Description

The objective of this research is to determine the extent to which transit agencies in California are implementing Return on Investment (ROI) assessments or otherwise evaluating the value and effectiveness of the employee development programs they administer, what cost and performance data they collect and track, and what resources or support are needed to support ROI assessment efforts. Transit agencies will necessarily incur expenses in efforts to improve the recruitment, retention, and morale of employees, but will struggle to solicit adequate funding unless they are able to demonstrate the value of such efforts to a broader audience. Thus, developing and implementing ROI assessments is critical. The literature review, survey, and follow-up interviews conducted by the research team found that program outcome measures and programmatic expense data required for ROI is similar across employee development programs but is not currently being uniformly collected across agencies. The research findings demonstrate the need for technical assistance if transit agencies are to successfully design and implement return on investment models for employee development programs they administer. Interview participants emphasized that transit labor shortages also extend into administrative and human resource divisions. A commonly voiced concern regarding ROI implementation focused on the additional staff capacity and know-how that would be required to systematically collect and analyze the wide range of operational performance metrics, human resource metrics, and expenditure data required to calculate ROI. This challenge is exacerbated by the outdated data systems found at many public transportation agencies. Agency representatives also expressed concern that to obtain meaningful ROI, a widely agreed upon and objective process to translate qualitative metrics like “employee satisfaction” into monetized benefit values is required.

Publication Date

12-2024

Publication Type

Report

Topic

Transportation Finance, Workforce and Labor

Digital Object Identifier

10.31979/mti.2024.2316

MTI Project

2316

Keywords

Workforce development, Education and training, Human resources management, Transportation departments, Return on investment

Disciplines

Transportation | Vocational Education

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