You’re spending half your budget on people, but what’s the plan?
Visa spends 47% of its total expenses on payroll.
JPMorgan Chase? 56%.
Meta: 41%.
Alphabet (Google): 55%.
For most companies, payroll isn’t a line item. It’s the line item.
But here’s the part no one wants to say out loud:
If you asked most exec teams to show you their strategy for culture and people engagement, the thing they spend half their money on, you’d get blank stares and a nervous cough.
They’ve got a five-year financial forecast, a detailed go-to-market playbook, and contingency plans for everything from supply chain hiccups to TikTok bans.
But a plan for engaging their team? Building culture? Nurturing trust, connection, and performance?
Not so much.
If Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast… What Are You Feeding It?
There’s a reason the phrase culture eats strategy for breakfast still hangs on so many office walls.
Because it’s true.
You can have the best roadmap in the world, but if your team isn’t connected, aligned, and engaged, none of it moves.
Payroll is not just a cost center. It’s the foundation of your competitive advantage, or your most expensive liability.
When employees are engaged, they’re not just clocking in. They’re problem-solving, innovating, mentoring, stepping up, sticking around.
When they’re disconnected? They’re dragging your margins down, quietly quitting, and eyeing the exit. The cost of dis-engagement is real.
And yet, most leaders still treat culture like an add-on. Something you’ll get to after the product roadmap is finalized. Something HR can sprinkle in during onboarding.
But culture isn’t seasoning. It’s the stove.
Treating People Like Assets Starts with a Strategy
In Dance Floor Theory™, we don’t just help leaders understand engagement, we give them a roadmap on understanding what level of engagement each person is at, and then tactics on how to engage them.
We show them how to build what we call a Culture of Connection™, where engagement is intentional, measurable, and leader-led.
We teach them how to move their people up the Engagement Pyramid, from Neutrals and 1s to fully activated Level 5 leaders.
And we make sure they understand: you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Culture isn’t vibes. It’s decisions, behaviors, and rituals. And it needs to be owned like any other high-cost, high-reward investment.
Final Thought: If Payroll Is the Engine, Culture Is the Fuel
You’re already investing.
You’re paying salaries, bonuses, benefits, perks.
The question isn’t whether you’re spending the money.
The question is: What are you getting in return?
If your largest expense has no engagement strategy behind it, you don’t need a new budget line. You need a new mindset.
Start by asking:
- Do we know our team’s overall Engagement Score? Or each person?
- Do our managers have the tools to move people forward?
- Do we treat culture like the ROI machine it can be?
Because payroll without a people strategy isn’t just inefficient.
It’s expensive.
