We Commonly Do Leadership Development Because We Know We Need To
Leadership Development is a central piece of any successful organisation’s strategy. However, the direct financial return of improvement in ‘leadership’ can be difficult to quantify in the short term.
There are specific indicators that can be measured such as culture and engagement scores, and more directly quantifiable measures such as reduction in staff turnover and overall organisational performance in the medium term. However, in general, we do Leadership Development because we ‘know it is vital and has a great return’ – although it can be a challenge to align the specific dollars in savings or value of growth in a given month or quarter, especially if the investment was not made in the month or quarter in which the value of improvement is being measured.
ODi Demonstrates How Leadership Development can be Self-Funded Through Savings
The OrgDev Institute (ODi) has developed a new approach that provides organisations with the ability to quantify the value achieved during the same period that the investment in leadership development is being made, which is usually larger than the cost of the development initiative.
*Percentages are inclusive
How Does it Work?
Research undertaken by the Institute of 452 organisations across Australia, New Zealand and Singapore showed that in 2018, 30% of organisations spent in excess of $120,000 annually on OrgDev tools such psychometric instruments, culture surveys and 360 feedback tools, which are the primary aspects used to enhance and guide Leadership Development.
Using an innovative new approach developed by the Institute, organisations can reduce their expenditure on all of the OrgDev tools listed above, and also gain access to the training resources they need to provide follow-up, professional development coaching and training at the same time.
The solution, developed by the institute in collaboration with some industry partners, is the REACH Ecosystem, where all of the individual elements included (see diagram below) function perfectly as independent tools, however they also all use the same frameworks, visual styles and work synergistically with each other.
The result is a people development ecosystem that provides OrgDev professionals with a seamless and simple set of powerful tools, and provides learners with a simple, consistent learning journey.
This innovative approach is provided via a subscription model which provides unlimited use of all the resources for a flat fee, based on the organisation’s size.
Research indicates that when they adopt the ecosystem, their expenses on organisational and people development resources are reduced by 60%-80%, which means a typical 12-month leadership development program can be funded through the savings recognised as a result of the immediate savings achieved by implementing REACH internally.
Self-funding from Savings is Great, however it’s Not the Real Benefit
The resources accessed through the REACH Ecosystem, are the first and most comprehensive set of unified, organisational development resources, which together with lower costs, simplifies the administration and development journey and certainly delivers upfront cost savings.
However, ODi believes the real benefit comes from utilising an ecosystem of tools that were developed in association with one another, which does away with multiple tools from multiple vendors that all bring their different lenses, approaches and methodologies which are often inconsistent and disconnected from each other.
The Institute’s survey showed that organisations with 200+ staff, often use up to a dozen different tools from multiple providers, many of which don’t align and/or use varying terminology, which makes it difficult to engage staff and keep the development process on track.
In the REACH Ecosystem, the development tools are aligned with each other, which saves the organisation time and money, while providing learners with a better, simpler journey and the HR team with clearer, and simpler measurement and reporting.
The 2 Keys are:
- Simplicity
Using the REACH Ecosystem, the learner’s journey becomes simple by maintaining the one framework, with a clean and consistent approach to visuals and simple language right through from recruitment to executive development.
For the professionals leading the people development initiatives, they find themselves in one simple online platform with a series of tools that naturally support each other and provide time saving features, such as automated training needs analysis results and links directly to training and coaching resources to follow through on the needs that were identified.
- Control
Because the ecosystem provides such a diverse range of resources with $0 additional cost per use, subscribers find themselves with control and choices like they have never had before. They identify a leader that could benefit from a 360, or a team that could benefit from a culture survey, or a candidate that they would like to use a psychometric assessment for, or initiate a coaching program, or deliver professional development training and it’s all there; on demand at no additional cost.
However, sometimes the organisation will want to outsource key activities to specialists, so by leveraging the partner network of the ecosystem, they have access to trained and certified REACH Practitioners who can support training, debriefs, roll-outs, role analysis, coaching and any other professional services related to the REACH Resources.
This control and flexibility helps reduce costs when necessary, and helps to scale resources quickly and confidently when required as well.
Cost Savings are Just the Beginning
So, while the adoption of the REACH Ecosystem reduces costs so significantly that entire leadership development initiatives can be delivered using the savings REACH delivers in other areas, most organisations see that the benefits of simplicity, effectiveness, control and flexibility far outweigh the cost savings.
Would You Like to Experience the REACH Ecosystem Yourself?
Get started by signing up for a no-cost, 7-day trial HERE.