Employee Productivity Index
Measures employee productivity by computing an output-to-cost ratio for each person and department. Ranks employees by productivity index and calculates cost per unit of output to identify efficiency gaps and high performers.
HR - Employee Productivity Index.xlsx
Excel (.xlsx) — No macros — Works in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice
What This Spreadsheet Solves
- No quantitative measure of individual or team productivity
- Cannot identify high performers vs. underperformers objectively
- Cost per unit of output is unknown across departments
- Productivity comparisons between teams use inconsistent metrics
- No baseline to measure the impact of process improvements
Who This Is For
- HR analysts building performance dashboards
- Operations managers tracking team output
- Department heads justifying resource requests
- Executives benchmarking departmental efficiency
Inputs
- textEmployee Name / ID
- textDepartment
- #Output Units (Tasks, Revenue, Widgets, etc.)
- $Fully Loaded Employee Cost
- #Hours Worked
Outputs
- Productivity index (output / cost)
- Cost per unit of output
- Output per hour
- Department average productivity index
- Employee ranking by productivity
- Variance from department average
How Calculations Work
The productivity index is Output Units / Fully Loaded Cost, normalized to a per-$1,000 basis for readability. Cost per unit is the inverse: Cost / Output Units. Output per hour is Output / Hours. Each employee is compared to their department average to compute a variance percentage. Rankings are generated per department and company-wide.
Example Use Case
Scenario: Three support agents: Agent A handles 450 tickets/month ($6,500 cost), Agent B handles 380 tickets ($6,200 cost), Agent C handles 520 tickets ($7,000 cost).
Result: Productivity index: A = 69.2, B = 61.3, C = 74.3 (tickets per $1,000). Cost per ticket: A = $14.44, B = $16.32, C = $13.46. Agent C ranks #1. Agent B is 11% below department average.
What You Get — 5 Sheets
Technical Details
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I use as the output unit?
Use the primary measurable output for each role: tickets resolved, revenue generated, units produced, projects completed, etc. Keep the unit consistent within a department.
Can I compare productivity across departments with different output types?
Not directly. The index is only meaningful when comparing employees with the same output unit. Cross-department comparison requires a common metric like revenue per employee.
How do I handle employees with multiple responsibilities?
Use the primary output metric for ranking purposes, or weight multiple outputs into a composite score on the INPUT sheet.
Is a higher productivity index always better?
Higher is more efficient, but extremely high values may indicate unsustainable workloads. Pair this metric with quality and satisfaction data.
How often should I measure productivity?
Monthly is standard for operational roles. Quarterly works for project-based or strategic roles where output cycles are longer.
Download Employee Productivity Index
Ready to use immediately. Enter your data in the INPUT sheet, see results in OUTPUT.