Stop showing managers all 45 metrics: what to give them instead

HR handed field managers a spreadsheet full of numbers and walked away, leaving each one to work out what the data meant. That is the problem John Youngkrantz set out to fix at FirstKey Homes, where he runs payroll and HRIS across dozens of US markets. Roughly 18 months into the company's HRBench rollout, his team stopped shipping numbers and started handing managers the decision behind them.

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Why does handing managers a spreadsheet fail as coaching?

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A spreadsheet makes the manager interpret raw numbers alone, so the data rarely turns into action. Before HRBench, John's team exported new hires, active headcount, and terminations into Excel and passed the file down with no story attached. "here's an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers on it, right? So it turned into kind of a data dump for these managers to try to come up with and review themselves," he said. The manager got a number and had to guess what to do with it.

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How do you turn a metric into a coaching conversation?

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Start with the decision the manager owns, not the metric. John's HR business partners now walk each manager through the trend, the root cause behind it, and the choice in front of them. "the data actually becomes more of what decision is the manager responsible for versus just giving them a bunch of numbers, right?" John said. His HRBPs isolate whether the loss is early attrition around the six-month mark or tenured people leaving at two to three years, then point the manager toward a performance check or an engagement survey.

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Which metrics belong in every manager walkthrough?

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Three: headcount, open recs, and turnover. HRBench ships more than 45 metrics out of the box, and the change that moved manager behavior was subtracting them, not stacking on more. "We really need to get to the meat and potatoes," John said. The rest stay available for follow-up questions, but every walkthrough leads with the three tied to decisions a district manager controls.

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What changed when HR and finance built one source of truth?

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For the first time, HR and finance planned the budget off a single headcount number. Org charts pulled from HRBench carry current headcount and open recs together, which ended most of the disputes over where employees sit. "the org charts that we're able to pull out of HRBench not only contain the current headcount, but it also shows open recs too. So that's actually helped us eliminate a lot of the disputes on where employees are currently sitting," John said. Instead of finance chasing reports across every system, both teams reconcile against the same source.

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How does better HR data build credibility across the business?

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By telling the story of each department instead of reporting a figure. When an HRBP shows a manager the turnover trend and what is driving it, HR shifts from reactive reporting to a partner managers seek out. "showing them the trend, what's causing this trend and how they can actually fix it. That's what our HRBPs are doing," John said. It matters most for a frontline workforce of service and maintenance techs, where a persistent labor shortage makes real-time turnover visibility valuable.

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Catching a turnover trend while it is still forming, rather than reacting after people have already left, is what separates coaching from cleanup.

John Youngkrantz (00:02): Whenever we became live with HRBench, we studied, what do managers need? We just don't want to throw a bunch of metrics into a dashboard. We partnered with our HRBP team to ask them, what do you do when you talk to these managers? What is your walk around style look like? How does that come up? We're partnering one-on-one versus just asking for data reports. They're actually coming to us to provide them with the information. We're able to get it to them faster. Talking with our HRBPs, they're starting to understand what they can do better when it comes to turnover, or what they can do better when it comes to hiring, understanding voluntary and voluntary, you know, all that stuff. Whenever we do get some type of pushback on the data that we're presenting when it comes through, I think one of the initiatives that kind of came out of this is, how do we identify those who are leaving and what areas does that make up?

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Pulse intro (00:53): Before HRBench, John Youngkrantz's team at FirstKey Homes handed managers a spreadsheet full of numbers and walked away. No context, no trends, no story, just data. That's not coaching. On this episode of Pulse by HRBench, John walks us through exactly how his team rebuilt that process: creating dashboards that give HR business partners real trends to bring into manager walkthroughs, partnering with finance during budgeting season for the first time, and turning HR data into something the whole business now trusts. This is what it looks like when HR earns a seat at the table. Let's get into this episode.

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Logan (01:29): So that everybody can get a really good idea of what John and FirstKey Homes is doing with HR data to empower their managers, make them better. John, how is your Wednesday going?

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John Youngkrantz (01:44): So far so good. It's a non-payroll week, so we're in the cleanup stages of the previous payroll and then now rolling into the next payroll next week. So made a little bit of time to jump on here. So it's actually been a pretty good Wednesday.

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Logan (01:56): Awesome. We are here with John Youngkrantz from FirstKey Homes and he's payroll and HRIS manager, and he is the HR data guru over at FirstKey Homes, getting everybody the data they need to plan with finance, to be better managers, and to build credibility. John, is there anything else you would like the audience to know about you and FirstKey Homes? Sorry, we want to introduce FirstKey Homes as well.

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John Youngkrantz (02:22): I've been with FirstKey Homes for three years, four years. I started off as a contractor and worked my way up into full-time work. We're in, you know, 29 different markets, 16 rolls up into 16 districts all throughout the US. So, you know, we have a nice little employment stuff that we got to take care of here there, you know. We're not really in California, so we don't have that much issues there, but you know we're kind of all over the place in the US and excited to be here. Been a partner with HRBench for almost 18 months, so I'm not quite at the two-year mark yet.

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Logan (02:56): Nice. And you're across 29 markets, 13 districts?

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John Youngkrantz (03:00): Yep, yep, that's correct.

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Logan (03:02): Okay. So, all right, so we're gonna jump into it. One of the key things I hear a lot when I'm chatting with HR folks, and we're chatting with more on webinars and our podcast, Pulse by HRBench, if you haven't checked it out, is partnering with finance and how HR can tie their initiatives to finance initiatives, especially in private equity environments where EBITDA is a big push. But John, when we were chatting about this, you are in the midst of planning and budgeting season. And you all at FirstKey Homes have done quite a bit to partner with finance in this planning season. And I wanted to start there in, like, what are you all doing to make that relationship better?

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John Youngkrantz (03:51): Yeah, so this would be the first year that we've actually done any work with the HRBench and the finance team, because usually, you know, the finance team is pulling reports from everybody, you know, not only on the HR side and from our UKG platform, but also, you know, ATS systems and all that, try to get everything into their world. And so what we've been able to do with that is, with the HRBench that we have, everything rolls into HRBench. So we're able to actually have one kind of source of truth to get them the actual reports that they need. You know, finances pulling, you know, actual year to date, prior year to data, cruel and their GLs. We're working with them to check for spikes, look for, you know, any type of roles that maybe have increased during the year. And that's where our data kind of comes into play.

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Logan (04:42): Okay, how are you aligning your data with finance's data in order to create that shared view and...

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John Youngkrantz (04:53): Yeah, yeah. So the org charts that we're able to pull out of HRBench not only contain the current headcount, but it also shows open recs too. So that's actually helped us eliminate a lot of the disputes on where employees are currently sitting, where their department or call center may be at. Of course, there's cleanup everywhere between the finance team and the HRIS team to make sure. And so that's what we've really been utilizing too, is the org charts out of HRBench.

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Logan (05:22): Okay, nice, nice. So when you're going into planning and budgeting season with finance, what is the first set of data you guys start pulling?

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John Youngkrantz (05:34): Definitely headcount, right? Because headcount kind of, you know, the definitions and reporting hierarchies can be, you know, in one division, they can think the definition is this, whereas the headcount definition and, you know, HR is something else. So we like to start with the headcount reports to make sure that we're providing that data correctly to them, you know, including, you know, temps, contractors, all that good stuff. So it starts with our headcount.

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Logan (05:59): So how do the two different departments identify them differently?

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John Youngkrantz (06:03): So it could be again, who could be considered an active headcount person? Do we have temps in the report, contractors, all that other stuff, versus what we're pulling out of HRBench? Do we need to include the temps for the headcount report, or is it just a temp job that was only there for six months?

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Logan (06:21): Gotcha. So, another question is just, how do you handle, like, mismatches between what you're seeing and what finance is seeing?

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John Youngkrantz (06:31): That's where the partnership comes into play, right? We want to make sure that our HRIS system, HRBench, is a source of truth, but we have to make sure that whatever structural changes are happening with the call centers align down that data path. So ensuring that the data is just correct.

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Logan (06:46): Okay, and so since you mentioned at the start, this is the first year that you've kind of done this particular process. Like, what has changed during this cycle versus previous cycles?

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John Youngkrantz (06:59): We're partnering one-on-one versus just asking for data reports. They're actually coming to us to provide them with the information. We're able to get it to them faster. It's not so much as, I need a report, and then you don't hear back from them, right? There's truly conversations going on with the data to ensure that the accuracy of the data that we're providing from UKG HRBench is truly what they're looking for when it comes to budgeting seasons, right? We talked about what could happen, you know, hey, we maybe have somebody that's been in the wrong role or been in the wrong department for six months and they have to reclassify those expenses, it's not fun. So trying to stay on top of it.

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Logan (07:40): And what has that done for HR's relationship with finance in order to get their next year's initiatives funded?

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John Youngkrantz (07:48): So there hasn't been really much pushback, you know. Everything's kind of aligned with the finance headcounts, reporting structures, all that good stuff. So it's, it's, I think it's actually been a better season for us. And like, you know, what we're looking at, what we can do better for next year is to get more of the finance data inside of HRBench, you know, the forecasting, all that good stuff. So we can have the actuals versus the forecast in HRBench versus just sitting out what we currently have.

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Logan (08:19): Interesting. So what's the forecasting work that you guys want to do?

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John Youngkrantz (08:24): So we want to bring in how our accounting team, how the finance team creates those forecasts for the 26, 27 year. We want to be able to pull that information into HRBench so that way we can have it to actuals versus the forecast.

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Logan (08:42): Interesting. Okay, so I want to get into the second topic, and how you can coach managers with HR data. And when we talked at the start of this, you mentioned that you had built dashboards for your field managers that are for HR business partners, for them to partner with the field managers in order to tackle all sorts of things in the field. I won't say issues or problems, but just things in the field. So can you just give, like, an overview of what that process looked like that you helped build out?

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John Youngkrantz (09:15): Yeah, yeah, sure. So again, we just kind of started utilizing HRBench 18 months ago. Prior to this, was, here's an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers on it, right? So it turned into kind of a data dump for these managers to try to come up with and review themselves. So whenever we became live with HRBench, we studied the dashboard's metrics, kind of, hey, what do managers need? You know, we just don't want to throw a bunch of metrics into a dashboard. So we partnered with our HRBP team to ask them, like, hey, what do you do when you talk to these managers? Like, what is your walk around style look like? How does that come up? And so we came up with a dashboard for each HRBP team to, you know, apply filters for and have their districts ready to go whenever they have those meetings. So no longer is it just an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers on it. You have graphs that show trends, you have the dashboards that have the metrics on it for your turnover and certain roles that you want to look at. So again, what has happened in those meetings is they're actually coming with actual data versus, you know, just numbers on a spreadsheet.

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Logan (10:25): So how has that changed the conversation between your HRBPs and the field managers?

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John Youngkrantz (10:33): They're able to go to the managers with a trend, right? Like, hey, this is what we're seeing in your market or your district. And so, and they're able to actually show the trend instead of just talking numbers, right? So they're able to see, you know, hey, we were in peak in July, you know, our summer was peaks and here comes, here comes our, you know, our turnover rate's going to come up or headcount's going to open and, you know, what roles do we have open and all that stuff. It's been great because they're able to look at trends, compare it month to month and also compared to other districts.

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Logan (11:06): Okay. And sorry, I should have done this at the start, but what's the structure look like of this, of the organization? So we mentioned at the top, had 23 markets, 13 districts, HRBPs. Like, what does that structure look like so that people can kind of get a sense for what's happening in the organization?

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John Youngkrantz (11:24): Yeah, yeah. So each market is put into a district. And so our HRBPs own a district or two. And that's how they have that data rolled up. So they're able to take it to, you know, the Atlanta district or the San Antonio district, and they're able to have those markets kind of pieced out inside the data. So it's filtered on whatever district they're going to. And then you can break it, you can break that data down into each market that makes up that district. So and then you can even go further into certain roles that, you know, maybe your troubled roles or, you know, the high turnover roles and stuff like that. So that's truly how we break down the data whenever we're presenting it to those district, those directors.

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Logan (12:02): Yeah, OK, and so then the HRBPs have dashboards that they're able to go into. I think you call it, like, are they walking one on ones, like what did you call those meetings? Walk through.

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John Youngkrantz (12:13): Yeah, they call them a walkthrough. Yeah, they call them a walkthrough. And basically what they're doing is they're walking them through their certain, you know, KPIs for turnovers, looking at open recs, how long have they been sitting out there? They're also looking at tenure, you know, where are the turnovers coming from and all that good stuff.

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Logan (12:32): And when a manager sees this, like what are some of the changes or things that they're able to now do to be a better manager?

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John Youngkrantz (12:42): Well, I think the data actually becomes more of what decision is the manager responsible for versus just giving them a bunch of numbers, right? So we may have KPIs for the company, for turnover rate and all this other stuff. And how can they get to that KPI, or how can we help them understand what decisions they need to start making? And that's what the HRBPs are doing with this data that they're actually presenting to the managers.

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Logan (13:10): Okay. And have you seen, like, actual manager behavior shift with any of this?

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John Youngkrantz (13:16): Talking with our HRBPs, they have, they're starting to understand more what they can do better when it comes to turnover, or what they can do better when it comes to hiring, you know, making sure, you know, understanding voluntary and voluntary, you know, all that stuff, whenever we do get some type of pushback on the data that we're presenting when it comes through. But it's, you know, I think one of the initiatives that kind of came out of this is, how do we identify those who are leaving and what areas does that make up? You know, is it our tenured employees, you know, over two to three years, or is it one of those roles that has that early turnover or it's after six months, we're looking for another rep, looking for another rep. And so what this has been able to do is the HRBP teams can actually isolate the root cause and give those managers a better understanding of, hey, maybe we need to do performance re-checks, engagement surveys, all that other stuff. And it just gives the tools to those managers to keep the turnover low.

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Logan (14:16): Have you had a manager that, a manager that has looked at the turnover data and then is like, okay, yeah, we should run an engagement survey.

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John Youngkrantz (14:25): That's a great question. Again, speaking with the HRBP teams, the engagement survey versus the performance re-checks, if there is a need for it, they will reach out to get that engagement survey started. But it's mostly the HRBP team really working with those managers to really understand the onboarding process, the training, the ROI on the training, making sure we have the right people in the places.

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Logan (14:53): Okay, and what are the key metrics? Because you had mentioned in the start of this that you didn't necessarily focus on all metrics. Like what are the key metrics that the HRBPs are focused on with their managers?

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John Youngkrantz (15:06): Yeah, so it's definitely turnover. So it starts with our headcounts, the open recs, the roles that they have for the districts or the markets, and then the turnover. Those are the three key metrics that is going to be in every walk around meeting that these HRBPs have.

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Logan (15:24): Okay, interesting. The last part of this that I wanted to get into, so moving on to kind of how we've talked about HR and finance partnering because HR is proactive now with data and you're able to align and correct various data. You're empowering managers to become better managers, change their behavior in order to retain people, prevent turnover. But I want to get a sense kind of on the anecdotal side, how using HR data has elevated HR's credibility within FirstKey Homes across other departments.

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John Youngkrantz (16:01): Yeah, yeah. So again, whenever we talk about the data, right, whenever we first rolled out these dashboards, it was very key to show these managers and, you know, upper management kind of tell the story of their department, you know, give them the ability to see what decisions them as managers need to make. So whether that be staffing gaps, engagement drag, overtime spikes, the workloads, however you want to see that in the data, it's not just telling them, hey, this is the number. You can kind of see the trend from month to month. Rolling 12 months, you can look at it, start that forecasting whenever you need to start that forecasting. But you can see it in the examples in the dashboard whenever you're presenting it to them.

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Logan (16:45): Okay, and when you first rolled out the dashboards, how did you decide what metrics to start with?

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John Youngkrantz (16:53): Yeah, so whenever we rolled out the dashboards, asked ourselves that same question. We don't just want to throw a bunch of metrics on a slide and just send it out, right? We go back to what decisions our manager's responsible for whenever they're leading a district or a market. Again, starting from the top, you want to talk about the turnover rate. That's a KPI that our company follows. So turnover rate, well, that's great. But now we got to see from the terms what was involuntary, which is voluntary, what is company controlled, hires, how long are they staying, new hires for, are we losing people after six months, how does that look? So we started with the decisions, you know, that managers are actually responsible for and what we can actually give them data on.

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Logan (17:36): Okay, and so you really simplified the data that you're gonna present to the audience so that it was what mattered to them. And you had mentioned when we started this, when we started prepping for this, that while HRBench does give you like 45 plus metrics out of the box, you don't necessarily need to focus on all 45 for every manager in every conversation. Like you were very adamant about simplifying.

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John Youngkrantz (18:03): That's correct. Yeah, because again, you don't want to overload the system, right? You don't want to provide all these metrics that maybe they don't really care about upfront. We really need to get to the meat and potatoes. So it's starting off like that. Hey, and we do have these metrics out here. So if we do have some questions on it, we can go and present them with those metrics or dashboard.

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Logan (18:23): And can you share kind of a conversation of the metrics that you chose and how that changed the outcome for managers?

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John Youngkrantz (18:32): Yeah, yeah, for sure. So before HRBench, was my team just creating a bunch of spreadsheets with new hires on it, active headcount, terms on it, and then just giving that to the manager. So there was no narrative around it. Was just, here's the data. And so the conversations have changed from, wow, you know, I see the trend or I see the root cause of it. You know, we're losing employees in a certain role after two or three years because they don't feel valued, or we're losing them because they're leaving to go get higher pay somewhere else. So we're seeing the staffing gaps kind of come into play here. And so now we get the managers thinking of what can we do to keep employees, you know, with us versus always having that revolving door when it comes around to staffing.

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Logan (19:23): Yeah, and I probably could have called this out earlier on, but you have a lot of frontline employees, right?

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John Youngkrantz (19:30): Yep, that's correct. Yeah. So, you know, we have service techs that go out and our maintenance techs that go into homes and do all that stuff. So we do have a lot of frontline workers that are always, always on the move. You know, so we always want to keep them happy because they make FirstKey Homes what it is.

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Logan (19:47): Yeah, and that's a good call because, stereotypically, those industries have higher turnover. And so understanding that turnover in real time can be a really big, really big deal.

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John Youngkrantz (20:01): Yeah, yeah, that goes into just the staffing piece. We're making sure with the HRBP team, whenever they're doing it, that they're properly staffed, whether it's the daily workload, the trainings that we have coming up, and just the staffing needs for each district. And they're a really good component of making sure that we're not falling into any traps. We're not having that overtime spike. They're really championing the districts when they're there.

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Logan (20:27): Yeah. And another call out, because if you're reducing your turnover, one of the things that in talking with other, you're not manufacturing, but manufacturers and other industries with frontline workers, is there's still a persistent labor shortage of people hiring for those industries. And so if you're not having to constantly replace, not as big of a strain on the recruiting side of the business.

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John Youngkrantz (20:52): Right, right, and making sure you have the right people in the right place.

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Logan (20:55): Yeah. Okay. So we covered a lot of ground today. John, is there anything else you would like to leave the audience with, in any of these sections of building more credibility, helping your HRBPs coach their managers, partnering with finance, that you think the audience can take away as a tactic that they can use going into 2026?

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John Youngkrantz (21:21): Oh, for sure. So whenever we talk about presenting the data to the managers, you know, it's really key to understand truly, possibly, what the manager is looking for. So really understanding and listening to the managers and what the request is. Because, you know, nine times out of 10, you know, HRIS managers or analysts get the question of, hey, I just need this data. You know, so whenever we talk to our HRBPs, we always want to give them the, you know, make sure that you are asking the right, so you can get the data or dashboards in front of them. And we don't want to create a worry or a panic like, I lost five people this month and I'm going to be in a shortage next week. I need to hire this, that, and the other. It's to truly make sure that you're getting that data and those decisions in front of them so they have that ability to make those changes or make their decisions.

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Logan (22:12): Yeah, that's a really good call out, in getting your managers is the data, getting them the context they need in order to make better decisions for their teams.

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John Youngkrantz (22:25): Yeah, yeah, you're looking at the trend, you want to give them, you know, you don't just want to pull up last month, you want to make sure that you're doing a 90 day thing, 60 day thing, three months, whatever you want to look at. Working with them on a root cause if there is some action that's needed, you know, so showing them the trend, what's causing this trend and how they can actually fix it. That's what our HRBPs are doing. That's what we've been able to do with the data and the dashboards.

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Logan (22:50): Awesome. Well, John, I want to thank you for taking the time to sit down and chat with us about how you're using HRBench and helping the business tie HR to business outcomes.

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John Youngkrantz (23:05): Yes, sir. Thanks for having me. Care.

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Logan (23:05): Awesome. Thanks a lot everybody and enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Thank you, John.

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Logan (23:10): Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Pulse, the podcast that has real conversations with HR leaders linking people to performance. HRBench is the people analytics platform that turns HR data into business strategy. It connects to all your tools, HRIS, ATS, payroll, surveys, whatever you're using. In just a few clicks, you get over 45 metrics instantly visualized in boardroom ready dashboards, benchmarked by industry and company size. Book a demo at HRBench.com and we'll build you a custom benchmark report using your data.

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