Getting ROI from internal events: start with the right objectives. Photo Credit: Adobe stock/NicoAlNino
Assessing the return on investment from internal events and meetings
can often be something of a minefield. A recent Cvent webinar looked at
how event managers can best do this at a range of events, including
investor meetings, town halls, departmental and HR training, and
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Quantifiable metrics
“We need to graduate from metrics like attendance and satisfaction,
and focus more on ones that are quantifiable, the ones that our business
leaders will really expect us to use to defend investments in our
programmes,” said Brad Gillespie, GM, Cvent Consulting.
Before you consider what to measure, start by looking at your event
objectives. Common objectives include: how does this initiative impact
productivity, how are we managing spend, and how is it impacting
employee engagement.
If the objective for the programmes is to impact productivity,
quantify the time taken for someone attending a particular meeting or
event, and look for improvement on that metric.
For spend management, look at metrics that would include the total
number of dollars managed by the programme, and how to avoid cost to
gain savings through good spend management.
Employee engagement
Bear in mind that employee engagement is top of mind for many
organisations. With an increasing number of employees working remotely,
companies are trying to find ways to engage them with work culture, so
they can have a positive impact on the business.
There is a direct connection between engagement and productivity, said Cvent’s Gilliespie.
“So, if you can use meetings and events to encourage this engagement
with your organisation, that has a direct impact on productivity.
Studies also show that highly engaged organisations have lower
absenteeism and turnover. These are some of the data points behind
connecting the dots between the meeting and events programme and
employee engagement.”
Employee development
Employee development is about teaching staff a new skill, or ‘up
levelling’ them in some way, perhaps by introducing a new tool. That
could mean learning about new software, or making managers more
effective through managerial training. All of these efforts and costs
that businesses are spending to develop staff ultimately can be measured
as output or improvements to their productivity.
Expectations
“Make sure that as many of your meetings and events at the very least
break even,” said Gillespie. “You want to be able to say that your ROI
is at least 1% or greater, before we can get into a scenario of
comparing one meeting to another or one year of spend to another. At the
end of the day. ROI for your organisation is a bit like playing golf or
perhaps swimming, where you are competing against yourself and you want
to have some goals for your own organisation to improve over time.”