Return on Investment in Managerial Training

Abstract

People are the main competitive advantage of any organization. Ensuring cost effective training and development will help an organization be successful and provide return on investment in training. Because of the economy of recent years, it has become even more critical that organizations justify their expenses. Despite the fact that training is important, it has to produce benefits that outweigh costs. The current study analyzed the return on investment of a managerial training program in 24 restaurants of a quick service hamburger restaurant chain based in the Midwestern U.S. The study was designed to train managers in customer “over” satisfaction using one of three training methods: classroom training, on-the-job training and interactive media training. It then compared the changes in the dependent variables: mystery shopper scores, customer complaints as a percent of total customers, and customer satisfaction survey scores. The author used a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) that indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the various training methods used, but showed from an action research perspective, that there were positive changes that occurred in the organization because of the training used.