Soft skills improvement is perceived as something intangible and doesn’t demonstrate increased results immediately. It can be labor intensive to observe each employee who is trained for different skills. To measure these skills correctly, it takes an unbiased professional to evaluate the behavioral changes. To develop effective measures of soft skills training, it is important to understand some of the drivers for implementing these programs in the first place. Many organizations implement soft skills programs to drive the professional development and growth of their employees. Organizations may identify key values and/or competencies and then build a training program to instill the values within their participants. In this session, we’ll discuss developing a plan for ROI to effectively measure the program and deliver quantifiable metrics to the organization. Join us for this complimentary TICE Virtual Conference session. Your host, Julie Kirsch, director of program development at CohnReznick, will explore the challenges of measuring soft skills training, discuss how soft skills impact the business performance and strategies, and the various approaches that can be used to measure the program(s).

1. The Intersection between
Learning Measurement
andSoftSkills
Programming
Julie Kirsch, CPTM

2. KeyObjectives
After this session, participants will be able to:
 Define Soft Skills and the 5 categories of Soft Skills
 Understand how soft skills impact the business performance and
strategies
 Discuss how and why we need to measure Soft Skills training
 Identify steps to measuring ROI
 Use various approaches to measuring Soft Skills training

3. Agenda
Topics
 Defining Soft Skills
 Why Measure Soft SkillsTraining?
 Measuring ROI
 Identifying ROI
 Using theWhy, How,What Approach
 Conclusion

4. ChatQuestion  How do you define Soft Skills?

5. DefiningSoft
Skills
 Soft Skills are anything that is not technical or technological in
nature.
 Wikipedia defines soft skills as “associated with a person’s
Emotional IntelligenceQuotient, the cluster of personality traits,
social graces, communication, language, personal habits,
friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with
other people.”
 … “your work ethic, your attitude, your communication skills, your
emotional intelligence and a whole host of other personal
attributes.” (MindTools)

6. 5Categories of
SoftSkills
These programs are designed to improve or enhance behaviors and
capabilities of the participants in:
 Behavioral Development
 Professional Development
 Company Specific
 Compliance
 Job/Task Specific

7. PollQuestion
What percentage of training programs include Soft Skills at your
organization?
 Less than 10%
 25%
 50%
 75%
 All of our programming is Soft Skills

8. SoftSkills and
EQ
Hard skills don’t necessarily drive career success or strategic results.
The competency that drives career success is emotional
intelligence.

9. SoftSkills and
EQ
 “Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a
bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social
complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive
results.”Travis Bradberry, Emotional Intelligence 2.0

10. PollQuestion
How important are EQ Skills at your organization today?
 Not Important
 Somewhat Important
 Very Important
 Critical and Required

11. Why Measure
SoftSkills
Training?
Three basic questions to ask in assessing a program’s value:
 Is the training effective in transferring the knowledge and
competency as intended?
 Are the outcomes of training relevant to the needs of the
organization?
 Are the costs of the program worth the competencies obtained?

12. ChatQuestion  Are you currently measuring ROI for your organizations soft skills
programs.

13. Measuring ROI
To measure the impact of your soft skills training, you must start
with:
 An understanding of the strategic goals of your organization.
 Knowledge of performance gaps between your organization’s
current level of performance
 Quantify the desired level of performance needed to achieve a
specific goal.

14. Measuring ROI
 Measurement of these soft-skills are subjective, training
departments often find it difficult to establish ROI.
 A clear understanding of the financial need being addressed in
specific areas of the business is required to make them a success.

15. Steps to
Identifying ROI
 Understand the key strategic priorities of the organization
 Perform skills audit to provide evidence of why training in specific
areas is needed
 Measure performance gaps and perform a root cause analysis.
 Determine behaviors that support the effective building of
strategy
 Design and develop objectives for key metrics
 Use Metrics to Monitor and Control the Program
 Conduct and maintain a periodic and systematic reporting process

16. Steps to
Identifying
ROI, continued
 Evaluate Program Objectives
 Rely on the Facts
 Estimate outcomes from the start
“If you are on top of which skills each role requires and because roles
are defined by business needs, it can illustrate how training bridges
that gap,” Declan Mulkeen, Marketing Director at Communicaid.

17. Steps to
Identifying
ROI, continued
 Determine potential impact on business performance
 Provide pre- and post-assessment or activities
“Once it is clear what changes in behavior you require and you have
determined their potential impact on business performance, it is
possible to translate them into tangible metrics, which can be
measured financially,” Declan Mulkeen, Marketing Director,
Communicaid.

18. ChatQuestion
 What approach are you using to measure ROI in your Soft Skills
training programs?

19. Using theWhy,
How,What,
Approach
 WHY -WHY they want what they want
 HOW - What indications do you have that a training need exists,
what KPI’s demonstrate the need?
 WHAT - If you can’t answer the WHY, HOW andWHAT questions
around training, you won’t be able to measure the impact of your
investment.

20. CaseStudy:
Increasing
Leadership
Skills and the
Talent Pipeline
EQ Skills Increased
Performance
Increased
Leadership
Pipeline

21. CaseStudy:
DefineOur
Firms Long
TermStrategy
 Enable the firm to better identify and develop potential Partner
Academy candidates earlier in their careers
 Help high performing Senior Managers and Directors grow who
are not on a partner track
 Increase leadership skills, qualities, and knowledge
 Create cycle of continuous growth, mentoring, and demonstration
of skills to develop young professionals and future leaders

22. CaseStudy:
Analysis

23. CaseStudy:
Analysis
We wanted to answer these three questions:
 Does Emotional intelligence affect Individual Performance?
 Does Emotional Intelligence affect Organization Engagement?
 Does Organizational Engagement impact Organizational
Performance?

24. CaseStudy:
Analysis
1. Internal promote pulse survey and interviews
2. Lateral hire interviews
3. Department and Industry leader interviews
4. External benchmarking
5. Performance data analysis

25. CaseStudy:
Results

26. CaseStudy:
Results

27. CaseStudy:
Results

28. CaseStudy:
Results
Ranked
1
Conducting challenging
conversations/conflict management
2 Strategic thinking
3 Coaching and mentoring others
4
Managing vs. leading
others
5
Negotiation/influencing
skills
6
Developing a personal leadership
style
7 Business acumen
8 Specific leadership models
9 Practice economics management
10 Initiative implementation
11 Change management

29. CaseStudy:
Results and
next steps
 Created criteria on which they would be assessed
 Improved PromotionalGuidelines
 Improved Performance Management System and Competencies
 Design QuarterlyTalent Review process
 Design Leadership Development program

30. CaseStudy:
Results,
Program
Design
Talent Review Quarterly Meetings Evaluation of current and future talent.
Determine place in career track.
Qualitative Statistics
Performance Statistics
Feedback (360 or other
process)
90 days Developmental assessment
and/or Action Plan
Developmental feedback, updating of
goals, coaching as appropriate
180 or 360 survey, goal
setting form
180 Days Talent Review
LDP Program
Emerging Leaders Program
Partner Development
Program (by selection)
Role successes and challenges; process
effectiveness feedback
Being a trusted advisor, driving
profitability, culture and change
Internal and external
Annual Event Role transition feedback –
group session with internal
promotes to partner
Partner Development
Program (by selection)
Role successes and challenges; process
effectiveness feedback
Being a trusted advisor, driving
profitability, culture and change
Session materials
Internal and external
ROI Performance metrics and
evaluation based on their
goal setting

31. CaseStudy:
Results,
Program
Design
Topics Subtopic(s) and Requests Format for Consideration
Coaching and Mentoring Challenging conversations/conflict
handling/delivering feedback, career
planning
Two part series:
1) Webinar overview
2) Follow up live/local session
practicing feedback
Strategic thinking Weave into curriculum, overarching
theme that is highlighted during
delivery
Business Development Role play, handling questions,
becoming comfortable
-Promote the Jr. Rainmaker local efforts
-Modify existing courses to incorporate
this in a different format
Presentations Skills Developing comfort and skills for
different contexts and personal
branding
Development of the “toastmaster”
program to be rolled out to all locations
for implementation
Communication Client emails, client interactions,
updating/status checks internally,
communicating career goals,
management
Micro-learning series
- Powtoon, infographics, etc.
Time management Prioritization, managing multiple jobs,
working for different managers
Three Quick Hits Series
Critical thinking Responsibility, beyond the task,
initiative, diligence, ownership,
motivation, big picture thinking,
forward thinking
Specific activities/sessions in milestone
programming
Key Areas of Focus

32. CaseWrap-Up
Emotional intelligence is the breakthrough ingredient for leaders
committed to sustainable success.
“Emotional competence is the single most important personal
quality that each of us must develop and access to experience a
breakthrough.” Doug Lennick,VP of Ameriprise

33. PollQuestion
Did the case study produce results that were effective for ROI
analysis?
 Yes
 No

34. Conclusion
 Outcomes of soft-skills training can be intangible or subjective
 Measurement is indeed possible through the careful development
of focused objectives and metrics.
 Soft skills form the foundation of nearly all our interactions with
people.
 Soft skills aren’t the extras. If our efforts focused more on soft
skills improvement, we would see true business benefits at a much
more accelerated rate than merely delivering hard skills content.

35. Conclusion
 Measure the business impact. . . Dig, perform root cause analysis
(or theWHY, HOW andWHAT approach)
 FIND the actual cause of the difference between the current levels
of employee and organizational performance and the desired level
of performance.
 Stay focused on performance improvement
 Find the supporting behaviors you can influence to impact those
behaviors.

36. Conclusion
Calculating ROI on EQ
 Take top 10% and lower 75% of leaders = 0.72 (Effect Size Metric)
 Average leader salary of $75,000 per year
 Difference between a high and average EQ leader equates to
$21,600 per year.
 For an organization with 2,000 leaders this figure multiplies to
$43.2 million in human capital asset value per year.
 A program yielding a one-percentage point improvement in leader
EQ would provide incremental human capital value of $2,160.
 ROI = 332%.
Harvard Business Review (2003) Whitepaper for Emotional Intelligence. Whitepaper: “The
Business Case for Emotional Intelligence.”

37. Resources
 www.6seconds.org ( Six Seconds,The Emotional Intelligence Network)
 EQ.org
 www.EQconsortium.org (Research on application of EQ in organizations.)
 www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence/ (John Mayer’s collected scholarly research on EQ.)
 https://www.td.org/Publications/Books/Measuring-ROI
 www.researchgate.net/ (How to Measure ROI in training soft skills?)
 https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2015/09/Derive-Hard-Numbers-
from-Soft-Skills
 Wikipedia – Soft Skills definition, Emotional Intelligence definition
 Travis Bradberry, Emotional Intelligence 2.0
 MindTools
 Muzio, E., Fisher, D. J.,Thomas, E. R., & Peters,V. (2007). Soft skills quantification (SSQ) for
project manager competencies. Project ManagementJournal, 38(2), 30–38.
 Harvard Business Review (2003)Whitepaper for Emotional Intelligence. Whitepaper: “The
BusinessCase for Emotional Intelligence.”
 Institute for Health and Human Potential, 10 year study: How to GrowYour Career (2008)

38. METRICS MATTER
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Questions
Director of Development
CohnReznick, LLC
Julie Kirsch, CPTM