Ontario Municipal Human Resources Association

When you’re getting ready to update your department, and you see a lot of ‘we’re working on it’ slides, think about how great it would be to show a dashboard that shows exactly where your workforce stands on fairness pay gaps and who’s included. Good numbers that tell the story of how fair and accountable your workforce is.

That’s what HR data can do. It’s for making real changes while keeping things open.

Municipalities serve different communities, and workforces should reflect that. HR data isn’t about checking boxes for rules, but for finding patterns, fixing systemic issues, and holding ourselves accountable so everyone feels the difference.

These same insights can then go back into improving leadership training, turning good managers into fairness champions who actually make a difference.

So, what metrics actually matter?

Workforce Representation | Track the percentage of employees (leaders) by key groups across different roles. Compare this to census data. If your planning department is mostly one type of person while your community isn’t, you’ve found a signal for targeted recruitment.

Pay Equity Ratios | There’s the Pay Equity Act. Look at gaps across different groups. Calculate average pay for roles and flag disparities. Even a small gap adds up fast when you’re managing budgets, and closing it builds trust.

Promotion and Advancement Rates | How often are people from one group getting promoted over others? Use formulas: promotions in group ÷ headcount in group. Track it. Same for retention and turnover broken down by demographics. If turnover is double for one group, dig into exit surveys. Find a fix.

Employee Engagement and Inclusion | Tools such as a staff survey let you see how people feel about belonging, safety and respect. Add any discrimination and harassment incident rates for a bigger picture of cultural health.

Other practical considerations can be encouraging diversity across other hiring pipelines, utilizing Employment Resource Groups, and providing access to development opportunities. Set SMART targets tied to your municipal strategic plan and report progress publicly. Show accountability in action.

It even gets more exciting for HR pros. Use this data in Leadership Training. Think about what you have in place for management development for supervisors, department heads or those emerging leaders. HR data can be used to customize your leadership training to be more data-driven, alongside skill and competency development.

Imagine a training workshop where your leaders review their team’s metrics: “75% of promotions went to one demographic even though the applicant pool was diverse.” Begin to wrap your content around real-time data, setting team-level fairness goals, and looking for any hiring biases. Performance reviews can also include metrics around closing the inclusion score gap among represented staff. This builds leaders who see fairness as core to service delivery and not as an add-on.

It has worked in places where measurement frameworks around fairness initiatives, feedback, and progress tracking have been built. Leaders who get trained this way end up innovating beyond merely complying. They design recruitment to hit talent pools, create mentorship circles that retain staff, and show that measurable results can lead to lower turnover and recruitment costs. Higher engagement, productivity and a representative workforce for residents is the result.

Challenges do pop up if trust isn’t there. Data privacy rules need handling, as do those resistant to involvement in metrics. Consider a pilot with one department, anonymize everything, and celebrate wins. Partner with IT for dashboards and share best practices.

At the end of the day, using HR data for fairness and accountability is working smarter. It turns your role into that of a strategic partner who helps build a municipal government where everyone belongs and thrives. Use those metrics for updating that HR report AND for planning sustainable leadership and training opportunities.

Written By: Shawn Lovegrove, Marketing & Communications Specialist, Mohawk College Enterprise