Right here’s how one can measure productiveness and benchmark efficiency towards high-trust workplaces just like the Fortune 100 Greatest.
Within the face of challenges starting from technological disruptions, financial uncertainty, and rising prices, organizations that aren’t dedicated to steady enchancment and efficiencies danger being left behind.
One approach to measure effectivity and improve productiveness is to measure how successfully a corporation makes use of its individuals. McKinsey discovered that throughout eight main industries, firms spend not less than thrice as a lot yearly on expertise in comparison with capital bills.
Staff characterize certainly one of your largest investments and the best supply of worth.
How do you measure that worth? Income per worker (RPE).
No matter trade or firm dimension, RPE supplies significant insights into the worth of certainly one of your most essential belongings — your individuals.
What’s income per worker (RPE)?
Income per worker (RPE) is calculated by dividing an organization’s complete income by the variety of staff producing that income. Excessive-trust workplaces—like these on the Fortune 100 Greatest Firms to Work For® listing—generate 8.5x extra income per worker than the U.S. public market common. These firms don’t obtain this by reducing headcount—they construct cultures of belief that unlock peak efficiency.
RPE is a strong metric for understanding how properly your group leverages its Most worthy asset: your individuals. When used alongside different KPIs, it might information smarter development methods and make it easier to construct a extra resilient, high-performing office.
Why RPE is an important metric for enterprise leaders
RPE is the ratio of an organization’s income divided by its complete variety of staff producing that income.
Too usually, leaders give attention to the prices related to their workforce, from advantages to recruiting and onboarding. Nonetheless, staff are additionally essential for producing income, and RPE is usually a significant measure of their influence on profitability.
Excessive-trust workplaces have extra staff who’re in a position to obtain peak efficiency. That’s why the Fortune 100 Greatest Firms to Work For® earned 8.5 instances extra income per worker than the U.S. public market RPE, no matter trade.
The 100 Greatest Firms didn’t get there by slashing headcount or reducing prices. These organizations have constructed a basis of worker belief that fuels efficiency in all areas of their enterprise for all individuals. When extra staff thrive, firms reap the advantages.
Easy methods to calculate income per worker
Income per worker is solely the ratio of an organization’s income divided by the overall variety of staff producing that income. This metric will be utilized to giant firms or small ones throughout any trade.
Though it doesn’t seize the total image, RPE is a significant device for understanding how staff contribute to:
Productiveness — RPE is a helpful efficiency metric to grasp how a lot cash every workforce member generates for the corporate over a time frame. This quantity not solely highlights organizational productiveness however might help enhance management effectiveness and create a high-trust setting the place individuals really feel impressed to do their greatest work.
Effectivity — RPE helps assess how effectively your workforce generates income, which creates increased earnings. RPE might help you perceive if including new know-how, like implementing Gen AI to assist customer support, helps staff change into extra environment friendly.
Efficiency — RPE is a helpful metric to measure the efficiency of staff or groups yr over yr, or benchmark efficiency towards comparable trade opponents. Whereas exterior elements can influence RPE, this quantity can present helpful insights into office tradition and would possibly point out alternatives round worker engagement, retention, and extra.
Calculating RPE is straightforward:
RPE = Complete income / variety of staff
For instance, if your organization has a complete income of $5 million and 50 staff, your RPE is:
RPE = $5 million / 50 = $100,000
This calculation can be utilized month-to-month, quarterly, or yearly to benchmark efficiency or to measure the effectiveness of change administration processes, corresponding to after an acquisition.
What is an effective income per worker ratio for a mean firm?
Income per worker will differ from firm to firm, relying on elements corresponding to the kind of trade, working prices, market alternatives, variety of full-time vs part-time staff, or how properly established a enterprise is.
Nonetheless, in accordance with knowledge from 6,000 firms collected by Professor Damodaran from public sources like Bloomberg, Morningstar, and the S&P 500, firms within the public market would possibly usually anticipate an RPE of $104,030.
Examine this to the Fortune 100 Greatest Firms to Work For — a listing of 100 organizations that outperform their friends on metrics of worker belief measured by Nice Place To Work’s Belief Index™ survey. These firms far exceed the standard RPE, with a mean RPE of $883,928. This outperformance is true no matter trade, or whether or not an organization is publicly traded or privately held.
This increased RPE is correlated to different essential measures of enterprise success, corresponding to inventory market efficiency. The 100 Greatest have constantly outperformed the market by 3.5 instances over a 27-year interval, in accordance with FTSE Russell, the worldwide index and knowledge supplier.
How are you going to enhance your income per worker (RPE)?
There are momentary methods to enhance RPE numbers. Slashing your advertising and marketing finances or reducing workers will skew the numbers in the appropriate path, however for the way lengthy?
Whereas leaders on the 100 Greatest firms perceive that typically cost-cutting measures corresponding to layoffs are mandatory at instances, it’s not the answer to sustainable, long-term efficiency.
It’s extra impactful for firms to pursue a development technique that features upskilling expertise, providing significant work, and making a high-trust office the place individuals can innovate.
1. Develop your staff with related and significant coaching alternatives
Your persons are essential to bettering the RPE ratio. Hiring prime expertise isn’t sufficient. Leaders additionally must know find out how to develop and develop staff. Creating — one of many 9 high-trust management behaviors — means discovering the potential in staff that they won’t see for themselves.
A abilities hole would possibly stop staff from maximizing their potential, particularly within the face of fast know-how adjustments. Offering alternatives to study and develop advantages each staff and the employer.
At American Categorical, No. 4 on the 100 Greatest listing in 2025, a profession and improvement plan is obtainable to all staff through its expertise, studying, and efficiency administration platform, “Navigator.” The platform prompts staff to replicate on their profession journey and the way they need to develop and be supported.
Navigator supplies a snapshot of every individual’s abilities, expertise, and strengths, which turns into a vital device for having productive conversations about development alternatives.
Intuit Inc. focuses on coaching and improvement for its staff with its biannual “Profession Development Dash.” This digital occasion options keynotes and workshops masking matters corresponding to aim setting, time administration, and communication.
Alternatives for significant coaching shouldn’t be restricted solely to full-time staff. CarMax empowers its hourly staff with particular person improvement plans (IDPs) at each stage of the corporate. Leaders perceive that hourly employees are extremely busy. The answer: Chunk-sized, instructional movies and the chance to apply what they’ve realized with managers.
2. Guarantee staff have the appropriate incentives to pursue significant objectives
How your staff really feel about their compensation can have a direct influence on an organization’s monetary efficiency.
Take Delta Airways. At No. 15 on the Fortune 100 Greatest Firms to Work For® in 2025, it generates 14% extra income per “seat mile” than its opponents. Such a efficiency wouldn’t be doable with out the dedication of its 100,000 staff who function in 55 international locations globally.
Delta additionally shares that income with its individuals. Fortune experiences that Delta’s profit-sharing program is essentially the most beneficiant of any main U.S. firm, and in 2024, staff acquired about $1.4 billion, equal to each eligible worker receiving 10% of their base pay.
3. Benefit from know-how to extend effectivity
When organizations implement new know-how to extend effectivity, it frees up staff’ time in any other case spent on routine or prolonged duties. The price of not providing worker coaching and improvement might run to roughly $163 million per yr for a medium-sized S&P 500 firm.
Advances like Generative AI promise to remake workflows and assist clear up advanced issues. Firms like Crowe are assembly that chance by offering a sturdy and evolving AI upskilling program. Staff begin with a course outlining the fundamentals of generative AI, together with studying about ethics and dangers. They’re then invited to hitch Crowe’s “AI Guild,” the place they will collaborate with groups, no matter their position.
PwC makes AI coaching participating for workers by way of “PowerUp,” a gamified curriculum that enhances AI literacy throughout the workforce. With a dwell trivia recreation, staff can take part in quizzes on technique and different content material from PwC’s AI curriculum, earn prizes, and join with co-workers.
See how the 100 Greatest are profiting from their alternatives with AI know-how.
4. Cut back labor prices by limiting turnover
RPE is influenced by a mixture of exterior and inner elements, together with your organization’s turnover fee.
Even when confronted with layoffs, firms want to carry onto their greatest staff. That’s as a result of turnover prices organizations in additional methods than one. In line with the Society for Human Useful resource Administration (SHRM), the true value of recruitment is three to 4 instances a place’s wage. Organizations lose out on the time managers spend interviewing potential staff, disruption to the workforce, lack of abilities and information, and time spent onboarding and coaching a brand new rent.
Firms that make the 100 Greatest listing expertise half the turnover of their friends.
What makes an worker need to keep? Nice Place To Work surveyed greater than 1.3 million U.S. staff and uncovered three frequent experiences that extremely correlate to retention:
- 7x extra prone to keep after they say their work is significant
- 2x extra prone to keep after they report being happy with the place they work
- 7x extra prone to keep after they say their office is enjoyable
Listening and giving staff a voice is a highly effective retention technique. It signifies that your persons are very important to the corporate’s success. Worker engagement surveys are a useful device to get real-time suggestions on staff’ ideas or considerations concerning the tradition earlier than they replace their resume and look elsewhere.
5. Unlock innovation
In high-trust workplaces, staff drive increased ranges of innovation. Whereas leaders comprehend it’s essential to incorporate all expertise in making a tradition of innovation, there are 5 hidden obstacles to innovation that might be getting in the way in which:
- If staff expertise anxiousness within the office, they’re much less prone to innovate.
- If staff really feel like they’ve been overlooked of the corporate’s mission and imaginative and prescient, they really feel excluded from innovation.
- When individuals lack the assets to get their work completed, they will’t absolutely take part.
- Entrance-line managers are elementary in driving innovation, but usually really feel uncared for or under-supported.
- With out the power to develop professionally, staff really feel blocked from contributing new concepts.
The key to speedier innovation is “Innovation By All”. Extra inclusive innovation results in increased income. With the very best organizations seeing their income develop 550% sooner than much less inclusive organizations, it’s costly to go away individuals behind.
Unlock increased RPE with Nice Place To Work
Unlocking the total potential of your workforce requires a basis of belief. That begins with managers who mannequin high-trust management behaviors.
Begin by surveying staff and utilizing knowledge to determine alternatives for constructing belief and driving significant development that’s mirrored in increased RPE.
Discover the Belief Index Survey right this moment and remodel your tradition into enterprise success.
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