Return on Investment When Implementing an Outdoor Experiential Training Programme Into the Construction Industry

Abstract

Construction companies endeavour to motivate their workforce in order to return intensified productivity and a performance enhancing outcome. One method in which to achieve the aforementioned is to bolster teamwork and solidarity amongst their work force via combined training days. The purpose of this study is to investigate which traits are perceived when the
training is undertaken in an outside environment, generated differently to an inside space although with comparable learning outcomes. Obtained via the literature review, two derivatives were acknowledged, specifically; ‘soft skills’ such as; motivational, moral boosting and self-satisfaction and ‘hard data’, which constituted a more financially orientated and definitively quantifiable gain. The secondary part of the study would amalgamate the outdoor realm into the critically appraised experiential learning theorem, thus forming the training paradigm; OET (Outdoor Experiential Training). Within this methodology the power of the natural environment displayed the ability to evoke implicit memory triggers, providing a subliminal potential for the dormant memory traits to be much more readily recollected upon into the explicit memory. The analytical section of the study, which would determine the ROI ( return on Investment), was undertaken via a quantitative and purposively sampled questionnaire. The principal discoveries ascertained were; the individual perception of ROI varied from managers and contractors, as did the varieties which were deemed more important. The management having an affinity with the ‘hard data’ and the contractors displaying a tendency to positively appraise the ‘soft skills’. One of the primary conclusions established was that an emotional and spiritual ROI was much more widely accrued from an OET process. These benefits, although not forming an abundantly observed monetary ROI ought not to be dismissed as underperforming. The final recommendations were; the process must be evaluated before and after in order to gather a true perception of the ROI, as many companies fail to fulfil, thus dismissing the process as unworthy. Furthermore, a mathematical formulae is recommended to quantify whether the process is financially viable.