HR Budgeting Guide

Every organization has unique processes and timelines that impact how the budget is created and allocated to departments, often leaving HR unsure about its role in financial decision making.
Traditionally, HR leaders have had minimal input into organizational budgeting due to perceptions of HR as a necessary expense or cost center rather than a strategic partner.

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Our Advice

Critical Insight

Organizations that fail to identify the talent implications associated with strategic investments risk prioritizing short-term financial gains while ignoring long-term consequences.

Impact and Result

Outline the organization’s budgeting process and identify key decision-makers and timelines.
Develop HR’s role as a strategic partner to influence internal stakeholders and align HR spending with strategic goals and objectives.
Create an HR budget that aligns HR spending with organizational strategy.

HR Budgeting Guide Research & Tools

1. Introduction

Understand key budgeting concepts and the evolution of HR’s role in the organizational budgeting process.

2. Develop

Develop HR’s role as a strategic partner to support organizational and HR budgeting processes.

3. Create and Allocate

Create and allocate HR budget to support organizational strategy.

About McLean & Company

McLean & Company is an HR research and advisory firm providing practical solutions to human resources challenges via executable research, tools, diagnostics, and advisory services that have a clear and measurable impact on your business.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your HR problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

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Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Introduction to organizational budgeting

Call 1: Discuss the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the organization’s budgeting process.
Call 2: Identify and document the organization’s budgeting process to inform next steps.

Guided Implementation 2: Develop HR’s role as a strategic business partner to support organizational and HR’s budgeting processes

Call 1: Identify opportunities to strengthen HR’s business acumen skills.
Call 2: Analyze internal and external factors that will help HR influence the budget.

Guided Implementation 3: Create and allocate the HR budget

Call 1: Review strategic documents to uncover budgeting needs and identify and evaluate HR’s administrative and initiative costs.
Call 2: Assess the effort and impact of initiatives to create a shortlist.
Call 3: Build a business case to gain buy-in for HR’s budget request.
Call 4: Create a communication plan to share the impact of the finalized budget with HR stakeholders.