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I’m now well into the 22nd year of my PI journey and one of the things that has eluded me, my team, and frankly our clients, is a definitive way of measuring return on investment (ROI) on the PI program.  

Prospective clients often ask the question… “How can I ensure we are going to see results from this program?”.   As much as I’d love to respond with the Tommy Boy line of “You can get a good look at a T-bone”, there has to be a better reply than “trust me”.  

Track Record Approach

In response to the above question, we typically mention our historical 86% client retention rate. Or the fact that PI Midlantic has over 100 clients that have partnered with us for 10+ years (not to mention our 20+ and 30+ year clients).  Both speak to positive ROI… but that still doesn’t provide an actual number.  

ROI Factors

The fact of the matter is that ROI on a program like this is hard to measure. The following paragraphs will look at ROI as it relates to turnover. However, we should really go beyond that and consider impact on improving things like team effectiveness, communication, and corporate strategy.  

Addressing ROI On Turnover

If implemented as a hire-only solution, we guarantee that it will help get better talent in the door, because you are adding objective data to the hiring process to match the right person to the right role. But with a hire-only approach, it doesn’t ensure that those solid hires will stay. Good hires that are managed poorly are still going to leave.   

That brings us to investing in the development of our leaders. The focus here is on creating self-awareness and helping them to understand the strengths of those they lead. This allows them to build teams with a plan and create an environment where those team members can succeed.  

This simple hire and inspire approach is a great way to increase employee engagement, productivity, and retention.  

But alas, I’m still left without an objective ROI number.  

The Future

So, I am researching ways to take company performance-data and marry it with people-data. We already do this for sales organizations. Salespeople often take home a number at the end of every month. That allows us to compare performance with metrics like behavioral profile, experience, cognitive score, and others to identify what works. If we expand that approach to all roles throughout an organization, we’ll be able to provide an actual ROI number for our clients.  

For the time being, we’ll have to keep using our standard line of “if you avoid two bad hires, this program will have paid for itself.” It’s not nearly as memorable as Big Tom Callahan’s T-bone line, but with the high cost of turnover these days, it’s at least accurate. 

Steve Picarde, Jr., President – PI Midlantic