Blog · Board and management reporting
A headcount dashboard compares the people employed at a reporting date with staffing and payroll plans. This example reconciles opening and closing headcount, converts scheduled hours to FTE, and checks payroll run rate against budget.
A Power BI headcount dashboard compares the workforce at a stated date with its staffing and payroll plan. Count people, scheduled capacity, and cost separately, then prove that the employee roster and departmental totals agree before interpreting a favorable cost variance.
Microsoft's Human Resources example reviews active employees, new hires, and separations. This example concentrates on the closing workforce and FTE capacity; the recruitment dashboard covers the funnel that supplies future starts. Covirage is not affiliated with Microsoft.
Use an aggregate department export with a reporting date, opening employees, starts, departures, closing employees, scheduled FTE, and approved FTE. Add a comparable payroll run rate and budget from finance. Keep names, personal identifiers, and individual pay out of the management summary.
For the hypothetical US business services company below, the reporting date is September 30, 2026. Headcount means employees on the closing roster; contractors are excluded. Every employee belongs to one department, and there are no transfers in the example.
The company defines full-time scheduled capacity as 40 hours a week. Employees on half schedules work 20 hours. These are the company's planning assumptions, not a universal legal definition of full-time work.
Closing headcount = Opening headcount + Starts - Departures
Scheduled FTE = Scheduled weekly hours / Full-time weekly hours
FTE gap = Actual scheduled FTE - Planned FTE
An employee can remain on the roster while scheduled capacity changes. State how leave, temporary assignments, and inactive employees are treated, and use that policy consistently across the roster and plan.
The first panel is a workforce bridge. Count only starts and departures that change inclusion in this roster during the reporting period.
| Department | Opening employees | Starts | Departures | Closing employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service | 42 | 5 | 3 | 44 |
| Sales | 24 | 2 | 1 | 25 |
| Finance | 14 | 1 | 2 | 13 |
| Total | 80 | 8 | 6 | 82 |
Service reconciles as 42 + 5 - 3 = 44. Sales is 24 + 2 - 1 = 25, and Finance is 14 + 1 - 2 = 13. The company bridge is 80 + 8 - 6 = 82; the department closing counts also sum to 44 + 25 + 13 = 82.
Those are two different checks. The first proves that employee movements explain the closing balance. The second proves that every included employee has a department assignment without duplication. Neither check alone proves that the roster's effective dates are correct.
All part-time employees in the base example work half the company's full-time schedule. Payroll here means the closing workforce's monthly base-pay run rate, excluding taxes, benefits, bonuses, overtime, and contractors. It is a snapshot cost measure, not the month's booked payroll expense.
| Department | Full-time people | Half-time people | Actual FTE | Planned FTE | Payroll run rate (USD) | Budget run rate (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service | 36 | 8 | 40.0 | 42.0 | 220,000 | 231,000 |
| Sales | 23 | 2 | 24.0 | 26.0 | 168,000 | 175,500 |
| Finance | 12 | 1 | 12.5 | 14.0 | 97,500 | 105,000 |
| Total | 71 | 11 | 76.5 | 82.0 | 485,500 | 511,500 |
Service capacity is 36 + 8 × 0.5 = 40.0 FTE. Company capacity is 71 + 11 × 0.5 = 76.5 FTE, while 71 + 11 = 82 people agrees with the closing headcount. The company is 76.5 - 82.0 = -5.5 FTE below plan.
Payroll run rate is $485,500 against $511,500 planned: a variance of -$26,000, or -26,000 / 511,500 = -5.1%. The lower cost accompanies a capacity shortfall. It does not establish that the business is more productive. Review output separately in the operations dashboard example.
Payroll run rate per scheduled FTE is 485,500 / 76.5 = $6,346.41. That is a blended staffing cost measure, not an employee's average salary. Divide company totals rather than averaging department cost-per-FTE figures. Round percentages to one decimal place and dollar ratios to cents after calculation.
Change only the scheduled-hours assumption for Service's part-time group, from 20 to 30 hours per week. Their FTE factor becomes 30 / 40 = 0.75. Keep employee counts, planned FTE, and payroll run rate fixed to isolate the capacity effect; this is a sensitivity calculation, not a compensation proposal.
| Measure | Base | Schedule variation |
|---|---|---|
| Service part-time FTE factor | 0.50 | 0.75 |
| Service scheduled FTE | 40.0 | 42.0 |
| Company scheduled FTE | 76.5 | 78.5 |
| Company FTE gap | -5.5 | -3.5 |
| Company closing headcount | 82 | 82 |
Service now has 36 + 8 × 0.75 = 42.0 FTE. The company total is 42.0 + 24.0 + 12.5 = 78.5, leaving 78.5 - 82.0 = -3.5 FTE against plan. The headcount bridge still closes at 82 because nobody joined or left.
The example shows why a headcount card cannot stand in for available capacity. Before acting on the schedule variation, finance and the department owner would need to establish its actual pay and workload implications.
Microsoft describes dashboards as a single page of highlights. Put closing people, actual versus planned FTE, and comparable payroll together there. Use broader dashboard examples to decide what belongs in the management pack, or an Excel dashboard when the checked workbook already answers the review question.
Bring an aggregate employee movement report, a scheduled-hours summary, and the matching staffing and payroll plan. Covirage maps the columns; its tools compute and check the headcount bridge, FTE totals, and cost variances, while the external AI model explains the results with every figure traced to its rows. Create a free Covirage account, which takes about a minute, then set up your business and bring a sample of your own data.
See capacity planning for comparing the workforce with the resources the business requires.
Headcount counts each included employee once at a stated date. FTE measures scheduled capacity relative to the organization's full-time schedule. Part-time employees can therefore contribute a full person to headcount while contributing only part of an FTE.
Start with opening employees, add qualifying starts, and subtract departures under the same cutoff rule. The result must equal the closing roster. Department transfers also need matching inbound and outbound entries, even though they do not change the company total.
State the workforce boundary explicitly. An employee headcount should exclude contractors and show any contractor capacity separately. Otherwise the roster, payroll, and staffing budget may describe different groups, making both cost comparisons and capacity gaps unreliable.
Yes. A payroll figure below budget can accompany fewer scheduled FTE than planned. Review the capacity gap alongside the cost variance, then identify whether vacancies, reduced schedules, timing, or a changed staffing requirement explains the difference.