Closing the Gap: Why Finance-Driven Partnership is HR’s New 2026 Must-Have in the AI Era
Learn why the new era of economic uncertainty and AI disruption demands that HR and Finance form a critical, data-driven partnership to deliver real business impact. Read more about the sixth official trend from the Visier Trends 2026 report.
The conversation around HR’s impact is shifting in a big way. For years, the rallying cry for People Analytics and HR professionals has been about securing a seat at the executive table. And it’s hard work translating that impact—from engagement scores, to retention rates, and overall employee health—into the language of the business.
But in the era of economic uncertainty and technological disruption, HR’s seat at that table isn’t enough. CEOs are looking for HR to deliver business impact. And driving change in how people impact business outcomes requires an essential partner for HR leaders: Finance.
That’s why, following the spirited “Defend Your Trend” panel at Outsmart Brooklyn last month, and based on the undeniable need echoed by C-suite executives and the live-voting from our audience, we’re officially inducting a critical, emerging force as our 6th trend in the new Visier Trends 2026: The Business Case for Humans in the AI Era report. Prioritizing the Finance-Driven HR Partnership.
This isn’t just about a strong working relationship between these two departments; it’s a structural necessity for modern business survival and success. It’s a new era of intersection between HR’s data and Finance’s data. Why? Because people are the largest, most significant investment an organization makes, and every people decision is, at its core, a financial decision.
Beyond HR metrics: The financial (impact) mandate
For too long, the relationship between Finance and HR often boiled down to counting FTEs. Calculating annual headcount and forecasting payroll expenses. But today’s volatile market demands a deeper, more continuous, and strategic collaboration.
Visier CEO Ryan Wong pointed out during a fireside chat at Outsmart that C-suite executives, especially CFOs, are consumed by core business concerns like productivity, cost structures, and sustained revenue growth.
“If you’re in the C-suite, you’re going to be challenged by the board at every single board meeting. It’s a conversation about your existing business model and how that business model is going to grow or continue to become relevant in this very difficult environment,” Ryan explained. “I think it will be very interesting for people analytics teams to participate in that conversation.”
If HR wants to be part of the conversations reshaping the business model (and they should be), PA and HR leaders must speak their language and link their data directly to financial outcomes, connecting the dots between singular data points and how it affects business outcomes.
We should note, too, that this conversation isn’t just about cutting costs. It’s about validating the return on the people expense. There is nothing worse than creating an ambitious plan around investing in people, only to find out you are not aligned with finance after you have put in so many hours. Start with Finance as your partner to frame the problem…before you even start creating solutions. This alignment avoids ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ dollar expectation gaps when presenting to the CEO.
During our panel, we welcomed three people analytics experts and thought leaders to share their perspectives around our 6th trend.
From reactive to strategic: Real-world impact
What could this elevated partnership between HR and Finance look like in practice? It transforms reactive analysis into continuous, strategic action based on the following principles:
Quantify labor costs: Take the problem of vacancy rates in a hospital setting. High nurse vacancy isn't just an HR problem; it immediately translates to significant premium labor costs (like contracted staff) to cover those gaps. By partnering with Finance, HR is now able to present the hospital president with both the vacancy data and the associated financial impact, driving unified action.
Driving proactive workforce planning: Effective workforce planning requires foresight and agility, especially amid skills disruption from AI. Historically, Finance and HR often planned in separate systems, leading to misaligned goals and missed opportunities. The new partnership ensures there is “zero distance between planning and analytics,” making the process dynamic and engaging. For instance, this collaboration can quantify the actual cost and ROI of different talent strategies, helping organizations avoid costly errors, such as rehiring "boomerang" employees at higher salaries after an inaccurate layoff decision.
Technology integration: Business leaders recently told us that what they want most is to “plan in one platform.” When both HR and Finance teams use the same system and look at the same data, it eliminates the need for manual reconciliation and frees up time for strategic initiatives. Wong also noted that the largest non-HR users of Visier last year were Finance and IT, indicating that the platform is already bridging the gap.
The path forward for people analytics
For People Analytics professionals, this trend offers a clear and urgent mandate: become fluent in the financial story of your people.
Make friends with Finance: Start meeting regularly with your finance point of contact. This is your chance to build a relationship that validates your data and quantifies the financial return on your people initiatives.
Focus on business impact: Abandon requests for pure reporting and shift your focus to decisions and business outcomes. When asked for data, always ask: “What action are you willing to take with this information?”
Speak the language of value: Our panelists spoke about the ultimate goal for people analytics as closing the “productivity gap.” If this is your goal, show how optimizing team structure, enhancing manager effectiveness (which some argue is an excuse to “get rid of them”), or building critical skills directly impacts expenses, revenue, or market relevance.
The future of HR lies in cementing its value beyond a “traditional” supportive function. HR needs to be a strategic co-pilot to the entire business. By forming a strong, data-driven partnership with Finance, the profession moves beyond administrative tasks and the people doing this work establish themselves as essential drivers of organizational value and resilience. This is how HR survives, evolves, and truly leads the business into the next era.
Read the Visier Trends 2026: The Business Case for Humans in the AI Era report now to discover the other areas worth focusing on in 2026.
