A Step-by-Step Guide to Showing the Value of Soft Skill Programs
As organizations rise to meet the challenges of technological
innovation, globalization, changing customer needs and perspectives,
demographic shifts, and new work arrangements, their mastery of soft
skills will likely be the defining difference between thriving and
merely surviving. Yet few executives champion the expenditure of
resources to develop these critical skills. Why is that and what can be
done to change this thinking?
For years, managers convinced executives that soft skills could not be
measured and that the value of these programs should be taken on faith.
Executives no longer buy that argument but demand the same financial
impact and accountability from these functions as they do from all other
areas of the organization.
In Proving the Value of Soft Skills, measurement and evaluation experts
Patti Phillips, Jack Phillips, and Rebecca Ray contend that efforts can
and should be made to demonstrate the effect of soft skills. They also
claim that a proven methodology exists to help practitioners articulate
those effects so that stakeholders' hearts and minds are shifted toward
securing support for future efforts.
This book reveals how to use the ROI Methodology to clearly show the
impact and ROI of soft skills programs. The authors guide readers
through an easy-to-apply process that includes:
business alignment
design evaluation
data collection
isolation of the program effects
cost capture
ROI calculations
results communication.
Use this book to align your programs with organizational strategy,
justify or enhance budgets, and build productive business partnerships.
Included are job aids, sample plans, and detailed case studies.
