A high-tech company with a senior staff of engineers graduated in accounting and / or finance with excellent technical skills is looking to assess whether training managers in interpersonal skills would be a solution to the problem retention of Montreal office staff. In fact, the turnover rate of project team members who work under the supervision of engineers in this office has increased from 5% to 20% in recent years. This situation worries the Board of Directors (Board of Directors) given its negative impact on adherence to project deadlines, efficiency, productivity, corporate image and employee morale.

In 2018, interpersonal management skills training was provided to Toronto office executives who manage project teams. This training was highly appreciated by executives, executives whose projects are more profitable than those who did not take the training and where the turnover rate of members of project teams is lower than those of other offices.

In addition, this training in the interpersonal skills of managing members of a project team, reduced the average duration of a project from 60 to 40 days. The daily management cost of a project including the salaries of engineers, technicians as well as activities and travel expenses is $ 10,000 (estimated cost for 2018). In fact, the trainees complete their projects in 20 days less than the untrained, which represents a saving of $ 200,000 per project.

Eight executives and project team managers from the Montreal offices were targeted to benefit from this training in December 2020. The training costs are $ 5,000 per participant.

As a training and development specialist, the board of directors has mandated you to answer the following 2 questions:

A. Referring to the method of calculating the return on investment (ROI), do you estimate that the training planned for the 8 executives, project team managers of the Montreal office will generate financial benefits greater than the costs of the program? Identify the variables used in your calculation and justify them 5 points

B. In your opinion what would be the so-called intangible benefits of training for this high-tech firm?