How to Track the ROI of Your Employee Ideas Program

When you report progress on any project to leadership, there's a constant consideration of the value it's bringing to the organization vs. how much it costs in hard dollars and time.?

ROI is the lifeblood for the longevity of any initiative in any business, yet according to Deloitte only 39% of organizations track the ROI of their Employee Idea Programs.?

To help maximize the probability of your program being seen as a critical business application, we put together a playbook you can use to start tracking ROI metrics for your organization and specific use case.?

Options for Measuring ROI

At a 40,000 foot view, there are three ways you can measure the return on investment from your Employee Ideas program -?

1. Cost Savings - The easiest examples include time savings and error rate reduction, but a great resource to use for a deeper dive into the cost savings category is "The 8 Forms of Waste Applied to an Office Environment" visual from Ideawake's Blog.?
2. Revenue Generation - This could be from launching new products, improving upsell rates on existing products, improved customer retention, etc.?
3. Employee Engagement - Primarily measured by increases in employee empowerment scores, overall employee engagement scores, or in rare cases increases in employee retention.?

Setting Up Your ROI Tracking Framework?

1. Identify Metrics - Identify the metrics you would like to measure ROI on based on the goals set by your leadership team and / or Innovation Council.?
2. Establish a Baseline - Identify internal data sources you can tap into so that you can track idea impact. This could be from your business analytics team for cost savings or HR for the results of employee engagement surveys.?
3. Project Impact & Track Actual Changes - When you shortlist ideas, partner with the team(s) you identified in step two to project impact on shortlisted ideas and to track the actual impact of ideas over time after they're implemented.?

How to Measure ROI Short and Long Term

How you measure ROI and success will change over time as your program matures. Here's a roadmap you can use for measuring and reporting success metrics from your initial go-live to 24 months after launch.?

If you want a downloadable version of these examples, check out our Key Performance Indicators resource from Ideawake's Launch Checklist.?

The Honeymoon Period (Months 1 - 6)?

• User Metrics: Signup rate and overall engagement rate (engagement rate = percentage of users who posted an idea, commented, or voted).
• Ideation Metrics: Number of ideas submitted, percentage of employees who have submitted an idea.?
• Collaboration Metrics: Number of comments, votes, ratings, and idea views.
• Projected Value of Shortlisted Ideas: Projected revenue or cost savings identified from shortlisted ideas. Note that this is?not value of ideas already implemented, but the projected value of ideas that have been shortlisted to demonstrate program potential. ?

Post-Honeymoon Period (Months 6 - 12)?

• Ideation Metrics: Number of ideas submitted, percentage of employees who have submitted an idea.?
• Pipeline or Evaluation Metrics: Number of ideas that have been evaluated and / or approved by managers, SME's, or business leaders for implementation.?
• Projected Value of Ideas Approved for Implementation: Projected revenue or cost savings identified from approved ideas. Note that this is not value of ideas already implemented, but the projected value of ideas that have been approved by a business leader for implementation to demonstrate program potential.?
• Experimentation Metrics: Number of experiments that are in progress or completed.?
• Implementation Metrics: Number of ideas in active implementation or that have been implemented.?

Long-Term Program Success Metrics (Months 12 and Beyond)?

• User Metrics: Number of monthly active users.?
• Projected Value of Ideas In Implementation or Implemented: Total revenue growth or cost savings from ideas currently in implementation or that have been implemented.?
• Experimentation Metrics: Number of new experiments conducted or total number of experiments conducted.?
• Implementation Metrics: Number of new ideas in implementation or total ideas implemented.?
• Program Expansion Metrics: Number of new users engaged from program expansion in different departments or number of new stakeholder segments we’ve expanded the program into (ie: customers or vendors).?
• Employee Engagement Survey Results: If your programs goal is to increase employee engagement, look at the results of your engagement survey a year after go live and highlight improvements to employee empowerment or well-being metrics.?

Key Takeaways

We hope that these tips help you take the first steps towards becoming part of the 39% of organizations that track the impact and ROI of their Employee Idea Programs. Here are a few key takeaways from today -?

• If you want to maximize the probability of your program being seen as "business-critical" in the mid-term or long-term, you need to track the ROI of your program in dollars and cents.?
• There is not one size fits all approach to tracking ROI, but the process that you go through to identify your metrics, set your baselines, and track changes over time is universal and can be applied to any company size, industry, or program.?
• If you have questions or need help designing your ROI metrics, we're here to help! You can schedule a 30-minute discovery call here - Schedule a 30 Minute Discovery Call.?