Redefining Talent Acquisition in 2025: From Cost Center to Value Driver
The question every TA leader should be asking as we hurtle into this new year:
What does your TA organization identify as?
Posed by my friend and renowned talent leader, Kevin Blair, in our upcoming Hiring Excellence podcast, it cuts right to the heart of the Talent Acquisition narrative heading into 2025.
Are you a cost center, focused solely on efficiency and cutting expenses? Or are you a strategic value driver, actively contributing to the revenue and profitability of your organization?
The way you answer that question will define the role your team plays in 2025 – and determine whether you’re launching your business forward or simply minimizing its costs.
Let’s explore what it means to shift from cost-cutting to value creation, with lessons from real leaders who’ve changed the game.
Lesson One: Partnering with Finance to Win the Numbers Game
Kevin himself shared a pivotal story from when he managed a team of recruiters supporting a consultancy business. Initially told he’d lose 14 recruiters to cost-saving measures, Kevin didn’t push back with sentiment – he came armed with data.
Instead of debating the headcount reduction, he asked finance to calculate the business impact:
- 14 fewer recruiters = longer time-to-fill
- Longer time-to-fill = fewer consultants billing clients
- Fewer billable hours = lost revenue
When finance crunched the numbers, the result was a staggering loss to annual revenue.
But Kevin’s point was clear: when finance owns the metrics, the business listens.
He didn’t argue for headcount as a TA leader – he let the numbers speak for themselves. The result? He retained the 14 recruiters and even secured additional headcount!
Lesson Two: Shifting the Narrative from Cost to Value
Many TA leaders still measure success in terms of cost-per-hire, time-to-fill, or recruiter productivity. While these metrics matter, they frame TA as a cost center, optimized for efficiency and cost reduction.
In high-pressure industries like retail, this may be acceptable. But in organizations where growth and innovation drive success, this narrative fails to capture TA’s true potential.
During a recent talent event, Joshua Secrest, former Global Head of Talent Strategy for McDonald’s, shared a fascinating insight that he uncovered during his tenure with this company.
At McDonald’s, staffing gaps occasionally left restaurants short by just one or two people for a few days. At first glance, it seemed insignificant – a minor inconvenience easily managed by shifting roles.
But Joshua dug deeper. Partnering with a data scientist, he compared daily revenue on fully staffed days to those when locations operated short-handed. The results were eye-opening: being short just one person cost each restaurant hundreds of dollars per day. Why? Longer queues caused by staffing inefficiencies drove some customers to simply walk away.
Across thousands of locations, those “small” losses added up to millions of dollars annually in lost revenue. Armed with this insight, Joshua could make the case to leadership: insufficient hiring capacity wasn’t just an inconvenience – it was costing the business real money.
Lesson Three: Speak the Language of the Business
Kevin’s story, and Joshua’s, underscore a simple truth: businesses care about revenue and profit – and this is something I also heard Mark Barry, the VP of Sales & Managing Director, EMEA, at Hubspot, confirm at a recent leaders event I spoke at!
TA leaders who frame their impact in these terms are far more likely to gain the buy-in, budget, and influence they need. But to do this, you need two critical skills:
1. Understand your business’s revenue drivers
- Is revenue tied to faster product launches? Higher sales? Better customer service?
- Pinpoint the metrics that matter most to your organization.
2. Collaborate with finance to quantify impact
- Don’t calculate cost savings or revenue impact alone.
- Partner with finance to ensure credibility and alignment with company goals.
If you identify as a cost center, your trajectory is clear: relentless budget cuts, headcount reductions, and a shrinking role in the organization.
But the alternative – identifying as a value creator – requires a bold shift. It means tying your metrics to business outcomes, speaking the language of revenue and profit, and proving TA’s role as a growth driver.
How to Get Started in 2025
As you plan for the year ahead, here’s a roadmap to reposition TA as a strategic partner:
- Audit Your Metrics: Are you tracking efficiency, or are you tying hiring outcomes to business goals like revenue and innovation?
- Build a Business Case with Finance: Whether it’s lost revenue from unfilled roles or the cost of poor-quality hires, partner with finance to quantify the impact.
- Tell Stories that Resonate: Share examples like the above to show how TA can drive value when properly resourced.
- Engage Leadership: Make the case for TA as a strategic lever for growth, not just a department to be optimized.
From Metrics to Momentum
During our chat, Kevin says that Talent Acquisition is “yet to find its true voice in terms of its point of impact in an organization.” When TA leaders present cost savings or revenue gains, they risk pushback. But when finance owns the numbers and you tie these important points back to business objectives, the debate ends, and TA is positioned as an indispensable partner in driving success outcomes.
In mid-January, we’ll dive deeper into Kevin’s insights on the SocialTalent podcast, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.
But this is your moment to take the lead. Let’s make 2025 the year TA becomes a true driver of organizational growth.
This article originally appeared in Johnny Campbell’s Talent Leadership Insights LinkedIn newsletter. Click here to subscribe!