ATD Footer Logo

Bill Waite

Putting together a worldclass team

As Watershed’s Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Bill Conran focuses on evangelizing the message of utilizing analytics to improve the workforce. He is known for making complex solutions easy to understand and showing how software can create safer, more enjoyable organizations.

Bill Conran

When executives want to measure the ROI of training, they rarely focus on hard skills. In fact, 90 percent of the time, they are trying to find the value of their investment in soft skills training. It is usually harder to identify the connection of those skills to strategic objectives. Resources are always limited, and there will always be more requests for the budget than dollars to fulfill those requests. So, as leaders make choices and trade-offs, they will be looking for evidence of ROI. You should recognize the importance of these inquiries to present a compelling case. When the executive asks for justification, what should you know?When making an investment, there are two measurements you should pay close attention to. The most obvious is the result you hope to get from making the investment. The other is the behavior or action you believe will create that result. For example, your organization may be seeking to increase the number of leads you receive. That is the result you are targeting. The behavior, or action, would be the purchase of online advertising. If you want the result of an increased number of prospects for the sales team, the action you may take is hiring and training more inside sales reps. What are the behavior and result measures for coaching?Leaders commonly make the mistake of saying the result measure for coaching is the act of coaching. The result measure of coaching is NOT coaching itself; rather, it is the outcome or goal that coaching was applied to. For example, you may be trying to reduce staff turnover—that’s your result. Take note of the current turnover rate and target what rate would represent a satisfactory change. Lower turnover means fewer new hires, saving significant costs ranging from a third to double the annual salary per hire for recruiting, training, and other startup expenses. Beyond those savings, consider the productivity boost from a more engaged and stable team. These benefits offer a clear metric for your result. Your behavior is to train your teams in coaching and to assure they practice and use it. The behavior of coaching now has a quantifiable result upon which to weigh the cost of coaching, helping you understand the real return on your investment.Deciding to invest time or money in coaching means either you are facing a challenge you wish to overcome or seizing an opportunity for growth. Here are some examples of how you can apply coaching to a strategic objective:Business PriorityResultsBehaviorsROI (Possible Metrics):Enhance leadership effectivenessIncrease in leadership competenciesDevelop leadership skills across all levelsKPIs related to team performance, project completion rates, and overall organizational productivityChanges in voluntary turnover rates and length of employee tenurePromotion rates, internal mobility, and leadership succession planning effectivenessBoost customer satisfaction and loyaltyIncrease in customer satisfaction scoresImprove service delivery and product qualityPercentage of customers making multiple purchases or renewing servicesCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV) or repeat customer revenueNumber of complaints, support requests, and ticket resolution timeOptimize operational efficiencyReduction in operational costsStreamline processes and reduce wasteReduction in operational costs, such as labor, materials, or overheadTime taken to complete core processes, such as production cycles, customer orders, or service deliveryUtilization rates of equipment, technology, and other assetsFoster innovation and creativityIncrease in the number of new ideas generatedCultivate a culture of innovationPercentage of revenue generated from newly introduced products or servicesTime taken from idea conception to product or service launchAmount of cost savings generated from innovative process improvementsStrengthen cross-functional collaborationIncrease in the number of successful cross-functional projectsImprove interdepartmental communication and teamworkKPIs for cross-functional teams, such as output, quality of work, and achievement of key milestonesThe time it takes cross-functional teams to resolve complex issues or challengesEmployee engagement scores or satisfaction surveys focused on teamwork and interdepartmental cooperationThere are four simple questions that can help you build the ROI case for a coaching program:What are we aiming to change?Where do we currently stand?Where do we aspire to be?What is the value of achieving this difference?When faced with questions about ROI and the impact of coaching is unclear, it’s important to reflect on your objectives and the measurable differences you aim to achieve. Coaching isn’t merely an assumption of improvement; it’s the catalyst that propels all your strategies forward, enhancing effectiveness and ensuring smoother operations across the board.

The ROI of Coaching: A CEO’s Perspective

The role of the radiological monitor-ing team may he the key to survival for personnel within your plant. Whether you operate from one small building or conduct your business over a wide area, the problem is the same.

Radiological Defense Training In Southern Bell

As the CEO of Bulldog Drummond, Shawn is responsible for strategically directing each of Bulldog’s key engagements, ensuring there’s an “Uncommon Sense” methodology at the center of everything the company does. This approach maintains that the biggest opportunities can be realized, and the most complex challenges solved, by using a powerful combination of simplicity, common sense and determination. He brings twenty-plus years of innovation, design, brand and business-building experience to companies from Fortune 500s to purpose-driven startups.Shawn helps leadership teams transform large, multinational companies and passionate entrepreneurs launch new companies, products and brands. He has worked with executive teams at companies including Adidas, Bolthouse Farms, CMT, Diageo, Eddie Bauer, Heineken, H&R Block, IDEO, MTV, Mattel, Nike, PIRCH, Starbucks, Samsung, Taco Bell, WD-40, Westfield, and World Vision, among many others.Following a life-changing trip to Malawi in March of 2004, Shawn has become committed to finding creative and sustainable ways to make a measurable difference in the world by helping people and companies realize their full potential. He sits on the board of The Honest Kitchen, the advisory boards of FEED Projects and International Farming, is the co-founder of YouSchool and Y-Malawi? and a faculty member of The Honor Foundation. He writes feverishly for Fast Company, PSFK, and is a sought-after speaker. Shawn lives in San Diego with his wife and three children, is a dawn patrol surfer, wanna-be photographer and avid cultural voyeur.

Shawn E. Parr

Jill Walters is publisher of the monthly online newsletter, Diversity! in the Workplace. She also is the co-author, with Evelina Silveira, of Diversity and Inclusion on a Budget: How to Have a More Engaged and Innovative Workplace With Little or No Dollars and The No-Nonsense Guide to Workplace Inclusion.

Jill Walters

A diverse workplace isn’t necessarily an inclusive one. This issue of TD at Work will help you create an employee-friendly workplace where everyone feels respected.

Building Blocks of Workplace Inclusion

Through the research Jann Freed did for her upcoming book, Leading with Wisdom: Sage Advice from 100 Experts, Jann shows us how great leaders connect with empathy and compassion. This includes learning how to cope with death, loss, and grief.  It also includes understanding life's transitions.  This requires learning to "let go" and "leaning into fear."  But how do leaders learn these skills and practices?
In this webcast, participants will engage in several exercises designed to learn these skills. 
• We will go through a visualization exercise called "Metaphor of the Surviving Children" to learn what it feels like to be laid off or to be a survivor of a layoff. 
• We will write our own eulogy and talk about how this brings compassion and empathy into a clear focus.
• We will script our last moments on Earth to remind us that now is the only time we really have.  So we must be our best person/leader now.
• We will make our bucket list as a reminder of how our most valuable and democratic resource is time.
• We will discuss the power of rituals and identify some rituals that can enhance our ability to lead and to live by celebrating "letting go."
• We will explore how the way to get over fear is to "lean into it." 
 
And in doing so understand how to be better, more effective leaders!
 

Leading with Wisdom: Sage Advice from 100 Experts

Evelina Silveira is the president of Diversity at Work, a three-time award-winning training and consulting firm in London, Canada. She is also the editor of the Inclusion Quarterly and has co-authored two books about workplace inclusion with Jill Walters.

Search results for 'Bill Waite'

Categories

Refine By

Search results for 'Bill Waite'

Categories

Refine By

Role

Topic

Industry