The Catalyst

Budget Reductions?

Eugenio Villamizar
Jun 10, 2026By Eugenio Villamizar

Your company is probably spending large amounts of budget on a growth enabler nobody is measuring … and then you're shocked when that budget gets reduced or cut.

In nearly every conversation I have with HR leaders lately, the same theme comes up: budgets are tight, every investment is being challenged, and the pressure to prove value has never been higher.

Guild's new research shows exactly where that pressure should be pointed. And the biggest blind spot? Workforce capability: the investment you can't run the business without.

55% of organizations spend $1M+ a year on them. Nearly a quarter of those spend $5M+. Yet only 13.5% have standardized, recurring reporting — and while 82% of leaders say their program works well, only 1 in 3 actually performs on workforce outcomes. No other large budget item survives without proving ROI. This one just renews because it always has, until it doesn't. Here's the part nobody wants to hear: if you can't show what your program returns, the budget cut isn't bad luck. It's the predictable outcome.

Make the connection! In past initiatives, I've done two things:

  • Start with a real business challenge: scaling the organization, delivering against aggressive growth goals, transforming the operating model, or expanding into new products and services.
  • Connect the learning directly to performance and business impact. On the talent side: internal promotion and mobility rates, time-to-fill for critical roles, retention of high performers, and productivity. And just as importantly, on the business and finance side: revenue per employee, cost-to-serve, margin improvement, external hiring costs avoided, and the cost of unfilled critical roles. When you can put a monetary figure next to a development program, the conversation with finance changes completely!

That's exactly what separates high performers in the data: they tie education benefits to business outcomes and review results with leadership regularly.

The payoff? 82% of them saw their budget INCREASE over the past two years, vs. 41% of low performers.

So when you are planning you next organization development initiative, ask yourself: if the CFO asked tomorrow what this program returned, could you answer?

#HR #TalentDevelopment #WorkforceStrategy #GrowthHacks #OrganizationDevelopment #BusinessImpact