Workforce HR Analytics

HR data has a way of turning abstract office dynamics into something you can actually measure. For this project I worked with a workforce dataset covering 2,000 employees, tracking salary, bonus, job role, education level, age, and attrition status. I built a Power BI dashboard around it to get a clearer picture of how compensation and turnover actually connect across a company, rather than relying on general assumptions about who leaves and why.

The dataset came from Kaggle, and the dashboard includes filters for role, education, and attrition, so you can isolate any specific group and see how their numbers compare to the rest of the workforce.

Key Performance Overview

Across the full 2,000 employees, average salary comes out to $69,235, with an average bonus of $17,676 on top of that. Attrition sits at 19.50 percent, meaning roughly one in five employees in this dataset has left. That attrition figure alone sets up most of the interesting questions the rest of the dashboard tries to answer.

Employees by Job Roles

Headcount across the five roles is fairly balanced. Analysts lead slightly at 416, followed by consultants at 409, managers at 406, engineers at 387, and executives at 382. There's no single role dominating the workforce, which suggests this is a fairly evenly structured organization rather than one top heavy or bottom heavy in any particular direction.

Average Salary by Education

Education level shows a smaller pay gap than you might expect. High school educated employees actually average the highest salary at $72,226, ahead of master's degree holders at $68,668, bachelor's degree holders at $68,332, and PhD holders at $67,784. This flips the usual assumption that more education automatically means higher pay, and it's worth noting since it likely points to role and experience mattering more than degree level in this particular dataset.

Attrition Rate

Of the 2,000 employees, 1,570 stayed and 390 left, putting the split at roughly 80.1 percent retained versus 19.9 percent attrition. That's a meaningful chunk of the workforce walking out the door, and it's the kind of number that should be driving deeper questions about what's happening with the departing 20 percent specifically.

Age Distribution

The age distribution across employees is fairly volatile rather than following a smooth curve, with counts bouncing up and down between ages 20 and 60. There are noticeable peaks in the early 30s and again around 40, but no single age band clearly dominates the workforce. This points to a genuinely mixed age workforce rather than one skewed heavily toward a particular generation.

Average Compensation by Role

Looking at total compensation by role tells a different story than headcount does. Analysts actually earn the most on average at $88,733, narrowly ahead of engineers at $87,567, managers at $86,354, executives at $86,316, and consultants at $85,393. The gap between the highest and lowest paid roles here is under $3,500, which is a surprisingly tight spread across what would normally be considered very different levels of seniority.

Methodology: Tools and Approach

This dashboard was built in Power BI using visuals chosen to compare pay, headcount, and turnover across multiple employee dimensions.

Key techniques used include:

• KPI cards for total employees, average salary, average bonus, and attrition rate
• A horizontal bar chart for employees by job role
• A column chart for average salary by education level
• A donut chart for attrition rate
• An area chart for age distribution
• A horizontal bar chart for average compensation by role
• Interactive slicers for role, education, and attrition

Key Takeaways

• Headcount is fairly evenly distributed across all five job roles
• Higher education level doesn't correspond to higher salary in this dataset, high school educated employees actually average the most
• Nearly one in five employees has left the company, a attrition rate worth investigating further
• The workforce spans a wide, fairly even age range rather than skewing toward one generation
• Compensation across roles is tightly clustered, with less than $3,500 separating the highest and lowest paid roles

Conclusion

Working through this dataset was a good reminder that pay and seniority don't always move in the direction you'd expect. Education level, role, and compensation interact in ways that only really show up once you break the averages apart and look at each piece on its own. If you want to explore the dataset yourself, you can find it on Kaggle here: https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/akelvarghese/hr-dataset-for-data-visualization.