance positively or negatively and how much influence those factors have. For example, it seems employees with a non-manger status are more likely to be high performers.

With such information, you’ll want to dig deeper into root causes. Why does a non-manager status have a positive correlation to performance? And what can you do to support managerial performance better?

This type of information can really help you develop your people strategy going forward and be a driver for positive change.

📖 Read more: Real Time Performance Management [2024 Expert Guide]

3. Performance Dashboard for Managers

Mesh provides People teams and managers with the data they need to make informed decisions. 

With this performance dashboard for managers, they can easily see who are top performers, who are meeting goals or falling behind, who needs more coaching and guidance, and what kind of feedback would work best.

This dashboard includes these graphs:

• Performance grid
• Average progress of each employee
• Detailed reports per employee

Performance grid

This performance grid is based on the 9 box grid, a talent management tool that can help align performance management and development initiatives. 

People teams and managers can use the grid to make talent decisions  around promotions, layoffs or firing, and training opportunities.

The performance grid in Mesh gives you an at a glance understanding of where each of a manager’s direct reports falls on the grid. The x-axis shows performance and the y-axis shows potential. 

Managers can use this grid to spot employees at risk and reward those who are performing well. If there’s someone who falls in the ‘potential gem’ box, they may want to invest more time into that person’s development.

Average progress of each employee

Sometimes seeing where your employee falls in the talent grid doesn’t give you the whole picture. 

Seeing their progress over time can show if they’re having an uncharacteristic dip in performance, if they’re on an upward trajectory and need a little more time to improve, or if they’ve been underperforming for a while despite efforts to support them. 

The graph above shows average progress for each direct report between the annual and mid-year performance review process. The y-axis shows the performance score and the x-axis shows the specific review cycle and passage of time. 

In the example, Jay Chandra has experienced a dip in performance. A manager can address this in a 1:1, offering tailored support to uncover the why behind this change and working with their employee to get them back on track. 

Detailed reports per employee

When it comes time to make promotion decisions, you’ll need a detailed report for each person you oversee. 

The Mesh platform provides this with employee performance breakdowns. See the image below:

This dashboard also shows whether a direct report is eligible for promotion based on their performance, as well as the scores the manager has given them in the most recent performance review period.

Managers can then use this information when they’re conducting performance reviews or 1:1s with that particular employee. 

And the image above shows the manager scores received in the performance review and the scores the person gave themselves. 

Managers can use these to understand if the employee perceives their performance the same or differently to how the manager perceives their performance.

📖 Read more: How to Write Performance Reviews for Managers (6 Steps With Examples)

4. Competencies and Feedback Dashboard

Competencies are the skills and behaviors an individual needs to perform a specific role or job function within an organization.

By tracking them, you can see the effort an employee is putting into meeting the expectations of their role and stretching into opportunities for promotions.

On the Mesh platform, the development of these competencies can be tracked and measured. 

You can also get oversight of how feedback is or isn’t being given to support the development of those competencies. 

For example, if an employee isn’t progressing on core competencies but they’re also not receiving feedback then it’s clear that they may not know how to improve or what skills are lacking.

A Mesh competencies and feedback dashboard will have these charts:

• Feedback Coverage
• Distribution of Feedback by Function, Job Name, Tenure, Manager
• Average Competency score
• Drivers of Competency score
• Breakdown of Competency Score by Function, Job name, or Tenure Range

Feedback coverage

Are managers providing meaningful, continuous feedback to their direct reports? That’s what you want to know—because a thriving feedback culture is the secret to development and engagement.

One Gallup study from 2023 showed that 80% of employees who received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged. Considering engaged employees are more likely to be high performers, meaningful feedback is one thing People Analytics leaders need to encourage.

The first section of Mesh’s dashboard shows you the current state of feedback coverage in the organization at a glance.

The x-axis represents months, from December 2022 to November 2023, while the y-axis shows the total number of feedback instances received, with a maximum of 40 per month.

Each bar corresponds to a month, with the height indicating the total number of feedback instances. The colors within each bar show the distribution of feedback coverage. 

For example, a predominantly blue bar suggests many employees received little to no feedback, whereas a bar with more green or purple indicates better feedback coverage.

People analytics leaders can use this chart to assess the effectiveness of the organization's feedback culture.

By identifying months with lower feedback coverage (more blue), they can investigate potential causes and implement strategies to encourage more frequent feedback.

Conversely, months with higher feedback coverage (more green, purple, or gold) can serve as benchmarks for best practices. 

This data helps leaders ensure a consistent and meaningful feedback culture, crucial for employee engagement and performance.

Distribution of Feedback by Function, Job Name, Tenure, Manager

But maybe a general overview is only the tip of the iceberg and you want to see how feedback is being given by function, job titles, tenures, and managers.

You can see above that in this chart example, Engineering is providing lots of feedback while People and Culture is on the lower end. 

This insight can prompt you to look at the why and potentially offer support for teams that could be doing more feedback.

Average competency score

Moving on to the competency part of the dashboard, the below graph can show average competency scores over time:

The x-axis shows years and months and the y-axis shows the score number. Competencies typically take longer to change over time than performance because the skills need to be developed and aren’t reported on as frequently. 

Drivers of competency score

Your drivers of competency can show you what demographics are positively or negatively impacting fulfillment of role expectations.

Remember, these factors are not causes, they’re correlation. It’s up to you to dig into the why behind them. 

In the graph above you can see how different demographics and even number of goals impact the competency score of your people. 

If setting goals increases competencies, that’s something your people strategy may want to focus on going forward. 

Whereas if you notice Male employees have lower competency scores, you may want to look at if those employees are not being given equitable opportunities to develop in the organization.

5. Manager 1:1 Dashboard

A manager 1:1 dashboard may seem like it’s data for managers but it’s actually data ON managers for your People team to analyze.

You want to ensure that 1:1s are happening with regularity and that they’re being run effectively. 

Too many managers go months between 1:1s when it should be on at least a monthly or bi-weekly cadence.

The manager 1:1 dashboard will help and includes:

• Overview of Managers and 1:1s
• Key Themes and Sentiment During 1:1s
• Sentiment Scores by Theme
• Sentiment Scores by Theme
• Ratio of Team Members with 1:1 not setup with managers
• Breakdown of managers who haven’t set up 1:1s
• Satisfaction Score

Overview of Managers and 1:1s

This part of the dashboard is great for getting an immediate understanding of if 1:1s are happening.

The first box shows how many 1:1s haven’t been set up, the second shows what number of managers have less than 75% participation rate in 1:1s, the third shows number of managers with less than 75% satisfaction rates of 1:1s, and the final box shows manager with less than a 50% completion rate. 

If you have a lot of managers with under 75% in either participation or satisfaction that’s a signal that something needs addressed. 

You can use any of these numbers to pinpoint problems in 1:1s and fix them quickly. 

Key Themes and Sentiment During 1:1s

Sentiment and themes indicate to you what’s being covered in these 1:1s. You want to see topics such as growth, performance, belonging, and collaboration popping up on the dashboard. 

Then you’ll want to see if those conversations are positive or negative. 

The more green the circle, the more positive the sentiment of that theme. You can use this information to spot if a manager is struggling to foster belonging in the team, if they’re successfully driving growth, etc.

Sentiment Scores by Theme

The above graph digs further into the sentiment of 1:1s.

Ratio of Team Members with 1:1 not setup with managers 

In this graph, you can see if there’s been a change in how 1:1s have been set up over a set period of time. 

If you used to struggle with managers setting up 1:1s but have since put an initiative in place to address that issue, you can use this chart to see if that initiative has been successful or not. 

Breakdown of managers who haven’t set up 1:1s

You can then use the below graph to spot if any one team is neglecting 1:1s or if any have been successful: 

The x-axis represents the number of managers, and the y-axis lists various functions within the organization.

Each horizontal bar corresponds to a specific function within the organization, such as:

• Engineering
• Product
• Sales
• People & Culture
• CEO's Office

The length of the bars indicates the number of managers within each function. For instance, the Engineering function has the highest count, with 15 managers, split between those who have (green) and haven't (blue) set up 1:1 meetings.

People Analytics leaders can use this chart to identify which functions need improvement in setting up regular 1:1 meetings.

Satisfaction score

And finally, this dashboard breaks down the satisfaction score of 1:1s over time and shows what factors are influencing this score.

The above graph focuses on satisfaction over time.

The below shows how demographics influence that satisfaction. The blue side is the amount those factors increase satisfaction while the green bar is the amount the factors decrease the score. 

Interestingly, in this example the 25-30 age group positively influences satisfaction while the 20-25 age bracket decreases satisfaction. As a People Analyst, you’d need to ask yourself why this might be? 

We know all this information might have been a bit overwhelming. If you need a more personalized walkthrough of how these dashboards work and what kind of insights you’ll get, please get in touch with us here. We can also build you custom dashboards or reports based on what you want to analyze in your organization.

4 Key Tips to Make Real Impact with People Analytics Insights

As a People leader, collecting and visualizing data is not enough to make a positive impact on your organization. You need to do something with the data. 

The question is, what do you do, how do you do it, and what pitfalls should you avoid?

To help, I asked Abhay Singh, Head of Demand Gen at Mesh and former Chief of Staff, to give us his four tips for maximizing your People Analytics dashboards:

Tip 1 - Avoid Analysis Paralysis

Abhay’s first tip is all about how to avoid data overload. 

And that’s because being presented with a bunch of data can be overwhelming. You start to wonder what it all means? And when you’re not immediately sure, you postpone taking action on it all together. 

But immediate action can also cause a problem as you may be making incorrect assumptions about what the data means.

Abhay cautions against taking action without first interpreting what’s in front of you:

Don't get into analysis paralysis. Once you get a bunch of charts and graphs, the impulse kicks in that we must act on it, but a lot of these details need to be interpreted.

To avoid analysis paralysis, set up time in your calendar to interpret the data. Keep digging into the ‘why’.

Everytime you answer why, ask why again until you feel like the root cause has been unearthed. 

Tip 2 - Democratize Insights Within the Organization

There’s a lot of debate around how much information managers should have and what the value of them having access to it is. 

But managers have the single biggest influence on employee performance in an organization. They’re at the ground level supporting their people on a day to day basis whereas People teams may only review performance on a three or six month basis.

So why shouldn’t managers be given the data they need to help them better support and develop their team?

On the other hand, managers need to take more responsibility over employee development rather than expect HR to do the work for them.  

Abhay shares:

We always encourage People Analytics leaders to send this data to managers on a pre-set frequency. Then every week or every month, managers can look at how they’re managing their teams and People leaders can identify what teams they should look to support.

Tip 3 - Rely on Data (not Gut Feelings) to Make Decisions

Jumping to conclusions based on how you feel will get you nowhere. Instead, you need to look at the data and then make decisions. 

It’s something most HR teams struggle with. In fact, a majority of North American CEOs reported in a McKinsey poll that their organization lacked the ability to embed data analytics into day-to-day HR processes and struggled to use analytics’ predictive power to make better decisions.

Don’t use your People Analytics dashboards to give the appearance you’re relying on data, actually use them to make decisions. 

Before you introduce a new people initiative for example, you could use People Analytics to gauge the potential impact.

A great example of this is Panasonic North America's experience during the pandemic. 

When considering bringing workers back to the office, HR director Lydia Wu and her analytics team discovered through surveys that they were at risk of losing one-third of their female population if they required a return to the office. 

This data-driven insight convinced leaders to delay the return-to-work conversation, demonstrating the power of using analytics to make informed decisions.

If those analytics hadn’t been collected, the company may have seen a damaging increase in employee turnover.

Tip 4 -  Map People Analytics Data with Other Sources

The final tip is to invest in integrating a wide range of data sources, including HR, finance, and external data. This will enhance the depth and breadth of your analytics insights. 

As Stacia Garr, co-founder of RedThread Research, notes:

More HR leaders are seeing the power of bringing data together to produce contextual insights. They're also requiring technology vendors to make people's data more portable so they can analyze it through tools like multi-source analysis platforms.

By combining data from various sources, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of your organization's workforce and uncover valuable insights that might otherwise remain hidden. 

People Analytics Case Studies from Real Companies

Wondering how real companies have put People Analytics to use?

Here are three examples that demonstrate the power People Analytics has in driving better decision-making and overall business performance. 

Project Oxygen by Google Powering Better Managers

Google's Project Oxygen is a prime example of how People Analytics can transform management practices. 

The company used data from employee surveys, performance reviews, and interviews to identify the key characteristics of effective managers. 

The findings led to the creation of a new management framework that emphasized coaching, empowering teams, and expressing interest in employees' well-being. 

And as a result, Google saw significant improvements in employee satisfaction, retention, and performance. It’s now a framework start-ups copy in an effort to mimic Google’s success.

Using People Analytics to Drive Business Performance at a Global Technology Company

McKinsey & Company shared a case study of a quick-service restaurant chain using People Analytics to improve business performance. 

By analyzing data on employee traits, management practices, and behaviors, the company identified key insights: personality traits impacting outcomes, the ineffectiveness of variable compensation, the importance of managerial practices, and the drawbacks of long shifts. 

Implementing these insights led to increased customer satisfaction, improved service speed, reduced employee attrition, and a 5% sales increase in the pilot market. 

Salesforce's Workplace Analytics for Remote Work Success

Salesforce, a leading cloud-based software company, has been using workplace analytics to optimize its remote work strategies. 

By collecting data through employee surveys, contact tracking, and health checks, Salesforce has gained insights into employee wellbeing, productivity, and workspace effectiveness.

Using these insights, Salesforce has implemented targeted initiatives to support its remote workforce, such as:

• optimizing learning and development programs,
• monitoring and improving scrum team and sales staff performance,
• and prioritizing employee wellbeing.