Return on Investment

In business, one of the key metrics is Return on Investment, or ROI as its more commonly called.

What ROI focuses on is the difference between what we spend and what we get in return for that spend, e.g. we spent $20m on building a new production plant and that has generated us another $50m in revenue and $10m in profits per annum. This would be seen as a good ROI.

When it comes to developing our people we should look at this in the same way.

Not to justify the spend we have invested, but to realize the significant benefits we get in return for that, benefits which should encourage us to continue to invest further.

Even small investments, such as one-day leadership trainings, can have significant benefits.

Having just attended such a one-day training, run by Mark McGregor, you could tangibly feel the benefits; increased communication and collaboration between the participants; increased energy levels; and most importantly increased engagement.

At the end of the training you could see people walk with an extra spring in their step, a smile on their faces, which is something you just cannot put a price on.

Having run these types of workshops in the past, we have seen that many of these benefits last for weeks if not months. People discuss what they have seen, done and enjoyed with other colleagues, this then permeates the increased energy and engagements levels into teams that didn’t attend the training.

If you were to run an ROI calculation on such an event you would yourself why don’t we do these more often.

Increased employee engagement is the El Dorado, the Promised Land, the Holy Grail for any leader who is looking to achieve significant improvements or ambitious goals.

Our people are our most important assets, we should treat them as such, invest in them and we will see an excellent return.