How to demonstrate workforce mobility ROI when you don’t know what’s best to measure

If you can’t prove your workforce mobility program drives positive financial results, it’s pretty hard to convince other leaders it’s important. Let alone show its connection to broader business goals.

But when there are so many interpretations of ROI, how do you determine what to measure in the first place?

While this challenge can seem unsolvable, there are small steps you can take to get the required information. And when you can report the data points that resonate with key stakeholders, the payoff will be more than worth it. You’ll not only elevate your program’s status, but you’ll also get much-needed investment to continue to advance workforce mobility initiatives. And this will help you to be viewed as a critical player in achieving broader business goals.

Here are a few tips to get started demonstrating a return on the mobility investment:

Identify meaningful metrics

An essential first step for showcasing ROI involves moving beyond useless metrics. Isolated data points like the number of international assignments per year don’t show a connection to the bottom line. Instead, workforce mobility measures need to correspond to positive financial outcomes.

To determine what metrics to track, first you need to get an understanding of organizational goals. One way to do this is to review corporate business objectives. For example, if you know the organization wants to cut spending, you can compare business unit spend against program expenditures. This will demonstrate how you’ve conserved costs through recent policy adjustments and other initiatives that are also focused on cost avoidance.

Another way to identify metrics that make sense is to talk to stakeholders in your organization. Ask them about their specific objectives as well as questions they need answered to inform their approach. For example, you might learn that hiring is a priority for getting a new project off the ground. If you can show an increase in the offer acceptance rate and a decrease in the speed of landing, you can demonstrate tangible ROI.

Once you understand organizational objectives, determine where the data resides and if you have access to track relevant metrics. If not, you’ll have to partner with internal or external stakeholders who own the data or take additional steps to measure effectively.

Conduct data analyses to make the right decisions

Without data, it’s easy to rely on incorrect assumptions. And this can result in decisions that lead the company in the wrong direction.

For example, imagine if your CFO wanted to discontinue green cards because this initiative was costing the organization a lot of money. But, by digging into the data, you learned employees with a green card stay with the organization longer and are promoted two times faster than others in their peer group. This kind of insight could prevent your organization from losing out on top talent that has a considerable impact on company performance.

To further showcase how your workforce mobility program drives organizational value, work with internal or external data specialists to correlate the right metrics. Don’t worry about uncovering areas that need improvement in the process. If you don’t know where the problems are, you can’t solve them. And you won’t be able to make the best decisions going forward.

Measure progress continuously

To demonstrate the ongoing return on your workforce mobility program, you need to report consistently against the objectives that matter most to the business.

Work with internal or external experts to set up a dashboard that updates in real time so you can continually review the numbers. Then do deeper reporting and analysis once or twice a year to uncover additional findings that you can share more broadly and use to inform future mobility strategy.

Ongoing measurement ensures you’re always up to date on progress towards important business objectives. Plus, you’ll be able to make changes if metrics aren’t trending in the right direction.

Additionally, this practice allows you to provide meaningful organizational updates to elevate the value of your program. And this will help shift traditional perceptions that workforce mobility is a cost center rather than a key driver of organizational success.