One of the dilemmas faced by HR Directors is the ability to demonstrate ROI to the Board from employee engagement activities. HR Heads continue to turn to Business Simulations for all aspects of employee engagement; such as recruitment, onboarding, talent nurturing, team building and management training.
They are not only using innovative methods of engaging employees, they are also inherently collecting metrics to perform ROI analytics. These are then tidily inserted into Board presentations proving ROI in these activities – both before (to justify budget spend) and after (to provide evidence of a valuable investment).
So, how can you calculate ROI for Employee Engagement – in particular Business Simulation Games? These next bullets cover key aspects required upon commencement of the employee engagement activity:
- Define Return on Investment: This means a clearly defined, documented and agreed desired RETURN or GOAL statement. This can include employee engagement, knowledge retention, team building, graduate understanding, employee training, process time savings, cost savings, etc. This also includes a timeframe within which this RETURN or GOAL is required. An example here is: multi-regional sales and marketing team building event & proven follow up collaboration within 6 months. [nb: this can be re-tested via a further Simulation experience]. This sets clear expectations on the outset of the engagement activity – and will shape the type of Business Simulation Game your business requires.
- Define Return on Investment: This means a clearly defined INVESTMENT or SPEND. This can include actual costs, time to organize the logistics/employee travel and run the engagement activity, amongst others. This should include a min and max amount of time, money and/or both. An example here is: an off- site venue, with 100 staff, run by a Simulation Manager, requiring a competitive element to generating sales. This sets clear expectations and will help define the type of engagement activity – in other words whether an off-the-shelf Business Simulation or a bespoke Business Simulation is required. Or, whether this will be delivered through an in-house workshop or at an external event venue.
Once these two definitions have been set, a detailed project plan can be mapped out. This should then be put forward as proposal requests to a series of Simulation providers. An experienced Business Simulation provider will inevitably review your project plan, offer some additional ‘tweaks’ you may not have taken into consideration and provide you with a few options, which must fall in line with your ROI requirements.
All good to go? Fantastic. Now the Simulation begins. As the Business Simulation is running, metrics are collected in real time. The value of this is, businesses have immediate visibility in terms of progress and target achievement, in comparison to the desired outcome of the Employee Engagement activity.
Once the Business Simulation has been completed, the provider will offer you access to your full set of data. As with all innovative technologies, this big data can be sliced and diced into various dashboards and reports that you require for your next board meeting. Generic or customized.
Simply pop those into your presentation and voilá! You have just been able to prove ROI on your employee engagement activity.
We are seeing an increase in firms who use repetitive Simulations, to validate their ROI after 6 months or a year – as part of their ongoing employee engagement strategy.
By employing innovative, flexible Business Simulations your business can develop capability to target audiences, thereby achieving ROI in days/weeks/months, rather than years. Furthermore, administration working times in gathering and collating information as part of the report and presentation process is dramatically reduced.
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In the meantime, please feel free to have a look at our simulations.