Jessica Williams’ Post

CFO Hot Take: The H-1B Fee Didn’t Hit HR, It Hit Your P&L. Let me speak directly to the people who actually felt the H-1B shock: CFOs. Because for the first time in a decade of doing this work… 80% of my post-H-1B calls weren’t with HR. They were with finance. And every CFO said some version of the same line: “This isn’t a visa problem. It’s an exposure problem.” Exactly. Let’s talk about the exposure no one is comfortable naming: CFO Reality #1: The $100K fee wasn’t the issue. The overreliance was. One policy shouldn’t be able to reshape your talent cost structure overnight. If your hiring model is derailed by a single government decision, that’s not a policy issue; that’s a portfolio risk. CFO Reality #2: Visa-heavy models distort forecasting. Every CFO I spoke to said the same thing: “We can’t forecast headcount anymore. Compliance is changing faster than budgets.” Why? Because visas are not financial instruments. They’re political instruments. And political instruments kill predictability. CFO Reality #3: The companies who didn’t panic… were already using EOR. Not for “fast hiring.” Not for “cost saving.” But because: ✔ EOR eliminates entity capex ✔ EOR removes visa dependencies ✔ EOR transfers compliance risk ✔ EOR creates predictable cost curves ✔ EOR compresses time-to-productivity ✔ EOR protects IP across borders ✔ EOR fixes cross-border payroll chaos ✔ EOR turns global hiring into a financially engineered system EOR is not HR tech. It’s risk-off hiring infrastructure. CFO Reality #4: 2026 will reward CFOs who treat compliance as capital protection. Because the truth is simple: You don’t lose to competitors anymore. You lose to bottlenecks. And every new rule, the H-1B fee, EU Worker Directive, UK visa reforms, and GCC tightening is turning CFOs into the new guardians of workforce stability. CFOs who move now will own the 2026 results. CFOs who wait will budget for damage control. Final CFO Question: If hiring became a political decision tomorrow, Would your operating model survive the week? If the answer is anything but a confident yes… Comment “EOR”, and I’ll share the financial frameworks the smartest CFOs are using to make their global teams shock-proof. #H1BVisa #CFOLeadership #GlobalCompliance #FinancialStrategy #EOR #RiskManagement #FutureOfWork