Turnover is part of business life. Employees resign for promotions, career changes, or personal reasons; employers make changes for performance, restructuring, or strategic priorities. However it happens, unfilled roles create something most leaders overlook: a built-in savings opportunity.
For finance leaders, those savings can feel like a hidden account sitting inside the budget. By planning for vacancy, FP&A teams can capture those savings up front instead of watching them disappear into unapproved spend.
Vacancy as a Hidden Reserve
When roles sit empty — even briefly — companies avoid spending on salaries, benefits, and payroll taxes. Those temporary gaps act as a financial cushion, but only if Finance anticipates them.
Take this scenario:
A business unit has 20 employees with a fully loaded average cost of $150K each per year (salary, benefits, bonus, and taxes).
That’s $3M annually.
If two people leave in April and replacements don’t start until September, and another departs in November with the role unfilled through year-end, the company saves $275K.
Without vacancy planning, managers may see that budget headroom as permission to spend elsewhere. With a vacancy factor baked in, Finance aligns budgets with realistic costs, locking in savings rather than letting them leak away.
Scaling the Impact
The numbers become striking at scale.
A company with 1,000 employees, each with an average fully loaded cost of $120K, spends $120M annually.
By applying a conservative 3% vacancy rate, the company recognises $3.6M in expected savings — before the year begins.
That $3.6M can be redirected toward technology investments, process automation, or margin protection.
Two client case studies illustrate the point:
Company X (mid-market services, 1,200 staff) budgeted at a 4% vacancy factor and created $5M in budgeted savings that funded a new ERP rollout.