You hate him, don’t you. That guy from marketing (or accounting, finance, etc.) always has to show off with his slick charts and pretty presentations. I mean, what are we going to do? We’re in HR, darn it. We can’t be that snazzy, can we?

The first time I shared some HR department metrics with our leadership team, I wasn’t sure what format they needed to be in. I pretty much dropped in the basic numbers and presented them as-is. However, I’ve since learned more about how our leadership team likes to review information, and I am working to get the data into a format that they understand and expect.

What I learned

The big key for us is fairly simple. For a quick, at-a-glance measure of performance, we use a green/yellow/red rating system. Each area is responsible for the numbers backing up the graphic, but the leadership team can, with a quick scroll, see which areas are solid (green), which have some risks worth looking into (yellow), and which are late or in trouble (red).

My good friend Trish wrote recently on getting more visual (click through for some good ideas worth sharing), and I totally agree.

How to start

Take the time today to look at some of the reports and presentations that other use as your “how to” manual for your own design.

• How are they formatted?
• Do they have a cover page?
• What about the numbers-do they use charts, diagrams, or graphs?
• Are there sidebars or areas of special attention?
• Hint: find out what wows your leadership team, and then do that!

Click through for more on HR metrics (and how to make them rock).