According to new research, half the world’s CEOs see internal events not as an investment but a cost, an admission by the directors that work for them.
Communications agency Involve spoke to event managers and directors at FTSE 250 organisations and UK multinationals and found internal events are used to influence ‘business critical’ measures such as employee engagement (84%) and revenue (81%). But directors believe that only half of CEOs (51%) see internal events as an investment compared to almost two thirds of employees (67%).
But while events are used to influence ‘business critical’ measures, corporates are not consistently measuring whether goals are being achieved. Just 54 per cent of directors claim to measure the ROI extremely or very robustly. Event managers claim to measure ROI more with 62 per cent saying they do so extremely or very robustly. Not surprisingly perhaps, those with larger spend claim to be better at evaluation (61% as opposed to 46%).
Most companies opt for conventional evaluation methods, often focused on collating feedback. Seventy-three per cent of companies use post-event delegate surveys; 46 per cent use direct feedback and 31 per cent use ‘happy sheets’ on the day. Event managers collect much more direct feedback than their bosses, 61 per cent compared to 46 per cent.
Involve’s MD Jeremy Starling says there is a clear “disconnect” between the CEO’s view of internal events, and the views of the rest of the company.
“A prime cause of this has to be a lack of proof that internal events are delivering long-term behavioural change or hitting other indicators of success,” he claims. “The long-term growth of this industry depends on securing buy-in from CEOs across the board. Using robust measurements to track ROI is vital to determine whether internal events are truly effective and successfully delivering against an organisation’s ‘business critical’ goals.
The report, which is available through the Involve website, also found CEOs in low-spend organisations (those that spend between £100,000 to £250,000 a year on internal events, as defined by respondents) see events as more of an investment than those in high spend organisations (with spend of £250,000 to £1m a year.)
This was first published in issue 78 of CMW. Any comments? Email: Zoe Vernor
