Fifth Annual HR Acuity Employee Relations Benchmark Study | HR Acuity

As the employee relations (ER) management landscape continues to evolve, this study provides best practices and metrics to compare a firm’s employee relations function with other firms. The study is based on 126 ER leaders’ responses — individuals dedicated to managing or working on employee relations matters. Select findings from the study include: 1) Centralized COES responsible for managing ER issues and conducting investigations across the organization has become a standard best practice, with 93% of respondents using a centralized or mixed model; 22% of those who are still using a decentralized model are planning to transition to a centralized model in the future. 2) Despite a strong desire to use tracking data for predictive analytics and incorporate it with AI, only 7% of respondents are doing so. Regarding the Employee Relations full-time equivalent (FTE) per every 1000 employees, page 10 provides staffing ratios by ER model (e.g., centralized, decentralized, mixed) and a company’s total number of employees. For example, a firm with 10,000 – 19,999 employees has a staffing ratio of .67 employee relations professionals per 1,000 employees. Other ideas are discussed.