by Richard Sites, vice president - client services | @rhillsites

Well, it’s March and with it comes the dreaded tax season. While preparing your taxes, you’ll likely take some time to evaluate the performance of your investments and retirement planning efforts (if any).  The good news is that a slight rally in the market over the past quarter or two means we may not fear opening those 401K statements as much as we have in the past few years.

Though retirement planning is a very personal decision, the challenge is universal – having enough put away for our post-career years. Retirement planners give us the advice to contribute early and often which gives your money the chance to grow and compound.

Unfortunately, many of us don’t contribute to our retirement accounts because we have other immediate expenses or commitments. We assume that the little we have left isn’t going to make that big of an impact. We’ll have time later.

But any amount invested now is better than nothing. The biggest return on our investment will come the sooner we start.

Training is no different.

Our goal in course development is to maximize our ROI.  But, similar to retirement planning, our intentions to produce are often stifled by immediate pressures – scheduling conflicts, team participation, LMS issues, management’s concern over costs, the desire for perfection, etc. And that is just a partial list.

In our effort to measure the value of training, perhaps we should reevaluate the meaning of ROI. Rather than focus on the Return on Investment take a look at the other ROI – the Risk Of Inaction. 

What are the Risks Of Inaction?

• Continued lack of empowerment
• Loss of solutions from innovative thinking
• Unmotivated employees
• Poor performance
• Disgruntled customers
• And more!

By immediately investing a little in our employees, our co-workers, and our teammates now, we can enjoy the added benefits of weeks, months and years of compounded growth, empowerment, and performance. So this season, I suggest that you avoid taxing learners with more delays or limited training. Design it, build it, implement it and begin to see the value of reducing your Risk Of Inaction!!