This project is an in-depth HR analytics case study conducted for NextGen Corp, a growing tech firm facing challenges in employee retention, performance inconsistencies, and salary imbalances. Using PostgreSQL and SQL, I analyzed key HR metrics to uncover trends, generate insights, and recommend data-driven strategies to improve workforce efficiency.
NextGen Corp is a technology company dedicated to developing innovative software and hardware solutions. The organization aims to attract top-tier talent and maintain high employee satisfaction — but has been facing rising concerns surrounding:
✅ Employee turnover
✅ Performance variability
✅ Salary disparities between roles & departments
The HR department needed insights into:
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Employee Turnover & Retention
Identify departments and reasons behind high exit rates -
Performance Evaluation
Assess consistency and coaching needs across teams -
Salary–Performance Alignment
Understand whether compensation aligns with contributions
| Dataset | Description |
|---|---|
| Employees | Name, role, hire date, salary, performance score, attendance %, department |
| Departments | Department list (Engineering, Sales, HR, Marketing, etc.) |
| Performance | Monthly employee performance records |
| Attendance | Presence/absence tracking |
| Turnover | Records of exits + reason for leaving |
| Salaries | Salary change history |
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Database: PostgreSQL
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Core Skills: SQL (Advanced)
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SQL Techniques:
JOINs, Aggregations, GROUP BY, CASE, AVG, COUNT, SUM, HAVING, ORDER BY, Subqueries
🔁 Employee
- Who are the top 5 highest serving employees**?
- Which departments have the highest turnover rates?
- Which employees are at risk of leaving based on their performance?
- What are the main reasons behind employee exits?
📈 Performance
- How many employees have left the company?
- Who are the top and bottom performers by department?
- How is performance distributed across departments on average?
- What is the average performance score by department?
💰 Salary
- What is the total salary expense for the company?
- What is the average salary by job title?
- How many employees earn above 80,000?
- How does performance correlate with salary across departments?
🧩 Retention
- Employees with longer tenure demonstrate strong loyalty and stability, with many having been with the company since its early days.
- Marketing shows the highest turnover rate, highlighting the need for targeted retention strategies.
- Engineering reports moderate to high turnover (66%), suggesting potential issues with workload, culture, or incentives — though this may also reflect competitive poaching in the market.
- Sales and HR maintain healthy turnover levels (27%), consistent with typical industry benchmarks (10–30%).
- Exit reasons indicate both pull factors (e.g., new opportunities) and push factors (e.g., dissatisfaction or limited career growth).
- The Personal category ranks highest, often linked to factors like family or health.
- Over 70 employees have performance scores below 3.5, representing a key opportunity for coaching and development.
- Marketing demonstrates both high and low performers, implying inconsistent management practices.
- Departments with persistently low performance scores often lack structured coaching or feedback programs.
- Total salary expense: $4,850,000.
- There is a clear misalignment between salary and performance, where several underperforming employees receive above-average compensation.
- Example: Employees earning ~$100K with low performance ratings reflect inefficient pay-to-performance alignment and warrant review of compensation strategy.
The data reveals several areas for strategic improvement and operational enhancement:
- Strengthen Retention: Prioritize Marketing and Engineering, which face the highest turnover challenges.
- Standardize Performance Management: Implement consistent frameworks across all departments to ensure fairness and accountability.
- Targeted Training: Invest in development programs for underperforming teams to improve overall productivity.
- Recognize High Performers: Introduce rewards such as certifications, mentorships, and performance-based bonuses to retain top talent.
- Retention Focus: Conduct stay interviews in Marketing and Engineering to identify and address root causes of employee churn.
- Reassess Compensation Structures: Align pay more closely with performance outcomes and ensure competitive salary positioning.
- Compensation Strategy Review: Regularly evaluate market competitiveness and adjust salary bands as needed.
- Attendance Incentives: Launch attendance-based rewards to foster engagement and consistency.
- Automation: Utilize SQL views and stored procedures to automate quarterly performance dashboards for data-driven monitoring.
While most departments maintain strong average performance, analysis indicates that Marketing and Engineering, despite being high-performing, are underpaid relative to peers and suffer from critical turnover rates (up to 92%).
Exit reasons such as career growth, better job offers, and personal factors suggest that employees may feel undervalued or unsupported in their professional progression.
✅ Align Compensation with Performance: Ensure pay equity and reward high-performing employees proportionally.
✅ Enhance Career Development: Provide clear advancement pathways to reduce exits driven by limited growth opportunities.
✅ Implement Retention Strategies: Use stay interviews, flexible work arrangements, and recognition programs to improve engagement.
✅ Leverage Data Analytics: Monitor workforce metrics via integrated dashboards to track trends in salary, performance, and turnover in real time.
Leveraging SQL analytics, this project delivered actionable insights into HR performance, salary alignment, and retention patterns.
These findings empower NextGen Corp to:
- Boost employee satisfaction and loyalty
- Reward top performers effectively
- Optimize compensation and retention strategies
- Drive data-informed HR decision-making — Enabling more confident, people-focused HR decisions.
“Turning HR data into actionable People Insights — empowering NextGen Corp to attract, retain, and grow top talent.”