Do you have recruitment or L&D budget leftover? Here’s how to get the most out of it before EOFY.

End of financial year (EOFY) is just around the corner and with it, a familiar challenge for many HR & People teams: unspent budget. 

Most organisations have a ‘use it or lose it’ policy, which means if you don’t spend it, you don’t get to keep it, either. ‘Losing it’ can have consequential impact on future budget allocations, if the reforecasting shows an underspend. 

While budget caution is understandable, not using your dedicated budgets can send the wrong message. It can make employees feel like their development isn’t a priority and may hold your organisation back from achieving key people goals, such as nurturing future leaders, creating an inclusive workplace or improving team collaboration. 

So, if you have budget remaining – get innovative! There is always a strong business case for using the budget and investing more in your people. 

Identify the gap 

Start by asking: What investment is needed most? Is it leadership development, team growth or something else entirely? Aligning your remaining budget to strategic priorities rather than just ticking a box will ensure the spend is meaningful and justifiable. Even modest investment can have a big impact on your people, your culture and the future of your organisation. 

Here are four smart, impactful ways to use your remaining L&D and recruitment budgets: 

1. Grow your teams for the year ahead with recruitment 

If you have recruitment budget leftover and have open vacancies, investing in a recruitment partner can help you find the right people who align with your values and will have a lasting impact on your organisation. 

Getting a head start on recruiting before the end of financial year can be a strategic move for several reasons. It ensures your team is fully staffed, helping you meet new goals with ease and maximising the value of your current budget. If you have struggled to find the right candidates internally, connecting with a recruitment partner gives you access to an extensive talent database, speeds up the recruitment process and reduces time-to-hire. Agencies, like Beaumont People bring specialised expertise, ensuring that every hire contributes to both immediate results and long-term success. 

2. Support emerging leaders 

Leadership development is always a valuable investment for all parties. It shows a commitment to the growth of your team and helps shape the leaders you’ll need tomorrow. 

Structured programs, like our LEAD Mentoring Program, can be game-changing. By combining professional development, strengths profiling and one-on-one mentoring, LEAD helps emerging leaders build capability and confidence. 

Mentoring, in particular, can be a powerful way to retain talent and provide individuals with a confidant and guide outside of their usual working group. 

3. Help your employees unlock their strengths 

Strengths profiling and assessments offer a smart, impactful way to utilise L&D budgets while delivering real outcomes. Strengths profiles can be used both at an individual or team level, providing valuable insights into strengths, behaviours and talent potential.

These tools help employees become more self-aware, allow future leaders to better understand their unique strengths and what energises them and enable teams to collaborate more effectively by playing to each other’s strengths. Rather than focusing on gaps or weaknesses, strengths-based development empowers individuals to work from a place of strength, maximising their potential and improving team dynamics. 

Given its relatively low cost and high impact, strengths profiling is an excellent choice for organisations looking to get the most value from their L&D budget. It can be offered to specific individuals or entire teams, depending on the budget available. 

4. Invest in strategic support 

Sometimes, the best investment you can make is bringing in an external perspective. Whether it's workforce planning, structural changes, or shaping your culture strategy, our consulting team can help you tackle those critical projects that often get sidelined. If you've been meaning to review your team’s capabilities, redefine roles, or clarify your organisational priorities, now is the perfect time to take action and use your left-over budget to move those initiatives forward. 

Making your budget count 

If you have recruitment budget left over this year, you can prepay part or all of the recruitment fee this financial year. Firstly, if you don’t use your recruitment budget this year, budgets are often reduced the following year. Secondly, you aren’t using a chunk of your recruitment budget in the first month of the new financial year. 

No matter how much budget you have left, it’s worth spending it with purpose. It’s an investment into your people. Recruitment, leadership development, strengths profiling and strategic consulting offer practical ways to deliver value for your people and your organisation. 

And if you’re unsure where to start, Beaumont People is here to help. 

Get in touch with us to talk through your goals and find a solution that's right for you – and your budget. 

Written by: Debbie Davis, Beaumont People CEO