“Numbers are not really my thing.” This is a little sentence we have all heard. Many HR professionals utter it almost as a harmless personality trait. Yet, behind this innocent sentence lies a broader relinquishment than it appears: that of closing off an entire part of the understanding of the company.
A field we believe is reserved
We often imagine that business figures, revenue, costs, profitability, belong to finance or to controlling. Their production does indeed fall to these functions. But their reading should not be reserved for them: they tell the story of the activity, its direction, its tensions, and this reading sheds light on all HR functions. Turning away from them is not leaving aside a technical detail, it is reading the company with one eye closed.
Reading the dynamics of a business
A business partner cannot support an activity without understanding its dynamics. On which side is it developing? How does it sit compared to the other activities of the company? Does it generate more revenue, and what about its fixed costs? These questions cannot receive a solid answer without the numbers, and the numbers shed light on the understanding of the business model and the strategy of the activity.
Take two activities within the same bank, wealth management and retail banking. They are not read with the same indicators. In wealth management, one will track notably assets under management, net capital inflows and revenue generated per manager. In retail banking, one will look at volumes, network productivity, the ratio between revenue and costs. These numbers do not directly tell you which HR measures to take, but they can indicate where value is shifting and which skills will become critical.
An activity in growth does not mechanically recruit more. It all depends on what drives that growth: more volumes, new markets, a price increase, a productivity gain or an acquisition. Each of these drivers calls for a different HR response. Similarly, an activity in decline does not always lead to reducing headcount: it may call for reskilling, repositioning or targeted recruitment. The numbers alone do not give the HR decision. They indicate the questions to ask.
It has happened to me to see a change of cost center precede a broader change in the business. That movement was not proof of it, but it was a signal. At the heart of decisions, numbers sometimes speak before announcements.
Let us talk strategy
There is one more reason, and it is decisive. If we, in HR, miss this analytical eye, our interlocutors do not. Business heads know their context, compare their profitability, position themselves in relation to one another, and open on this basis strategic issues. Without this reading, the HR professional only half grasps the conversation, and endures it instead of taking part in it.
Reading the numbers is therefore also a question of credibility: speaking the same language as one's internal clients, understanding the stakes they carry, and taking a seat at the table where strategies are drawn.
A few reference points are enough
The good news is that this is not about becoming a controller. A few reference points are enough to start, and they can be learned. An important marker is not the figure at a given moment, but its evolution. What matters is the change: a line growing, a cost drifting, a ratio deteriorating constitutes a signal to understand, not yet a conclusion to draw.
EBITDA, P&L, Net Revenue, these terms intimidate, but once tamed, they cease to be a wall and become a shared framework.
The simplest way to make them your own is to reach out to controlling and finance. These teams produce and analyse economic data daily. Agreeing with them on the relevant indicators, their definition, their frequency and how to interpret them allows you to build a reliable reading grid and a truly useful collaboration.
The essentials
“Numbers are not really my thing” is a sentence that costs more than it appears. When it leads to avoiding economic data, it deprives HR of part of the understanding needed to anticipate needs, support activities in their trajectory and dialogue with the business. It then contributes to keeping the function in a support role, precisely where it seeks to demonstrate its strategic value.
These numbers are reserved neither for finance, nor for Comp & Ben. Understood and contextualised by HR, they enable informed decisions more grounded in the reality of the activity.
HDH (HR Decision Hub) allows you to associate to functions relevant sizing markers, budget managed, headcount supervised, scope, and to track your budgets by cost center.