HR and Finance leaders identify themselves as highly familiar with compensation strategies and practices (according to Bettercomp’s new research report), but when asked about why and how compensation decisions are made, it’s evident that there are significant knowledge gaps among both groups of leaders. In some areas of the survey, HR and Finance respondents presented starkly different perspectives about compensation practices. Compensation programs are expected to be nimble and adjust to economic, talent, and legislative changes, and these newly uncovered insights about HR and Finance leaders’ differing perspectives call for a new way of sharing compensation strategy information among internal stakeholders.

Compensation programs walk a fine line between financial and human-centered decision making. With this split focus for compensation teams, they have to find ways to be strategic advisors to both finance and HR leaders. The survey responses showed that while HR and finance leaders align on some areas of interest, there are stark differences in what they want to learn more about from their compensation teams.

• HR and Finance leaders agree that they would like more insights into how compensation decisions are made. 64% of respondents indicated that they want clear communication and transparency around compensation decisions. However, when taking a closer look, these groups showed stark differences in how they view employee compensation’s impact on the larger organization.
• HR leaders are more likely to wonder about how compensation contributes to employee retention when making decisions. Both groups (84% of total respondents) shared that they were interested in learning more about how compensation impacted employee performance and retention, but when you broke the subgroups apart, HR prioritized retention as an area of interest.
• Finance leaders are more likely to describe employee compensation as a strategic business driver. 20% more finance respondents stated employee compensation is a strategic business driver than their HR counterparts.
• Both groups of respondents are curious about the ROI of compensation programs, with 78% of survey participants sharing that beyond data, they want their internal compensation teams to highlight the ROI of their employee compensation spend.

“The difference in how HR and Finance leaders view compensation shows that alignment, not spend, is often the missing ingredient. Even effective programs fall short if they don’t translate value in ways that resonate with both talent and financial priorities.” said Sandra Leon, Bettercomp Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer.

Bettercomp collaborated with HR Dive’s Studio by Informa TechTarget to conduct the compensation strategy survey. The survey gathered insights from 150 senior leaders in HR and finance roles based in the U.S. during fall 2025. Participants included 79 finance professionals (53%) and 71 HR professionals (47%). Fifty-one percent of respondents held C-suite positions, while 49% had VP or SVP roles. Just over half of respondents (51%) worked at organizations with 501 to 2,000 employees, 41% were employed at companies with 2,001 to 5,000 employees, and 8% at organizations with over 5,000 employees.