Show the Business Value of Human Resources Programs

Bootstrapping two companies for 6+ years means every dollar has to justify itself. No VC cushion, no "we'll figure it out next quarter." So I've had to make these calls constantly.

The frame that actually works: stop talking about programs and start talking about replacement cost. When we were deciding whether to keep investing in onboarding and training at Pageloot, the question wasn't "is this valuable?" It was "what does it cost us if this person leaves in 6 months because they never got properly set up?" For a mid-level hire, that number is usually 50-100% of annual salary when you count recruiting, ramp time, and lost output.

Once you put that number on the table, the conversation shifts. You're not defending a program, you're showing a risk the business is already carrying.

The tradeoff framing that won support for me: "we can cut this, but here's what we're betting on if we do." No promises, no projections. Just a clear-eyed look at the downside scenario. Leaders respond better to risk framing than ROI promises, because ROI feels like spin and risk feels real.

One specific thing I'd cut last: anything that shortens time-to-productivity for new people. Everything else can be trimmed. That one compounds.

When budgets tighten I prioritize programs based on utilization data and employee feedback, defending those that deliver high perceived value and measurable engagement. My guiding rule is to reduce costs without reducing perceived value to employees, so I target underused benefits for change and seek cost-effective alternatives that preserve support. For example, we analyzed plan utilization, identified low-use benefits, and proposed shifting some offerings to virtual fitness and expanded mental health resources to hold value while lowering cost. I presented the tradeoff to leaders as an expected cost reduction paired with maintained employee support rather than promising exact savings, and I emphasized the impact on morale and participation.

When budgets tighten I protect programs that show a clear, measurable impact on business outcomes and reallocate spend away from channels that do not. In recruiting we used the First-Year Performance Rating by Source to identify which talent sources produced stronger first-year performance. We shifted budget from large aggregated job boards to employee referrals and niche sites and increased referral incentives. I explained the tradeoff to business leaders by showing we would accept lower applicant volume in exchange for higher expected new-hire performance and less recruiter time spent on low-value candidates, and I set modest, data-based targets rather than overpromising.

When my team brought me a list of programs to cut during a tight quarter, I went through each line item and asked whether it directly affected whether the people closest to our customers stay or leave. If a program touched retention for the roles that shape how customers experience us every day, it stayed on the list. Everything else was open for discussion.

I framed it to leadership the same way. I pulled our turnover costs for customer-facing roles and compared them against the annual cost of the programs we wanted to keep. Replacing even a few people in those positions would cost more than funding the program for a full year. Leaders already tracked those hiring costs and could verify the math themselves.

There is a real downside to defending programs this way. I was implicitly deprioritizing things that matter to back-office teams or longer-term development, and my back-office teams felt it.

I had to be honest about that tradeoff and commit to revisiting those programs when the budget recovered, with specific timelines attached. After two or three rounds of cuts, people need dates on the calendar.

When budgets tighten, the rule I use is to protect what compounds and pause what is linear.

The panic move is an even cut across the board, everything shaved by the same percentage so it feels fair. That is the most expensive thing you can do, because it weakens the programs that build on themselves at the same rate as the ones that do not.

At Eprezto, facing a squeeze, we sorted spending into two piles. One is compounding work, the things whose value grows over time and would be slow and painful to rebuild if you stopped. The other is linear work, one off campaigns, underused tools, anything that delivers once and stops the moment you stop paying. We protect the first and pause the second. Applied to people programs, the ones that compound are the ones building durable capability and trust, the culture and development that make everything else easier. Those you defend.

The way I framed it for buy in was three parts, and leaders accepted it because nothing was oversold: here is the reality, here is the plan, and here is the boundary of what we will not touch and why. Naming what is protected, and the honest reason, matters as much as naming what is cut. People handle a hard number far better than they handle silence around it.

The part I refuse to fake is the outcome. I will not attach an invented return to a program to save it. I defend it on the honest logic that its value compounds, and I say plainly where I am protecting capability for later rather than promising a number this quarter.

Cut the linear, guard the compounding, and explain both out loud.