The benefit of involving operational staff is that they may be able to lend perspective on particular line items. Sometimes when upper management looks at a budget they may only see a general line item and they may not have a sense on how cuts may impact a given department. The operational staff may be able to give a more detailed picture on expenditures. Of course, the operational staff member may only know about their particular budget line. Gathering a number of operational staff from various departments in a room may not be terribly productive since they may all have a singular perspective on the budget. Therefore, getting people involved may be helpful, but it can also create the situation where there are "too many cooks in the kitchen."
Big picture
The downside to involving some operational staff is that they may not have a sense of the more global needs of the company. People are always going to fight for their own budgets, but sometimes they can lose sight of the fact that they are not the only department in the organization. Budgeting isn't always about justifying the value of a budget request since there may be good reasons for each financial plan. Rather, budgeting is about deciding which expenditures are more important and what will benefit the long-term profitability of the organization.
Lip service
Again, getting people involved is a good thought and modern management theories stress the importance of including as many people as possible. However, companies have to be careful about asking people's opinions. When an organization asks an individual for their perspective, that person may expect that their voice will have some impact. If companies ask everyone for their opinion and then ignore all the suggestions, it can create a bad atmosphere. Therefore, companies have to measure the value of getting operational staff involved in the budgeting process, both from a financial and a morale standpoint.
. Plenty of individuals feel
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