Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Calculating Months of Tenure.

Calculating Months of Tenure

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 28, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021


If you are in charge of tracking employees in your department or company, you might want to know if you can use Excel to calculate the months of tenure for those employees, given the date at which the employee started. This can be done very easily.

For the sake of this example, let's assume that column C contains the starting date for a list of employees. You could use the following formula in column D to determine each employee's tenure:

=DATEDIF(C3,NOW(),"M")

The DATEDIF function calculates the difference between a starting date and an ending date. The "M" used in the formula indicates that you want the result in completed months.

To calculate the average tenure for your series of employees, simply include the following formula at the bottom of column C:

=AVERAGE(C3:C174)

Of course, you should replace the range in the function (C3:C174) with the actual range of employee tenures as determined by the DATEDIF formula.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9605) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Calculating Months of Tenure.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Converting Many DOC Files to DOCX

Need to convert a bunch of old DOC files to the newer DOCX format? Word doesn't provide the capability to convert a bunch ...

Discover More

Copying a Worksheet

Need to make a copy of one of your worksheets? Excel provides a few different ways you can accomplish the task.

Discover More

Negatives in Pie Charts

Pie charts are a great way to graphically display some types of data. Displaying negative values is not so great in pie ...

Discover More

Save Time and Supercharge Excel! Automate virtually any routine task and save yourself hours, days, maybe even weeks. Then, learn how to make Excel do things you thought were simply impossible! Mastering advanced Excel macros has never been easier. Check out Excel 2010 VBA and Macros today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Converting UNIX Date/Time Stamps

If you import information generated on a UNIX system, you may need to figure out how to change the date/time stamps to ...

Discover More

Unique Date Displays

Need to print an elapsed date in a strange format? It's easier to do than may appear at first glance. Here's a discussion ...

Discover More

Incrementing Months in Dates

Excel can easily store dates. If you want to increment a date by one month, there are a number of ways you can accomplish ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 3?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.