The ROI of Emotional Intelligence - case studies

In December 2002, a new General Manager was brought in to a Sheraton in Orlando, Florida to make some badly needed changes. The hotel, a 302 room/592 bed property had suffered in recent years. PROBLEMS:

• sales were down;
• customer satisfaction ratings were unacceptable;
• employee morale was low, and
• teamwork was poor.

With the help of an Emotional Intelligence consulting firm, an organizational climate assessment was conducted to pinpoint the issues from the employees’ perspectives. The study found 3 major issues: -  - collaboration, - trust, and - employee demotivation. Over the next 10 months, the consultants worked with the:

• Management Team, providing them 18 hours of Emotional Intelligence training;
• Front Desk Team participated in similar training; and
• 4 groups of Line Staff received 2 hours of training;
• several Leaders received one-on-one coaching varying in length from 2 to 12 hours.

As a result of the training:

• the organizational climate  showed significant signs of improvement;
• Customer service ratings rose 8%.
• Employee turnover dropped nearly 20%; and
• Market share rose 23%.

In addition, the property was Sheraton`s top rated vacation property in October and December 2003. (Source:Freedman,2010.) 

In July 2005, Sanofi-Aventis in Australia partnered with an Emotional Intelligence consulting firm to improve the emotional intelligence levels of its pharmaceutical sales representatives. The sales representatives selected for the 6 month study were divided into 2 groups: - Control Group and Development Group. 
- Both groups participated in an emotional intelligence assessment to determine a benchmark, but only members of the Development group participated in the subsequent emotional intelligence training. 
  - During 6 months, sales representatives in the development group participated in workshops and coaching sessions on emotional intelligence with the following results:

• Only with the EI Assessment, the Control group increased their sales in 18%;
• After the first 3 months of EI training, the development group sales were 7% higher than the control group sales.
• at the end of the 6 months of EI training the development group sales grew to 12% more than the control group sales.

  - In addition to the increased sales, Sanofi-Aventis found that: 

• the development group demonstrated emotionally intelligent behaviours on the job 25% more than the control group;
• Retention of key employees also improved during and after the program;
• the company estimated a returned $5 for every dollar invested in the program during the 6 month period.
• ROI = 600% of the investment in the EI training. GREAT INVESTMENT! (Source: Palmer and Jennings, n.d.)  

A 2007 internal analysis of the company by Emotional Intelligence Consulting firm found that Amadori (a leading company in the Italian agro-food sector, poultry supplier for McDonald's in Europe) needed to place a higher strategic priority on people management. HR was charged with leading the initiative and in 2008 evaluated the company`s performance management process, concluding that a key ingredient to improve people management would be to integrate emotional intelligence into the Company`s Culture. HR leaders identified two goals of the emotional intelligence initiative: 

• To become a stronger learning organization, and 
• To develop a manager-as-coach perspective where managers supported and guided their employees through feedback and individualized development plans. 

Amadori partnered with an Emotional Intelligence Training company to develop and conduct the training. The training included 6 days of classroom training, individual coaching, assessment, distance learning, and 2 days of outdoor training. The Emotional Intelligence Training company tracked the program for 3 years and found that:

• Emotional intelligence predicted 47% of variation in manager`s performance management scores.
• Emotional intelligence was significantly correlated to increased organizational engagement, with 76% of the variation in engagement predicted by the manager`s emotional intelligence.
• Amadori plants with increased organizational engagement achieved better bottom-line results, thereby linking emotional intelligence, engagement, and performance to the bottom line.
• During the program, turnover decreased by 63%.  (Source: Fariselli, L., Freedmon, J. and Massimiliano, 2013.)

PepsiCo has used Emotional Intelligence as a Selection Criteria for Executives.RESULTS:

• those selected based on their emotional intelligence competencies were 10% more productive;
• an 87% reduction in executive turnover (for $4 million in savings), and
• $3.75 million in added economic value.  (Freedman, D. McClelland, Journal of Psychology,  2010).

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