Insights from ROI Institute’s Data
At the ROI Institute, we are uniquely positioned to see what types of programs executives want to have evaluated in terms of the impact, ROI levels, and the success of those evaluations. Three important data sets suggest executives consider hard skills to be more valuable than soft skills.
First, the data we have collected through polling with learning leaders is very telling. We ask if several statements are mostly true or mostly false. One of the statements is, “Executives view hard skills as more valuable than soft skills.” Over time, 87 percent of learning leaders respond that the statement is mostly true. Learning leaders see it in their conversations with, and reactions to, soft skills.
Second, when evaluating learning and development programs in an organization, most requests come from executives, and about 90 percent of these programs focus on soft skills, indicating that executives are interested in the impact and ROI of soft skills. We’ve never had an executive ask for an ROI study for technical training.
Third, when individuals attend our ROI Certification, they are asked to select a program that needs to be evaluated and one that they plan to evaluate all the way to ROI. Out of 17,000 individuals attending certification, leadership development is the number one topic selected for this evaluation level, demonstrating the importance of measuring ROI in leadership development programs.
The Current Gap: Appreciation vs. Value
It is clear that executives appreciate soft skills but still don’t put them in the same level of value as hard skills. We have some work to do. Executives will quickly tell you that what creates the best places to work and the most admired, innovative, and sustainable organizations are the soft skills.
But they need to know and see the value in terms that they can appreciate and understand. They need to see how a personality-based system, crucial conversations, team-building, leadership development, or culture change adds value at the impact and ROI levels.
Overcoming Concerns About ROI
The challenge is to tackle your most important soft skills program and measure the impact and ROI. We know you have concerns. So, let’s face the number one barrier: You’re concerned that your soft skills program may not deliver a positive ROI.
We understand that. However, if a program fails to deliver a positive ROI, it is not usually the content. It is typically the lack of support in the organization.
To address this concern, start with the end in mind. Connect your soft skills programs to the business impact at the beginning. Make sure it is the right solution and set objectives for the program all the way through the levels: reaction, learning, application, and impact.
Provide those objectives to the entire team of designers, developers, program owners, participants, managers of participants – everyone involved. Ask them to do their part to ensure this program achieves its intended impact. When you do this, you are almost guaranteed success at the impact level and a very positive ROI.
Demonstrating the Business Value of Soft Skills
The key point is that we need to do a better job of showing executives that soft skills add to the bottom line. Soft skills are not “nice to have” when we have the budget. They are critical skills that make a difference in an organization and drive tremendous business value.
In our database of ROI studies, the largest in the world, soft skills ROI values are much higher than hard skills. The highest ROI study we’ve seen in the history of ROI Institute is an ROI of more than 5,000 percent from a leadership program with a police team – and it’s credible, supported by CFOs.
To learn more about measuring the ROI of your soft skills programs, join my webinar, Connecting Soft Skills to Hard Data, to gain practical tools and strategies you can use to clearly demonstrate the impact of these essential programs.
