ISO 30414:2025 human capital reporting: a practical guide

What is human capital reporting under ISO 30414:2025?

It is the measurement and disclosure, within a common framework, of information about the people who work for an organization: how many they are, what they cost, how they are trained, how they leave, progress and stay safe. ISO 30414:2025 (formerly ISO 30414:2018) sets the requirements and recommendations for this reporting, for both internal and external use.

Its full title is ‘Human resource management — Requirements and recommendations for human capital reporting and disclosure’. According to the standard’s page on iso.org, read on 11 November 2026, this is edition 2, published in August 2025 by technical committee ISO/TC 260, which covers human resource management. The standard abbreviates the subject as HCRD (human capital reporting and disclosure).

The abstract published by ISO makes three points that matter to a manufacturer or exporter:

• the standard sets a baseline for global and comprehensive internal and external reporting;
• it applies to organizations of all sizes and sectors;
• it focuses on measuring factors within the organization’s control.

The eleven human capital reporting areas

The standard organizes reporting into eleven core areas. The table lists them in the order of the iso.org abstract. The second column gives examples of the data a Moroccan plant usually already holds for each area: this is our field reading, not the text of the standard, whose detailed metrics are sold by ISO and are not reproduced here.

The common thread: moving from figures scattered between payroll, CNSS filings, the safety officer and the training manager to one set of metrics, defined once, calculated the same way every year and ready to disclose.

What changed from ISO 30414:2018?

The nature of the document changed: the 2018 edition gave guidelines, the 2025 edition sets requirements and recommendations. The areas were also reorganized, and the 2018 edition is listed as withdrawn on iso.org (stage 95.99).

We compared both iso.org pages on 11 November 2026. The 2018 edition was titled ‘Guidelines for internal and external human capital reporting’; its stated aim was to make the human capital contribution to the organization transparent. It also had eleven areas, and gave recommendations for SMEs in its Table 2 and Annex A.

ACG matched these by title only; the match says nothing about the detailed content of each area. Three changes do show in the titles:

1. Recruitment, mobility and turnover are split into three separate areas, with mobility now paired with succession planning.
2. Engagement and workforce relations appear in the titles, alongside leadership, culture, compliance and ethics.
3. Workforce composition opens the list: it is the base most other metrics depend on.

The iso.org page mentions no transition period. In practice, any new report, dashboard or questionnaire answer that refers to the standard should quote ISO 30414:2025, never the 2018 edition as the current one.

Does ISO 30414 answer VSME and ESRS S1 requests?

Partly. Several ISO 30414:2025 areas overlap with the social datapoints of the voluntary VSME standard and of ESRS S1 ‘Own workforce’; others, such as recruitment, mobility and productivity, have no equivalent in these EU texts.

The two EU references, read on EUR-Lex on 11 November 2026:

• the VSME standard, in Annex I to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560: B8 (workforce), B9 (health and safety) and B10 (pay, collective bargaining, training) in the Basic Module; C5, C6, C7 and C9 in the Comprehensive Module. See our VSME standard guide;
• ESRS S1, in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 (simplified ESRS): sixteen disclosure requirements, from S1-1 (policies) to S1-16 (incidents of discrimination and other human rights incidents). See our article on the simplified ESRS.

ACG built this mapping from titles and datapoints; neither ISO nor the European Commission publishes one.

Two practical rules follow.

EU definitions prevail in an answer to an EU customer. Under the VSME standard, a recordable work-related accident is one that results in death or more than three days of absence from work. ESRS S1-5 asks for the turnover rate of permanent employees and an explanation of any gap between the reported headcount and the figure in the financial statements. Compute each metric to the definition of the text you quote, and record it in your metrics dictionary.

The value-chain cap limits what a customer can demand. For a supplier with 1,000 employees or fewer and more than 10 employees, a customer subject to the CSRD may only require, for its own report, B8, B9, B10, C5, C6 and C7 on the social side (Annex II to Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560). Your recruitment, succession or productivity metrics stay management tools, shared only if you choose. Our page on CSRD, VSME and ESG questionnaires explains the cap.

Does a company in Morocco have to apply ISO 30414?

No: ISO 30414:2025 is a voluntary standard, and no obligation flows from it alone. Requests for human capital data come from other texts, which the standard helps you meet with a single set of figures.

For EBRD requirements on working conditions, see our EBRD performance requirements guide. For the choice between reporting frameworks, see ESRS vs VSME vs GRI vs ISSB.

Can ISO 30414 be certified?

Not in the way ISO 9001 or ISO 45001 can. As iso.org states, ISO does not perform certification or issue certificates, and ISO 30414:2025 is about measuring and disclosing information, not about a management system. If a customer or investor requires third-party verification, that is a job for an independent body. For health and safety, the management system certification remains ISO 45001, whose records feed directly into the ‘health, safety and well-being’ area.

How do you set up human capital reporting?

In six steps, starting from the data that payroll, CNSS filings and HR already hold. The work lies less in collection than in definitions and evidence.

1. List the requesters. Customers, parent company, bank, AMMC, management: for each, the text relied on, the format and the deadline.
2. Set the scope and period. Sites, subsidiaries, staff categories (permanent, temporary, seasonal, agency); same financial year as the accounts.
3. Write the metrics dictionary. For each metric: ISO 30414 area, matching VSME or ESRS datapoint, definition used, formula, source, owner.
4. Collect and reconcile. Payroll headcount reconciled with CNSS filings and with the headcount in the financial statements; accidents recounted from the register to the chosen definition; training hours from the training records.
5. Check and keep the evidence. Each figure linked to its document: filing, register, payslip, attendance sheet.
6. Report in the reader’s language. Internal dashboard by the eleven areas; external answers in VSME, ESRS S1 or AMMC vocabulary; prior-year comparison from the second year.

A case we see often: a plant reports three different headcounts depending on who asks, because payroll, CNSS filings and management control do not count agency workers the same way. One written definition per metric, applied everywhere, solves the problem before any question of standards arises.

Is your human capital reporting ready?

• The standard is quoted in its current edition, ISO 30414:2025, not ISO 30414:2018.
  
• Each requester is listed with the text it relies on and what it can demand.
  
• The scope covers all sites and all staff categories, including seasonal and agency workers.
  
• A dictionary links each metric to an ISO 30414 area and to the matching VSME or ESRS S1 datapoint.
  
• Reported headcount matches payroll, CNSS filings and the financial statements, or the gap is explained.
  
• Accidents are counted to the definition of the text quoted.
  
• The turnover rate states whether it covers permanent employees only.
  
• Training hours come from training records, not estimates.
  
• Each figure is linked to a retained supporting document.
  
• Management metrics outside the cap (recruitment, succession, productivity) stay internal unless you decide otherwise.