Training Quantified

Can you calculate an ROI for staff training and professional development? Absolutely.

When staff training is treated as a disposable line item in the operating budget, the organization suffers long-term cost impacts that far outweigh the initial short-term savings. If customer satisfaction and employee retention are important to you, then staff training must be a priority. Professional development improves team morale and productivity, and it's also attributable to improved efficiencies and a decreased number of avoidable mistakes. On the other hand, if staff is left untrained, then they're likely to waste time and money on unnecessary tasks, researching on their own to fill in the knowledge gaps (if you're lucky!), spinning their wheels trying to figure out what to do next, or just avoiding work that challenges them. Not ideal, right?

Many managers avoid allocating resources to staff education and training because they believe it will (1) cost too much time and money; (2) it's a waste of time and effort; or (3) there's no quantifiable return on that investment. In actuality, focused training that's specific to someone's job competencies has significant returns that translate onto the balance sheet. It can even be done for less than one might realize.

Myth. Training costs too much money. We can’t afford it.

Open your mind and your eyes. With so much free and modular content out there, this is no longer the case.

Free

Social media alone offers a wealth of information at your fingertips. What’s stopping you and your team from sharing found and relevant content with one another? Just think about it. You discover an engaging and informative video on YouTube that’s related to your job or industry. Share it with your team. Some will appreciate it, and others will blow it off. So what? The point is that with no expense and little time, you learned something new and empowered your team to do the same. You could go really crazy and make a habit out of information sharing by dedicating an hour a week (heck, 20 minutes!) to share/read/watch found content. Or what if you had a folder on your shared file server for this purpose so people could access it whenever they wanted to? Or maybe you took the first 5 minutes of your team meetings to share content with others and talk about it? It could be anything – an article, white paper, social media post, YouTube video, listserv thread…the options are limitless.

Modular

Many organizations now offer quick, individual coursework at a fraction of the cost of a full workshop, conference, or course series. Content has made a significant shift from classroom to virtual, computer-based learning. All you need is a web connection, a user registration, a paid nominal fee, and you’re in. It’s not a major investment or commitment, and you can often crowd train your entire team with this approach via a screen hookup and an audio connection.

DIY

Even better – make your own content. Your team needs to know this information anyway, so have them research it and create content for everyone. Film a team member doing something that will benefit many and post it on your own YouTube channel. Be creative and don’t worry about being perfect. The point is to get the information out there so it helps others to learn and grow. You’ll get better at it with time, and you’ll be empowering your team in the process.

Stop Outsourcing (if you can).

Are you spending money that you don’t have to because you’re outsourcing skills that your team can learn and perform themselves? When was the last time you took a good, hard look at your service contracts and how much you’re spending each year on them? You and your team don’t have to be an expert on everything your organization does day-to-day or even periodically. There are many, many circumstances where it makes sense to pay for outside help. No question about it. However, it doesn’t always make sense. And, even if it’s the right choice for the short term, perhaps you can learn to insource these skills long term.

Sure, there could be an initial and recurring cost to learning and acquiring these skills. But how much could you save once they’re insourced? Determine your simple payback; now how quickly could you start saving money?

The owner has greater and more immediate control of processes and staff engagement levels when facilities management is insourced. Owners can create their own metrics to compare staff productivity and proficiency and then make immediate course corrections to processes, staff, supply chain decisions, and other cost-related variables when necessary.

Throughput

Are you monitoring and tracking your team’s throughput? If you suspect your team isn’t as productive as they could be, then it’s either lack of ability or motivation. Assuming that you’re the type of leader that has zero tolerance for mediocrity and lackadaisical behavior, then let’s agree it’s an inability to do the work or do it faster. The good news is that skills can be learned, and productivity will improve with training and process implementation.

You can quantify this incremental improvement, too. If you haven’t already, create dashboards for your team. It’s easier than you think, and you can even DIY all the graphs and analytics in Excel or Smartsheets. Inefficiencies are more readily identified when proper data analytics are in place. The level of awareness empowers leadership to make data-driven decisions rather than relying on industry trends, the facility’s own status quo, or reactionary judgment calls.

Once the dashboards are created, make them public and visible. Most people want to know if they’re hitting the mark because people generally want to do a good job. Clearly display expected outcomes against performance and update the data as often as possible. Your staff will respond. And if they don’t then it sounds like you have a motivation problem and no progress report in the world will fix that problem.

Us competitive types relish in measuring ourselves up against the pack. This is where a leader board can come in handy (but it’s not always appropriate for every team – use your best judgment here). Work orders completed per day/week/month is a great start. On the flip side, show callbacks, too. Leader boards aren’t doing their job if the team is gaming the system and blowing through work orders without care and attention. Call back reports should hold people accountable and discourage them from upping their throughput numbers at the expense of quality work.

Talk about these dashboards often with your team and recognize excellent performance. Acknowledging the progress that your team has made will motivate them to push harder and maintain consistent results.

Deferred Maintenance

It’s no secret that many facilities have adopted the “run to fail” maintenance approach. Oftentimes they have to function this way because there’s no other option with a limited operating budget, reduced staffing levels, and few wins in the competitive capital landscape. The concept that training can reduce deferred maintenance costs is straightforward: trained and proficient staff operate equipment more efficiently compared to the alternative. Efficient operations translate to improved equipment performance that leads to benefits like lower repair and unexpected materials costs, reduced energy consumption, and reduced emergency service calls. Proficient staff also tend to be productive and satisfied in their job responsibilities, which improves employee retention rates and decreases onboarding and orientation training expenses.

This one is more difficult to quantify and requires historical data to develop a baseline that can be compared against improved operations. Datasets can include utility bills or other energy performance data, equipment performance data, work order throughput, materials and repair costs, capital renewal expenses, and employee turnover rates.

Another long-term financial benefit of properly maintained equipment is delayed capital expenditures. Proficient staff isn't the silver bullet to reducing capital costs related to infrastructure retrofits, upgrades, and replacements. However, properly maintained equipment that is efficiently operated should meet or exceed its expected useful life. Extending the capital renewal lifecycle of infrastructure opens up opportunities to invest in other opportunities that support business operations, generate revenue, or yield some other return.

What else?

We've only scratched the surface here. In your experience, how else can the benefits of staff training be quantified? Alternatively, how can the lack of training negatively impact business operations, revenue, and customer satisfaction? Drop a note in the comments if you've seen the impact first-hand.

About me: My career has offered me a whirlwind of opportunity in the engineering and construction industry, but my passion is rooted in developing and implementing training programs for facilities management teams. Every facility manager I have ever had the privilege of knowing simply wants to do good work, and my mission in life is to empower them to do more of it.

I have been responsible for the development and management of over $370 million in specialized energy solutions and infrastructure projects. Since starting my career in healthcare engineering consulting, I have provided healthcare facility managers with the tools and resources they need to make data-driven, well-informed decisions that improve their energy efficiency, building performance, and facility operations. The most recent of these solutions is a healthcare facilities operation and maintenance training program, the first of its kind in the industry.

Let’s connect: If you have a success story in facilities management, I’d love to hear about it and learn how you made it happen.