How Greenhouse aligned three teams and cut headcount reconciliation to 1-2 hours per week with TeamOhana

92%

Reduction in monthly headcount reconciliation time

79%

Faster formal headcount approval

Overview

Greenhouse is the leading hiring platform on a mission to make hiring work for everyone. Its industry-leading, AI-powered software supports every stage of the hiring process, from sourcing to interviewing to onboarding. As the company grew past 700 employees, its own headcount approval process had become the bottleneck. Every approval ran through two C-suite executives, and a single headcount number lived across at least five systems. Melissa Lobel, Senior Talent Planning Operations Manager, and Michelle Yoshihara, Senior Manager of Talent Planning, led the search for a better way. The problem was not theirs alone. Inside Finance and People, multiple groups each owned a piece of the same headcount number, and their versions rarely matched. Talent Planning drove the fix because they sat between both sides.

Challenges

Every headcount approval funneled through the CFO and CPO, an intentionally high-friction process with unclear criteria and no clear next step

Headcount planning data spread across at least five systems, including the HRIS, financial planning, project management, and intake forms, plus multiple spreadsheet versions filtered for different audiences

Headcount approvals happened over Zoom, Slack, and email, with no auditable record of which roles had been funded

Finance and Talent spent roughly 60 hours a month reconciling one headcount number

Greenhouse was not short on data. It was short on agreement.

“Our biggest struggle was alignment alongside the business, and we lost velocity waiting for it.” — Michelle Yoshihara, Senior Manager of Talent Planning

Every week spent aligning on what a role actually was, was a week that role stayed open. And missing hires had a direct line to the business: without the sales reps in place to hit the number, the number does not get hit.

The headcount number itself lived everywhere and nowhere. With open roles tracked in Greenhouse Recruiting, there were a number of other systems: HRIS ran in Workday, finances were planned in Adaptive, the hiring plan sat in Monday.com, and requests came through forms. The planning layer stitching those systems together was a stack of spreadsheets, filtered differently for every audience. When one thing changed, everything had to be updated by hand.

“You move something from the US over to EMEA, and as a result of that, one team member had to make that update in at least three different systems, and probably a handful of spreadsheets.” — Michelle Yoshihara, Senior Manager of Talent Planning

Headcount approvals were the sharpest pain. Every headcount request went through both the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief People Officer.

“We were running every approval by our Chief Financial Officer and our Chief People Officer, an intentionally high-friction approval process which led to the business being unclear on the criteria or stakeholders that drive headcount approvals.” — Melissa Lobel, Senior Talent Planning Operations Manager

The friction was deliberate, but it cost the company in inefficient decisions, unclear accountability, and redundant work. The tally that made the case was simple: Finance and Talent were burning roughly 60 hours a month, close to a full work week, reconciling a single number.

Our solution

Greenhouse chose TeamOhana as the layer that governs the headcount decision before a role reaches the hiring team, not another place to report on it. Two things had to be true at once. The platform had to lock down confidential comp and headcount data by role, and it still had to be usable by the hiring managers and business leaders who lived in it every day.

“We wanted to be really mindful of how we were scaling permissions while still enabling our end users, so often hiring managers or business leaders, to be able to use the platform seamlessly. So it needed to both be permissioned well and user friendly.” — Michelle Yoshihara, Senior Manager of Talent Planning

TeamOhana cleared both bars, and added a centralized approval process and scenario planning for the annual cycle on top. The rollout put every stakeholder across FP&A, People Business Partners, and department leadership onto one chain of authorization, working from one number.

Key workflows

Governed headcount approval

Greenhouse retired the two-executive bottleneck. Instead of routing every request through the CFO and CPO, department leaders now authorize headcount for their own organizations, with FP&A, People Business Partners, and department leadership on the approval chain. Finance and People kept oversight without being the gate.

“TeamOhana has really unlocked for them a level of trust in other leaders across the business.” — Melissa Lobel, Senior Talent Planning Operations Manager, on the CFO and CPO

Once stakeholders align, formal headcount approval now lands in about three business days, down from up to two weeks.

Role-based permissions

Confidential comp and headcount data is now filtered by permission, so each stakeholder sees exactly what they should and nothing they should not. Recruiters self-serve the approval and budget status they need. Without it, Lobel would be back to spending a quarter of her week reconciling headcount and budget status across seven spreadsheets.

One source of truth

A single headcount change is now made once, in one place, after approval, instead of being copied across three systems and a stack of spreadsheets.

“Now we're able to make that in just the singular spot after things have been approved.” — Michelle Yoshihara, Senior Manager of Talent Planning

That is where the reconciliation load fell from roughly 60 hours a month to 1 to 2 hours a week.

Automated approval notifications

When a role is approved, department heads, hiring managers, People Business Partners, FP&A, and Talent Planning are all notified automatically. The weekly check-ins about start dates, individual budget, and approval status simply stopped happening.

“Everyone's working towards that same signal.” — Melissa Lobel, Senior Talent Planning Operations Manager

Impact & results

Headcount reconciliation cut from roughly 60 hours a month to 1 to 2 hours a week
Time to fill dropped from 43 days to 30 days across all roles, as funded roles reached the talent acquisition team sooner
8 sales roles filled in a single quarter within a week of approval, drawing on candidate pipelines the talent team already had open in Greenhouse Recruiting
Formal headcount approval now takes about 3 business days, down from up to 2 weeks
Melissa Lobel's capacity doubled, freeing her for global expansion, enablement, and AI efficiency work
The CFO and CPO moved from approving every headcount to trusting leaders to authorize their own, while keeping full visibility
People Business Partners now run proactive people-planning conversations instead of chasing approval status
With roles funded earlier, the talent team shifted from reactive backfilling to working pipelines it already had open

The clearest measure was capacity.

“Having a tool like TeamOhana has doubled my capacity without me having to manually intervene on every headcount approval.” — Melissa Lobel, Senior Talent Planning Operations Manager

Asked how she would explain the value to a peer, Lobel put it in terms any Finance, HR, or Talent leader would recognize.

“If you've ever had a conversation where Finance, HR, and TA each had a different headcount number, and you spent the week before a board meeting reconciling instead of preparing, that's the problem it solves. It's the layer that sits between your financial plan and your people decisions, and makes them actually talk to each other.” — Melissa Lobel, Senior Talent Planning Operations Manager

Or, in one sentence:

“TeamOhana is the system that unites our subject matter experts on headcount management. It's the system where our business leaders, FP&A team, People Business Partners, and TP&A collectively bring Greenhouse's talent strategy to fruition.” — Melissa Lobel, Senior Talent Planning Operations Manager

92%

Reduction in monthly headcount reconciliation time

79%

Faster formal headcount approval