Is “emotional intelligence” just a buzzword, or can it increase the total revenue of your company? In this episode of Brand Junkies, Dave and Kenn had the opportunity to sit down with Professional Development Trainer, Clint Reese to talk through this and other issues that surround the financial validity of investing in company culture. Read on to hear what Clint had to say about his role and how training affects revenue in a multigenerational workplace.

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When it comes to communication you can’t expect it to develop in a healthy way without training. In a lot of companies, large and small, there’s only a one-week onboarding training. On the first day, it’s “here’s your desk, there’s the coffee pot, don’t talk to that guy.” The second day is sexual harassment training. The third day is a brief rundown of customer relations software – “We paid a crapload of money for it so make sure you use it the right way.” Then a little bit of sales training and on day number five there’s a team lunch. As the new employee, you can’t avoid that guy and when the week is up you’re sent out into the world without any real knowledge of how to integrate with your team or be a successful member of the company.

As a Professional Development Trainer, I go in and talk to leaders, the team, and individual employees about how to create an environment where they can share ideas, have cognitive diversity, and advance the company’s values and longterm goals. Those themes all focus around and boil down to 30 or 40 different trainings centered on three distinct themes. 

Leadership, Emotional Intelligence & Communication

These three core concepts create the springboard that all good cultures launch from.

One big thing that companies talk about often is retention or turnover rates. Employees that are trained beyond their initial onboarding are 70% more likely to stay at their company. From a financial point of view, this means that the company doesn’t have to pay for new training. They don’t have to pay for new labor costs. They don’t have to pay for a search, interview process, HR involvement, etc. They also don’t lose productivity because of transitioning an employee’s work to someone else.

The ROI for employees who would have stayed anyway is hard to gauge because it’s a soft skill. A healthy environment is a financially intangible target to aim for. Still, how much more productive would employees be if they got along better? If they were able to share their ideas? If the person doing the actual work was able to present an idea that changed the face of the company? It would advance and grow the company’s goals. It’s hard to put a specific price tag on it, but investing in emotional intelligence would result in making company talent more actionable to grow the bottom line.

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Beyond emotional intelligence, another issue that Clint spoke on at length was how to create a cohesive culture in a multi-generational environment. Check back in with us in our next post to hear more about what shapes the gap between younger and older generations and Clint’s advice as you attempt to span it. If you have any questions about how culture directs the way we do things at Avadel you can drop Dave and Kenn an email or listen to the whole conversation with Clint here. 

Till next time, Junkies!