Human Resources has slowly, but steadily, been shedding the “cost center” label. The COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of hybrid work models, and increasingly complex workplace dynamics have significantly elevated HR’s strategic importance in most eyes. 

Still, many HR leaders lack the influence to create the budgets they need in today’s environment where LOAs are getting longer, strategic projects like M&A commonly emerge, and it takes months to hire the perfect full-time person (leaving gaps and overworking the rest of the team in the meantime).  

So how can HR leaders leverage their elevated role to gain the resources they need? 

We asked dozens of HR and business leaders this very question. We summarized their top insights and leaned into our 18 years of experience helping leaders navigate the budgeting process to bring you these 7 key steps: 

1. Recognize your own value 

A lot has changed in just the last five years. The recognition of HR as a strategic part of the business has grown, but not everyone has adjusted to the change—including HR leaders themselves. Step one in gaining the influence you need over your budget is to acknowledge the importance of HR as stewards of engagement, drivers of a healthy culture, architects of high-performing hybrid workplaces, and more. Leverage this to make the case with your CFO that you need more flexibility and authority.  

2. Acknowledge you need contingency plans 

As one CHRO in the creative services industry put it: 

“When you’ve been doing this long enough, you know something is going to come up. It may be multiple family leaves, a merger, a rush project, or a team that needs to expand quick…There’s always something. In our budget, we plan for additional resources to cover those needs.” 

Just as we need to recognize our own value, we also have to admit that unforeseen needs will come up—and it’s better to be prepared than underwater. 

3. Elevate the value of the employee experience 

Carmen O’Shea, a Goldman Sachs Value Accelerator Operating Advisor is uniquely positioned with expertise in HR and marketing and advises, “We need to acknowledge the employee experience as comparable to the customer experience.”

Businesses with highly engaged staff result in 23% greater profitability, according to Gallup, and also outperform those with lesser engaged employees across financial, customer, retention, safety, quality, and absenteeism metrics.

Most CEOs see the connection. According to NTT’s Global Customer Experience report, 95% of CEOs say blending customer experience and employee experience strategies help drive growth. Yet, while 97% have a customer experience strategy, far fewer (81%) say they have an employee engagement strategy.

As an HR leader, you need the people and tools to proactively drive employee engagement and the flexibility to avoid overworking your team – and as a result, undercutting those engagement efforts – when an urgent need or gap arises.

4. Explain how a larger HR budget can mitigate risk

Establish the connection between a flexible HR budget and risk mitigation. For example, if you’re at a rapidly scaling company and not yet ready to hire a full-time CPO, you need money in the budget for fractional talent or other flexible resources to manage surges in hiring, training, or M&A. 

5. Broaden your definition of professional services 

You need a line item in your budget that you can pull from to cover multiple family leaves, to temporarily add a specific skill set, or to lighten the load of your team when it gets to be too much—but CFOs often are not receptive to allocating for contingencies. Many HR leaders are getting around this by planning for flexible or interim talent needs in their “professional services” allocation. It’s often easier to boost this existing budget item than introduce a brand new one specific to fractional talent.  

6. Make the case for flexible resources

Joan Burns, CHRO at Treliant recognizes how bringing interim talent in, for a set period of time, is efficient for a business because it is a one-time, controlled cost, compared to always looking for full-time, salaried employees with benefits. She makes this case when budgeting.

“You get a higher level of talent, who can focus on completing a task. And you’ll be able to pay for it through your professional services budget. That is an attractive strategy to the CFO and CEO,” Joan says.

7. Bring powerful talking points to your budget meeting  

In addition to Joan’s argument about controlling costs, we created this list of quick talking points to keep in mind when you’re going into your budget meeting. Find more context and statistics on the value of including fractional talent in your workforce planning here. 

As HR continues to evolve into a strategic partner within organizations, leaders must capitalize on this momentum to secure the resources they need. It starts with recognizing your value, planning for contingencies, and advocating for flexible talent solutions.