With market volatility, tariffs reshaping supply chains and artificial intelligence rewiring work faster than imagined, it’s no wonder companies have gone into “hold mode,” freezing new hires while continuing to invest in technology to boost productivity.
The problem is too many firms are buying tools and expecting newly acquired capabilities to immediately lead to greater productivity. That’s not a realistic approach.
Today, every capital investment depends on human capability to unlock its potential. It’s easy to miss that connection and that’s why re-imagining talent management by enlisting the unique perspective of the CFO is timely.
CapEx is now about people
In many industries, people costs already exceed capital costs, yet talent still gets classified as an operating expense while machinery and software earn capital-level discipline.
It is time to more intentionally involve the CFO in talent management to treat those investments more like capital expenditures—in some cases, literally.
- Apply the same governance, the same long-range planning and the same attention to return on investment that you bring to a plant upgrade. Where rules allow, capitalize training alongside technology to spread costs over time. Integrate workforce modeling directly into capital planning because every capital project is also a talent project. This is no longer a shift in thinking. It is a shift in execution.
- CFOs already build financial buffers for unpredictable markets. The same principle applies to skills. When you model strategic scenarios, map the capabilities each one requires. Then create headroom. That is, skills above the current baseline, so talent can be redeployed quickly when conditions change. Agility is measurable. How fast can you reconfigure your people to meet a new challenge? The speed of that human adaptation is becoming a decisive advantage.
- In every company there are skills hiding in plain sight. Industry change turns some of them into growth engines before competitors realize their value. If you map skills against your strategic priorities now, you can redeploy talent before the market reprices those abilities. That speed is arbitrage in its purest form. The mistake most organizations make is waiting until the gap appears. The leaders close it in advance.
- Across the market, companies are trimming entry-level roles while holding on to experienced talent. The logic is sound. AI can handle repetitive execution, but integration skills and judgment are still rare. That makes timing critical. Train intentionally and ahead of technology deployment. AI changes the definition of productivity by letting workers design the automation that improves their jobs. Compensation should follow performance, linked directly to measurable productivity gains.
New metrics to consider
If talent is capital, measure it like capital:
- Human productivity ratios: Dollars spent on skills versus measurable efficiency gains
- Skills acquisition velocity: Time to master capabilities critical to strategy
- Deployment ROI: Performance lift after tech rollouts and related training
- Workforce stability index: Blend of attrition, absenteeism and engagement
- Corporate agility: Speed of redeploying people to new work when conditions change
These metrics require infrastructure, so build the systems to connect skills investments to business outcomes. That means ensuring your finance team can evaluate them with the rigor employed for every other capital decision.
Metrics set the stage but action drives results. The companies that invest in transition periods consistently outperform when stability returns, according to a McKinsey & Co. study.
The closing gap
Competitors are hesitating, guarding margins, hoping AI alone will deliver the lift they need. You can move by building the skills buffer while talent costs are favorable and achieve the workforce flexibility that will define advantage once uncertainty clears.
The CFO who, in partnership with the CHRO, integrates talent strategy into capital planning will capture a rare prize: a workforce that compounds returns year after year. Ignore this moment and watch competitors build the advantage could have been yours.
