Every organization is an organism for itself. That’s why the most important thing is the reason behind your decision to choose a development program. What’s even more important is whether you are ready to commit and be consistent in completing the program. Ideally, along with our experts we can provide support in identifying needs, creating goals and shaping the program that’s best for you, your employees and your business in this moment. That’s why the first step is always to identify what you want to improve/empower when it comes to your employees and share your conclusions with us during a meeting.
From our experience we believe that the ideal number of people in one group should be 6-8. Of course, the size of the group depends on the topic and program, bearing in mind that one of our experts works with groups with the average size of 12-15 participants. Also, our coaching programs consist of individual work as well as work in smaller groups (3-6).
We believe that the ones who can give the best answer to this question are our clients, partners and associates. We tend to pass on the will to learn and continually grow to our participants. Also, experience and examples of companies from different industries whom we’ve worked with, enable us to give various applicable perspectives to each and every one of our clients. But, what’s most important for us is that everyone we work with knows they have gained an honest and thrust-worthy partner for a long mutual journey.
The answer to this question can be found in a quote that’s been circling around social networks, when the CFO asks the managing director:
“What are we going to do if we invest in development of our people, and they leave us?” The managing director answers: “What will happen if we don’t do it, and they stay?”
The matter of investing in human development is a crucial matter of investing for your business’ development because it’s the people who generate ideas, make and solve problems, create a positive atmosphere, execute what’s needed, share values and live for their team. There is only the question of the choice of people who are ready to make changes. The stronger the management support is, the more profitable the investment will be.
When deciding who should participate in the program, we consider the following three factors:
- People who have showed the need and/or interest for development programs;
- People who have an influence on their environment which is why we believe they will share the knowledge and experience gained from the program with their colleagues;
- People who are expected to improve certain skills that are necessary for the position they’re currently in.
Certainly, this question is extremely important and current. Today companies are opening positions which require experts who will make sure that the development programs in a company have a clear calculation for return on investment. Given that one of the goals of development programs is the change in people’s behavior with which we expect to see better business results, a certain amount of time is needed and it depends on many different factors (concept of the program, management support, choice of participants, environment, market etc.). First it is important to define what we want to achieve and why, i.e. which specific benefits we want to see from this program.
The first question is what do we want to and can measure relatively easy. Knowing this we can choose the way in which we’ll measure the return on investment. One of the simplest examples is through time which an employee spends in executing certain tasks.
- EXAMPLE 1:
- Return on investment through time only
- Before the training, every participant sends 10 offers in 60 minutes (1h)
- After the training every participant sends 13 offers for the same amount of time, i.e. 30% more.
- In addition:
- Expanding the number of accepted offers
- Expanding your portfolio
- Growing your earnings
- Growing your knowledge base
- Creating new solutions for old problems, value which the participant of the training created with their work (for example, shorter duration of sales meetings, better meeting, expanding the portfolio and earnings).
- Greater independence
- Career advancement
- Better atmosphere in the team
- Bigger general productivity
- The average gross pay of employees depends on the market and industry in which you work. According to that sum you can also calculate the financial savings based on the time spent submitting the offers.
- EXAMPLES 2:
- Creating your own KPI which you will track after the development program
- Sales
- Percentage of market share
- Client satisfaction
- Employee satisfaction and fluctuation
- Number of held presentations
- Time spent in meetings
- Time needed until closing the sale
- You can see the profitability of the investment by calculating the average price of employees’ gross hourly wage, average time spent on closing a deal and average deal size.