The people function is often invited into a new transport contract after the commercial excitement has passed. The service has been described, the price negotiated and the launch date announced. The request is now to recruit or allocate the people required. At that point, important employment choices may already have been made implicitly. A start time, location, level of cover or supervisory assumption can shape the work as much as a later employment document. If the assumptions are weak, recruitment becomes the place where the problem finally becomes visible.
I think the people contribution should begin earlier, while the offer can still be changed. This does not mean adding a general human-resources approval to every bid. It means identifying proposals in which the employment arrangement is material to cost, delivery or risk, and examining the relevant assumptions with the people who understand them. The discussion should be specific enough to influence a decision. A broad warning that the contract may be difficult to staff gives commercial colleagues little basis for revising the offer.
Visible hours are not the complete arrangement
Our fictional 2022 overnight-distribution proposal at Valserenne Logistics included EUR 4.8 million in estimated annual labour cost across eight depots. The model captured the visible work, but the joint review raised questions about relief, supervision and the working patterns required to deliver the service. Several items were treated as capacity the existing organisation could absorb. That assumption needed evidence. Existing employees and managers were already supporting other commitments, and a central average did not show whether they were available where the new work would occur.
The review brought together operations, finance, commercial colleagues and the people team. Local advisers examined relevant employment questions, and transport managers retained responsibility for the operational plan and applicable transport requirements. My role was to make the employment provision explicit and connect it to the executive decision. I was not certifying a route plan or setting a customer price. Keeping those responsibilities clear made the discussion more useful than a general argument about which function was being too cautious.
The revised provision was EUR 6.1 million annually. The difference was not a discretionary people initiative added to improve the attractiveness of the offer. It represented the arrangement the team considered necessary to support the proposed work. That distinction mattered in the commercial conversation. If management wanted to reduce the estimate, it needed to identify which requirement could change and what that would mean for the service. Simply asking the people function to return to the earlier number would not remove the underlying obligation.
An average hourly cost can be a useful starting point, but it is not a complete employment model. The timing and location of work, the support around it and the availability of the relevant capability all matter. So does the transition from the existing operation to the new one. A steady-state estimate can omit preparation or overlap costs that are necessary at launch. These are not reasons to make every proposal complicated. They are reasons to ensure that a simple summary rests on an arrangement the responsible managers can explain.
The challenge must leave management with a choice
Commercial leaders had invested substantial effort in the opportunity and believed a higher price could lose it. That was a real objection, not evidence that they were indifferent to employees. A useful challenge should acknowledge the consequence and examine alternatives. Could the service specification change? Could the operating pattern be different? Was the company prepared to accept a lower return, and if so on what basis? The people team should help make those choices explicit rather than assume that identifying a concern ends the discussion.
In this case, management chose to reprice the offer. The customer did not accept. I cannot know what would have happened had the company proceeded at the original price, and I would not invent a later failure to justify our decision. The evidence available was that the revised employment provision better described the work being offered. Executives decided not to carry the difference on the original terms. That is an account of a decision under uncertainty, including a commercial opportunity the business gave up.
The timing of the review made the challenge harder. By then the EUR 4.8 million assumption had become familiar through repeated versions of the proposal. Revising it could look like a late functional intervention even though the underlying issue had existed from the beginning. I would bring the joint discussion forward in a repeat process. Early scrutiny allows a team to adapt the service and price together. Late scrutiny tends to produce a binary argument about whether to proceed, after colleagues have become committed to a particular version of the opportunity.
There is also a discipline for the people function. It should explain the evidence behind its estimate and remain open to a better operating alternative. A conservative number is not automatically a sound number. Commercial and operating colleagues may identify a different arrangement that changes the requirement legitimately. The purpose of the review is to establish an executable proposition, not to defend the first figure produced by a different department. Each assumption should have an owner and a reason that can be examined.
Record the opportunity that was lost
Leadership profiles often find it easier to describe the revenue won than the contract declined or lost after a difficult review. Yet the latter can reveal something useful about judgement. The account should retain the cost of the decision. In our fictional case, repricing did not produce a sale. Calling the outcome a hidden victory would avoid the disappointment and the possibility that another solution might have been found earlier. The learning concerns the process and the clarity of the obligation, not a claim that restraint always produces a better financial result.
A board should be able to understand that distinction too. It does not need to examine every staffing line in a bid, but it may need assurance that material service proposals have considered the employment arrangements on which their economics depend. A report can explain the significant assumption, the alternative considered and the decision taken. That is more useful than a statement that the people function was consulted, which says little about whether the consultation changed or tested anything important.
The same logic applies after a contract is accepted. Management should compare the actual arrangement with the assumptions on which the price was based and understand material differences. That review should not begin with an assumption that the employee or recruiter caused the variance. The original proposition may have been incomplete, the customer requirement may have changed or the operating approach may need revision. Keeping the decision history visible helps the company learn where its model was weak.
The employment decision is therefore not a final implementation detail. It is already present in the service the company proposes to sell. A CHRO contributes by making that decision visible while management still has meaningful options, explaining the evidence and accepting that the result may be commercially uncomfortable. The best time to discover an unsupported employment assumption is before the organisation has made it somebody else’s daily obligation.