Content reviewed October 2026.

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Employee relations metrics: the KPIs to track, how to read them, and what to tell your board

For UK HR, ER and compliance teams: the core ER case metrics with formulas, what boards, the FCA and the EHRC ask to see, the UK figures you can compare against, and a free board ER report template.

Last updated 10 October 202611 min read

At a glance Who asks for ER data The core ER metrics How to read them UK reference points Metrics by case stage What to tell your board Building an ER dashboard Free board report template FAQs

At a glance, as at 10 October 2026

Employee relations metrics are the numbers that show how many concerns and cases your organisation receives, how you handle them and what happens afterwards. No UK law sets one list. Boards, regulators and standards ask for much the same core set: how many cases and of what type, how people raised them, how long they took, what you found, whether anyone suffered for speaking up, and whether staff trust the process.

What	Where things stand
What they cover	Case volume and rate, type, route, time to acknowledge and close, outcomes, retaliation, reporter experience, and staff awareness and trust.
Who asks for them	Boards of companies under the UK Corporate Governance Code, the FCA, the EHRC’s guidance on preventing sexual harassment, NHS England, and the EU’s sustainability reporting standards for large groups.
How to read them	More cases can mean people trust you more. The FCA says a high number “may in fact be an indication of a healthy speak up culture”, and NHS England treats very low numbers as a warning sign.
What to report	Rates per 1,000 employees, medians for time and cost, trends over time, and the gap between what staff tell a survey and what they report.
UK benchmarks	None current for employers in general. The only economy-wide case rates are from 2011, and newer figures come from surveys or cover one sector, so compare yourself with your own past years first.
Free template	A board ER report template in Word, with every metric’s definition and formula.

Get the board report template

Why it matters

Who asks for ER data in 2026

No law sets a list of ER KPIs. The sources below ask for much the same things, and several of them now ask the board to look.

Source	What it asks for
UK Corporate Governance Code	For companies in the commercial companies and closed-ended investment funds listing categories, on a comply-or-explain basis. Provision 6 says the board “should routinely review” the workforce’s speak-up arrangements “and the reports arising from their operation”. The FRC’s guidance encourages boards “to keep a record on the number and type of incidents raised, actioned and closed, as well as any lessons learnt”.
FCA	UK banks, building societies and PRA-designated investment firms (except small deposit takers), and Solvency II insurers must report to their governing body at least once a year on how well their whistleblowing arrangements work, keeping whistleblowers’ identities confidential (SYSC 18). From 1 September 2026, serious bullying, harassment and violence towards colleagues can breach the conduct rules at every firm under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, as it already could at banks. Outside banking, the rule covers cases where either person works in the firm’s financial services business. Firms notify the FCA when they take disciplinary action for a breach, for most staff once a year.
EHRC	From 30 October 2026, employers in Great Britain must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. The EHRC’s guidance suggests a central record of complaints, informal ones included, detailed enough to show trends: the date, the area of the business, the roles of the people involved, the protected characteristic, the legal category, the outcome and the reason for it. It also suggests an anonymous staff survey, and comparing the two to monitor the gap. The EHRC is updating its guidance for the 2026 changes.
NHS England and CQC	From April 2026, NHS trusts and integrated care boards send NHS England Freedom to Speak Up data every quarter: anonymous cases, four themes, and cases where people felt they suffered detriment for speaking up. NHS England won’t publish it centrally, though anyone with a Model Health System login can see the submitted data. It says all organisations, “including primary care and independent healthcare providers”, should collect the data locally and review it at board level or equivalent. CQC’s well-led framework expects that “Information is used effectively to monitor and improve the quality of care”.
EU groups (ESRS)	After the EU’s 2026 changes, the sustainability reporting rules will cover companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450m turnover. The current standard, ESRS S1-17, asks for the number of “incidents of discrimination, including harassment”, and of complaints raised through workforce channels. The European Commission adopted revised standards on 3 July 2026. Unless the European Parliament or Council objects, they apply from financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027, and they count substantiated cases only. The UK has no workforce reporting standard of its own: UK SRS S1 sets general requirements and S2 covers climate.
Acas Code	Applies in Great Britain. It says to deal with disciplinary and grievance cases without unreasonable delay, and its foreword advises keeping a written record of each one. Tribunals can adjust awards by up to 25% for an unreasonable failure to follow the Code. Acas expects an updated Code to take effect in 2027.
ISO 30414	The international standard for human capital reporting, revised in 2025, includes “compliance, ethics, and workforce relations” among its 11 reporting areas.
Transparency International	Its 2022 principles for internal whistleblowing say annual reports should cover the number of reports, the action taken, outcomes, the time taken and the types of wrongdoing, plus complaints of retaliation and staff awareness of and trust in the system.

Our guides cover the FCA’s non-financial misconduct rules, the duty to prevent sexual harassment and a UK whistleblowing policy in more detail.

The metrics

The core ER metrics, with formulas

These 12 metrics cover what the sources above ask for. Track them for each type of case, and for each site or team where the numbers are large enough to report safely.

Metric	What it tells you	How to calculate it	Source
1. Case volume and rate	How many new concerns and cases you received, scaled to your size so you can compare years, sites and teams.	New cases in the year ÷ average headcount × 1,000.	FRC Code guidance, SYSC 18; rate formats from Acas and the FCA
2. Mix by type	What people raise: grievances, disciplinary matters, bullying, harassment, discrimination, whistleblowing and other concerns.	Cases of each type ÷ all cases. Count each case once, and record any extra types separately.	EHRC guidance 4.29, NHS England
3. Routes and anonymous share	How people raise concerns (a manager, HR, a hotline, online, a guardian) and how many do it anonymously.	Cases through each route ÷ all cases. Anonymous cases ÷ all cases.	NHS England, SYSC 18
4. Time to acknowledge	How quickly you tell the person who raised a concern that you have it.	Median days from receipt to acknowledgement, and the share acknowledged within your target.	EU Whistleblowing Directive art 9 for EU sites; Acas Code (no unreasonable delay)
5. Time to close	How long cases take from opening to closure, for each type of case.	Median and 75th percentile days from opening to closure, and the share closed within your target.	Transparency International, NHS England
6. Open-case ageing	How many cases are still open, and how old they are.	Open cases at the end of the period by age (under 30 days, 30 to 90, over 90), plus the oldest case.	NHS England
7. Substantiation rate	How many of the cases you concluded were upheld.	Substantiated or upheld cases ÷ cases concluded in the period. Report "unable to conclude" separately.	FCA survey (2024), revised ESRS (2026)
8. Outcomes	What happened at the end: no case to answer, informal resolution or mediation, training, a warning, dismissal or a settlement.	Cases with each outcome ÷ cases concluded.	EHRC guidance 4.32, FCA, CIPD
9. Repeat cases and hotspots	Where cases cluster, and whether the same team or person comes up again.	Case rate per 1,000 for each site or team, against your overall rate. The share of cases where the same team or person had a case in the previous 12 months.	NHS England, EHRC guidance 4.29
10. Reported retaliation	How often people say they were treated badly for speaking up.	Complaints of retaliation or detriment ÷ concerns raised. Open each complaint as a new case.	NHS England, Transparency International, SYSC 18
11. Reporter experience	Whether people who raised a concern were satisfied with how you handled it, and would speak up again.	People satisfied with the process and the outcome ÷ people asked. The same for "Would you speak up again?"	EHRC guidance 4.29, ESRS, National Guardian's Office (to 2025/26)
12. Awareness, trust and the survey gap	Whether staff know how to raise a concern and trust you to handle it fairly, and how much never reaches you.	Staff who know how to raise a concern and trust the process ÷ survey respondents. Survey gap: of the people who say they experienced or saw a problem, the share who reported it.	EHRC guidance 4.29 and 4.31, ESRS, Transparency International, FRC Code guidance

Go further

Investigation quality and appeals. Appeals lodged ÷ decisions made, and appeals upheld ÷ appeals heard. We found no UK benchmark for either.
Cost. Management time × a day rate, plus external investigation and legal fees, settlements and awards. Acas estimated about £950 of management time for each formal grievance and £1,141 for each disciplinary case (2021).
Grievance-to-tribunal conversion. Early conciliation notifications or tribunal claims ÷ formal cases concluded in an earlier period. Leave a gap between the two, because claims arrive months after a case ends.
Settlement agreements and confidentiality clauses. How many settlement agreements you signed, and how many contain a confidentiality clause. In the CIPD's 2024 survey, 65% of employers that use settlement agreements in sexual harassment cases didn't know the extent of their use.

Reading the numbers

How to read ER metrics

More cases can be good news. The FCA says a high number “may in fact be an indication of a healthy speak up culture”, and that a low number doesn’t prove a good one. NHS England lists “Low numbers of cases (or none at all)” among its indicators of concern, and the EHRC tells employers not to assume the number of complaints reflects how much harassment happens. Read the case rate next to your survey results.
Use medians for time and money. A few long or expensive cases pull an average up. The 2021 cost estimate Acas published used a median legal representation cost of £5,000, because the mean of £55,551 was “clearly distorted by a small number of cases”. In the latest published tribunal figures (2023/24, provisional and a partial count), disability discrimination awards had a mean of £44,483 and a median of £17,218.
Watch small numbers. With 12 concluded cases a year, one case moves your substantiation rate by about 8 percentage points. Look at the trend over several periods before you act on one.
Say what you counted. The FCA notes that “not all recorded incidents will be substantiated”, and the revised EU standards count substantiated cases only, so label each figure as reported or upheld. Agree your categories before you count: in the FCA’s survey, 41% of reported misconduct fell under “other”, and the FCA says firms may have read the categories in different ways.
Count each case once. One case can cover several issues, such as bullying and discrimination. Count it once in your total and record each issue separately, so the types can add up to more than the total. NHS England’s collection works this way.
Compare like with like. Another organisation’s rate only helps if it counts the same things in the same way. Acas notes that earlier estimates of how many people experience conflict at work ranged from 25% to 38%, using different methods.

Benchmarks

UK reference points, and what doesn’t exist

Use these as context, with the year and the sector. None of them is a current benchmark for a typical UK employer.

Figure	What it counts	Source
1.35 formal grievances, 4.73 disciplinary sanctions and 1.54 dismissals per 100 employees a year	Workplaces in Great Britain with 5 or more employees, from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study. The Acas report calls the survey dated, and still “the most authoritative” of its kind.	Acas (2021)
44% of working-age adults who had worked in the past year had conflict at work. 9% of them raised a formal grievance or complaint, and under 0.5% made a tribunal claim	Great Britain, 2025. All kinds of conflict, formal or not.	Acas (2025)
Among employers that had handled any cases in the year: a median of 3 disciplinary cases (average 12) and 2 grievances (average 6)	UK employers surveyed in autumn 2019. The figures cover only the 161 employers (of 1,016) that had handled disciplinary cases and the 138 that had handled grievances.	CIPD (2020)
9.1, 18.7 and 16.5 reported cases of non-financial misconduct per 1,000 employees at small, medium and large firms, “in the 3-year period” 2021 to 2023	Wholesale financial services only. Reported or identified cases, upheld or not. The FCA’s wording leaves it unclear whether these are yearly rates.	FCA (2024)
12.4% of cases anonymous, 2.9% involving perceived detriment, and 76% of people who gave feedback would speak up again	Cases raised with Freedom to Speak Up guardians in England, in NHS trusts and other healthcare organisations, 2025/26: the final year of National Guardian’s Office data.	National Guardian’s Office
29% of UK employees who spoke up about misconduct said they experienced personal disadvantage or retaliation, and 54% were satisfied with the outcome	A survey of UK employees, 2024.	Institute of Business Ethics
50,704 single claims to employment tribunals in 2025/26, up from 36,171 in 2024/25	Employment tribunals in Great Britain, all single claims (the 2025/26 figure is revised).	Ministry of Justice (September 2026)
Median tribunal awards: unfair dismissal £6,746, disability discrimination £17,218, sex discrimination £16,161, race discrimination £10,253	2023/24, provisional: the latest published. The tables leave out cases on the tribunals’ new case management system, in use since September 2022, so they count only a small share of awards (124 for disability discrimination). The Ministry of Justice advises caution, and has published no award tables since.	Ministry of Justice (October 2024)
£28.5bn a year, or £1,028 per employee	The cost of workplace conflict to UK employers, a 2021 estimate. Acas plans an update in 2026.	Acas (2021)

What doesn’t exist. We found no current, independent UK benchmark for internal time to close, for substantiation rates across sectors, for appeals, or for cases per 1,000 employees at a typical employer.

Vendor benchmarks. Case management and hotline vendors publish benchmarks built from their own clients’ data. Most sit behind a sign-up form, many are US-based, and they count different things: some count every ER case, performance issues included, and others count hotline and other misconduct reports. Each also draws on a different client base. Their figures differ widely as a result, so you can’t compare them with each other or with yours. Your own trend over several years tells you more.

Case management

Case management metrics by stage

Group the metrics by the stage of a case, so whoever owns each stage sees their own numbers.

Stage	What to track
Intake and triage	Cases by route and type, the anonymous share, time to acknowledge, and time to a triage decision.
Investigation	Open-case ageing, and time from opening to findings for each type of case.
Resolution	Outcomes, the substantiation rate, time to close, appeals and settlement agreements.
Aftercare	Complaints of retaliation, reporter experience, repeat cases, and whether you completed the agreed actions and shared the lessons.

Board reporting

What to put in a board ER report

The FRC’s guidance gives the shortest brief: the number and type of concerns raised, actioned and closed, and the lessons learnt. The CIPD adds that leaders should oversee “the operation of the organisation’s dispute resolution procedures”, including bullying and harassment complaints, settlement agreements and the use of NDAs. The FRC also suggests boards ask “Does management provide feedback on how complaints and concerns have been dealt with?”, and how comfortable staff say they are raising issues.

A board ER report that works:

Starts with one page: the trend, the themes and what you’re doing about them.
Shows rates per 1,000 and medians, over at least two years, so the board sees a trend.
Labels each figure as reported or upheld cases.
Puts staff survey results next to the case numbers, so the board sees the gap.
Shows hotspots by site or team, with small groups suppressed and nobody named. Under SYSC 18, the whistleblowing report to the board must keep whistleblowers’ identities confidential.
Covers retaliation, and what people said about how you handled their concern.
Ends with the actions you took and the lessons you learnt.

In the FCA’s 2024 survey of wholesale firms, 38% said neither their board nor a board committee received management information on non-financial misconduct, though some had no board of their own. For large firms, the FCA said governance and oversight of non-financial misconduct could be falling short of its expectations.

Dashboards and privacy

How to build an ER dashboard

Break it down where it helps. Show the numbers by site, team, type of case and route. Compare each team’s rate per 1,000 with your overall rate to find hotspots. NHS England’s guide for leaders suggests asking “Why do some departments and staff groups have no issues?”
Suppress small groups. Data without names can still identify people. The ICO warns that equality data “might potentially identify particular workers, even if the names have been removed”, for example where few workers share a characteristic. No UK rule sets a threshold for ER data. The NHS Staff Survey doesn’t report groups with fewer than 10 responses, and that’s a sensible floor to borrow.
Take care with protected characteristics. Data about race, religion, health or sexual orientation is special category data under UK GDPR. You need an extra legal condition, and often an appropriate policy document, before you analyse cases by it.
Limit who sees what. Case handlers need to drill into cases. The board needs totals, rates and themes. The EHRC says to restrict access to the complaints record “to a limited number of people”.
Plot every metric over time. NHS England’s guide for leaders points to statistical process control charts, which show whether a change is more than normal variation.

Free template

A board ER report template

An editable Word template for your quarterly or annual ER report to the board, sent to your inbox. It follows the metrics in this guide, with space for your numbers, your themes and your actions.

What’s inside:

A one-page summary for the board: the headline numbers, the themes and what you're doing about them
Volume and rate by type, with the trend over time
How people raised concerns, and the anonymous share
Timeliness: time to acknowledge, time to close and open-case ageing
Outcomes and the substantiation rate
Hotspots and repeat themes, with small groups suppressed
Retaliation and reporter experience
Culture signals from staff surveys, and the gap between surveys and reports
Cost and legal exposure: management time, external costs, settlements and tribunal claims
Actions taken and lessons learnt
Regulatory notes: the FCA, the UK Corporate Governance Code, and ESRS for EU groups
An appendix with every metric's definition and formula

Free Word template

Get the board ER report template

Enter your work email and the team will send you the board ER report template as an editable Word document.

Or spot the pattern before it becomes a claim

CalmER turns the cases your team already handles into the case metrics in this guide, with no re-keying. It shows trends across teams, sites and case types, lets you drill to the source case in two clicks, and drafts a board-ready narrative from your live data, always cited and signed off by a person. Amazon ran this case and concern management setup across its 40+ country corporate workforce and tripled early-stage reporting inside 12 months.

See CalmER →See CalmER pricing

Last reviewed: 10 October 2026. General information, not legal advice. We review this guide every quarter and whenever the law or a source changes.

FAQs

Common questions

What are employee relations metrics?

They're the numbers that show how many concerns and cases an organisation receives, how it handles them and what happens afterwards: case volume and rate, type, route, time to acknowledge and close, outcomes, retaliation, reporter experience, and whether staff know and trust the process. No UK law sets one list, but boards, the FCA, the EHRC and NHS England ask for much the same core set.

How do you measure employee relations?

Combine case data with survey data. From your cases, track the rate per 1,000 employees, the mix by type and route, the median time to close, outcomes and complaints of retaliation. In an anonymous staff survey, ask whether people know how to raise a concern, whether they trust the process, and whether they reported what they experienced. The EHRC suggests comparing the two so you can monitor the gap.

What ER KPIs should you report to the board?

The FRC's guidance encourages boards to keep a record of the number and type of concerns raised, actioned and closed, and the lessons learnt. Add rates per 1,000 employees, the median time to close, outcomes, hotspots with small groups suppressed, complaints of retaliation, staff survey results next to the case numbers, and the actions you took. The CIPD says leaders should also oversee settlement agreements and the use of NDAs.

How many ER cases per 1,000 employees is normal in the UK?

No current UK benchmark covers employers in general. The newest economy-wide case rates come from 2011: 1.35 formal grievances, 4.73 disciplinary sanctions and 1.54 dismissals per 100 employees a year. The FCA's 2024 survey covers wholesale financial services only. Vendors publish benchmarks from their own clients' data, and they count different things, so compare yourself with your own past years first.

Is a rising number of ER cases a bad sign?

Not necessarily. The FCA says a high number "may in fact be an indication of a healthy speak up culture", and NHS England treats low numbers, or none at all, as a warning sign. Read the case rate next to your survey results: if more staff say they trust the process and the survey gap narrows, more cases may well be good news.

What is a good substantiation rate for ER cases?

No UK benchmark covers all sectors. In the FCA's 2024 survey of wholesale firms, 62% of discrimination cases and 47% of bullying and harassment cases weren't upheld, and the FCA asked firms to reflect on rates that differ like this. Read your rate for each type of case, agree what "upheld" means before you count, and report "unable to conclude" separately.

What's the difference between HR metrics and ER metrics?

HR metrics cover the whole workforce, such as headcount, turnover, absence and hiring. ER metrics cover the concerns and cases between an organisation and its people: grievances, discipline, bullying, harassment, discrimination and whistleblowing. The two meet in exit interviews, absence and staff surveys, which the FRC and NHS England both suggest reading alongside speak-up data.

How do you report ER data by site or team without identifying anyone?

Show rates and themes, never names, and don't report any group small enough to identify people. No UK rule sets a threshold for ER data; the NHS Staff Survey doesn't report groups with fewer than 10 responses, and that's a sensible floor to borrow. Limit access to case-level data to a few people, as the EHRC suggests, and before you break cases down by race, religion, health or sexual orientation, check your lawful basis and a special category condition, often with an appropriate policy document.

What ER data do FCA-regulated firms need?

UK banks, building societies and PRA-designated investment firms (except small deposit takers), and Solvency II insurers must report to their governing body at least once a year on how well their whistleblowing arrangements work, keeping whistleblowers' identities confidential (SYSC 18). Firms also notify the FCA when they take disciplinary action against staff for breaching the conduct rules. Since 1 September 2026, serious bullying, harassment and violence towards colleagues can breach those rules at non-bank firms under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime too, as it already could at banks. In the FCA's 2024 survey, 38% of wholesale firms said neither their board nor a board committee received management information on non-financial misconduct.

Sources & further reading

References

For general information only. It reflects our understanding of the FCA's rules as of October 2026, so check fca.org.uk for the current rules.