If you’re measuring respect in budget dollars, you may want to go to Plan B, which can be a pretty good plan.

First, the good news: A lot of executives believe HR is doing important work.
That is, if you believe a poll done a while ago by business consultant Watson Wyatt.

That company’s researchers asked hundreds of business executives to rank their companies’ priorities.

Results: Recruiting good talent came in third; retaining good talent came in fourth. (The report, called “HR Scorecard Alliance,” didn’t say what came in first and second, but we’re guessing sales and finance were right up near the top.)

So, you have important, valued work to do. The bad news is that you’re unlikely to get more budget dollars to get it done. Witness that the report also asks the executives to list their budget priorities.

Recruiting came in 36th. Retention settled in at 44th.

You could complain, but …

We suppose you could walk into your CFO’s office waving these figures, wailing about the inequities of the budgeting process and demanding a satisfactory response. You also could complain to your parents that you don’t look like Brad Pitt or Tyra Banks, and we suspect you’d get about the same level of satisfaction in the response.

Yes, money is a way of keeping score and measuring importance, but it’s not the only way.

If anyone thinks HR won’t get real respect until it gets a real piece of the budget pie, good luck with that. The rest of us will have to live with the idea that people upstairs think we’re doing important stuff, and we think it, too.

A bigger operating budget would be nice, but respect will do nicely.