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The Top 3 Data-Driven HR Metrics Your Tech Leadership Team Is Ignoring (And How to Fix It)
- Annekah Hall-Solomon
- Sep 4
- 5 min read
If you’re in tech leadership, you already live and breathe metrics. You can recite CAC, burn rate, ARR, churn, and LTV in your sleep.
But when it comes to people data — the single largest line item in your budget and the biggest lever for sustainable growth — most teams are flying blind.
Here’s the truth:
You’re over-indexed on hiring volume and speed.
You’re under-tracking the quality, longevity, and health of your workforce.
And you’re ignoring the metrics that actually predict retention, performance, and scale.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the top 3 HR metrics your leadership team is ignoring, why they matter more than the vanity numbers you’re chasing, and a step-by-step founder playbook for weaving them into your operating rhythm.
If you care about runway, risk, and ROI, you can’t afford to miss this.
Why Founders and Tech Leaders Ignore HR Metrics
Before we dig into the “big three,” let’s pause on why they’re ignored:
They’re uncomfortable. Tracking manager effectiveness or regrettable attrition means shining a light on leadership gaps. That’s not as fun as celebrating hiring milestones.
They’re harder to define. It’s easy to count “time to hire.” It’s harder to quantify “quality of hire” or “management effectiveness.”
They shift accountability. If your quality-of-hire score is weak, that’s not just a recruiting problem. It’s a systems problem across hiring, onboarding, and leadership.
This is why many companies cling to surface-level HR dashboards — they avoid tough truths. But as a people strategist, I’ll tell you: if you’re not measuring the right things, you’re gambling, not managing.
Metric #1: Manager Effectiveness Score
Why it matters
Managers are the linchpin of performance and retention. Gallup research shows that 70% of the variance in employee engagement ties directly to the manager.
In tech companies, where roles are complex and pace is relentless, one ineffective manager can tank an entire product team’s velocity. Worse, they quietly drive attrition, forcing costly backfills and stalling projects.
How to measure it
Don’t overcomplicate this. Use short, anonymous pulse surveys quarterly with 3–5 core questions:
Do you have clarity on expectations?
Do you receive useful feedback regularly?
Do you trust your manager?
Does your manager support your growth?
Average responses into a 0–100 score. Trend it quarterly, just like you’d track NPS.
Author Note: Every leadership team I’ve worked with gets excited about hiring dashboards. But when I ask for manager effectiveness scores, I usually get silence. This is like measuring ARR without churn. It gives you a false sense of stability.
Metric #2: Quality of Hire (QoH)
Why it matters
Most companies celebrate “time-to-fill” or “offer acceptance rate.” Neither matters if the person flames out in 6 months. Quality of Hire forces you to connect the dots between recruiting, onboarding, and retention.
How to measure it
Quality of Hire = (Performance + Retention + Manager Satisfaction) ÷ Number of Hires.
Practically:
Evaluate new hires’ performance at 90 days vs. role expectations.
Track retention at 12 months.
Add a manager satisfaction score (1–5 scale).
Even if your formula is rough, the discipline of measuring QoH will transform hiring conversations.
Author Note: I once worked with a startup that doubled headcount in a year. On paper, they “hit the hiring goals.” But QoH revealed only 58% of hires were high performers who stayed beyond a year. Translation: They weren’t scaling, they were rotating talent on a treadmill.
Metric #3: Regrettable Attrition Rate
Why it matters
Not all attrition is bad. Losing a low performer can even be healthy. But losing your top engineer right before a critical launch? That’s devastating.
How to measure it
Regrettable attrition = % of employees leaving who were high performers you wanted to keep.
Define “regrettable” (top 25–30% performers, strategic roles).
Track exits each quarter.
Present alongside cost of replacement and impact on key projects.
Author Note: One founder I worked with was blindsided when two senior engineers resigned within weeks of each other. They had no attrition tracking beyond “total headcount.” When we added regrettable attrition as a KPI, leadership could finally see patterns in why stars were leaving — and intervene before the next departure.
Case Study: The 20 → 80 Employee Sprint
A client of mine scaled from 20 to 80 employees in less than a year. The CEO celebrated the milestone.
But when we audited the data:
Manager Effectiveness averaged 52/100.
Quality of Hire was under 60% at 12 months.
Regrettable Attrition was 40%.
They were hiring fast but bleeding faster. We implemented these three metrics and within two quarters:
Attrition dropped by 35%.
QoH improved by 22 points.
Manager Effectiveness hit 70/100.
Business impact? $1.2M saved in replacement costs and lost productivity.
The Founder Playbook: 30/60/90 Metric Rollout
Here’s how to build these metrics into your operating system without overwhelming your team.
Days 1–30: Baseline
Launch a manager effectiveness pulse survey (3–5 questions).
Audit recent hires for 90-day performance + retention.
Define “regrettable attrition” and tag last 12 months’ exits.
Days 31–60: Integrate
Add these metrics to your monthly leadership dashboard.
Tie attrition and QoH to financial impact (cost per backfill, lost productivity).
Share results with managers in team reviews (not just HR).
Days 61–90: Operationalize
Include Manager Effectiveness and QoH in quarterly OKRs.
Train managers on what the data means and how to improve.
Close the loop: communicate to employees what you heard and what actions you’re taking.
Founder Mistakes to Avoid
Chasing vanity metrics. Hiring speed is meaningless if half your hires fail.
Blaming HR alone. Manager effectiveness and QoH are leadership issues, not just HR metrics.
Going dark on results. If you measure but don’t act (or don’t communicate), trust erodes.
What “Good” Looks Like
Manager Effectiveness trending above 70/100.
Quality of Hire above 75% at 12 months.
Regrettable Attrition under 10% annually.
These aren’t just HR goals — they’re business stability metrics.
The Bottom Line
If you’re not tracking manager effectiveness, quality of hire, and regrettable attrition, you’re ignoring the real leading indicators of your company’s success.
Founders: your runway depends not just on product-market fit, but on people-market fit. Ignore these metrics, and you’ll scale a house of cards.
Track them, and you’ll build the kind of resilient, high-trust, high-output teams that make your next fundraise — and your next chapter — possible.
Want my People Metrics Playbook (survey templates, QoH formulas, and a regrettable attrition calculator)? [Download here] or Book a Free 30min Strategy Call to audit your people metrics.
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