Investing In Your Employees: Dianne Crampton Of TIGERS Success Series On the Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives for Employees
An Interview with Chad Silverstein
…CPD programs expose employees to new ideas and perspectives, encouraging them to think creatively and contribute innovative solutions to business challenges…
Investing in team development has become increasingly crucial for forward-thinking companies, who understand that their greatest assets are their people. From implementing innovative training programs and wellness initiatives to cultivating a supportive work environment, these strategic investments play a vital role in enhancing employee satisfaction and retention. As the business landscape evolves, mastering effective methods to support and retain employees is pivotal for achieving long-term success. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dianne Crampton.
Dianne Crampton is the researcher and founder of the TIGERS 6 Principles, a comprehensive collaborative work environment and employee forward platform. She has served progressive leaders and management consultants for the past 30 years who view employees as stakeholders in organizational success. As a result, these leaders discovered increased innovation, boosted productivity, top talent retention, improved decision-making, resilience to uncertainty, and cost reduction that drove their growth and promises to continue to do so in 2025 and beyond.
Thank you for joining us. To start, could you share a little about yourself, and how you got started?
As a manager, senior leaders directed me to blindside some staff members in an impending downsize. Having developed my staff while building prominent levels of trust with them based on my own personal values, I had a decision to make. On one side, I was unwilling to violate my values and the trust I had built knowing what the monetary impact would be on downsized staff members. On the other side, I had bills to pay and a two-year-old daughter to take care of. And, at the same time, I desired to take a sabbatical to pursue my advanced degree. As a result, I downsized myself and focused on one question I wanted to pursue in my advanced studies.
The question was, “What is required to build an ethical, quality-focused, productive, collaborative, and personally satisfied group of working people?” I researched all the group dynamic studies available at that time in Psychology, Education and Business. Since then, studies by Harvard business educators have further validated my work.
Out of this research six core principles emerged. They are trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk resolution and success. They form the acronym TIGERS. I also discovered that behavior that anchors these principles into group process also impact goal achievement, how roles are accomplished, and relationships form in the workplace.
This is the same trifecta that impacts workforce development today and separates superior collaborative operations viewing employees as stakeholders in enterprise success from those that view employees as costs. When employees are viewed as costs, managers often do what they can to hold costs down resulting in stiff competition between people and departments for limited resources. Training and development are often sidelined by executives or not made available to employees.
The training and development of stakeholders, on the other hand, is an investment in an organization’s success. Keeping employee stakeholders up to speed on technology, organizational initiatives and the group process soft skills needed to accomplish those initiatives in streamlined, strength-based ways is measurable in an organization’s bottom line.
This has been proven repeatedly over the 30 years since I first asked that important question.
What was your biggest challenge in those early days?
My biggest challenge was managing a household and growing business as a single parent. However, my research was landmark. A group 360 assessment I developed to validate my findings was also found to be dependable though further independent studies. This gave me a way to measure the quality of soft skilled employee development on business improvement. The time spent in validation was worth it. The assessment provided a way to measure the impact of minimizing siloes and improving how people collaborate on an organization’s bottom line.
So, early day challenges were being a single mom and taking four additional years to validate, as dependable, my research and the TIGERS Workforce Behavioral Profile™ 360 group assessment.
Was there anything specific that inspired you to prioritize CPD initiatives in your company?
I had a way to measure the benefit of continuous professional development both to my organization and to the overall success of client teams. We had a way to recognize the direct impact on organizational growth and profitability, employee performance, and long-term success. When executives regard employees as stakeholders rather than the costs of doing business, there is a mindset shift that occurs. Instead of confining employees to tight job roles with minimum to no training, there is a realization that organizations learn and grow through people who learn and grow. You also move from a cut cost mode of thinking to maintaining your most valuable resource — the people who learn and grow with your enterprise.
Can you explain why this is important for the success of a business?
When you train and develop staff and give them the means to learn more to enhance their job success or mobility within your organization, there are at least five or six key drivers of measurable success.
The first is that employees are more loyal to their organizations. The measurable impact of loyalty is enhanced talent retention. Your organization stops being a revolving door, your teams experience less disruption, and your HR department can focus more on developing people than constantly recruiting and hiring new people.
In a recent report by PeopleKeep, studies indicate that replacing a salaried employee typically costs between six to nine months of their annual salary. For instance, replacing an employee earning $60,000 annually could cost between $30,000 and $45,000 to replace them. These costs cover recruitment, training, and the loss of organizational knowledge. Loyalty is measurable in the bottom line and pays for itself.
A second reason this is important to business success is by boosting an organization’s ability to adapt and innovate. CPD equips teams with up-to-date skills and knowledge, enabling the organization to innovate, adapt to market changes, and remain competitive.
This leads to the third reason — growing a strong leadership pipeline. CPD helps identify and prepare high-potential employees for leadership roles, ensuring smooth succession planning and long-term business continuity.
Other reasons why continuous professional development is important includes how well-trained employees work smarter and more efficiently, which in turn, improves an organization’s reputation and employer branding. This results in attracting premiere talent, which builds a stronger industry reputation. And finally ensuring employees are up to date with industry regulations and are ahead of emerging trends.
By prioritizing CPD, leaders create a culture of growth and innovation that benefits employees, the organization, and its overall success.
Can you please share with us, and briefly explain the first major initiative you started that directly benefited your employees?
The part of my research that delved into educational group process suggested that students who discuss what they are learning in a psychologically safe learning environment tend to transfer what they are learning to improved skills and attitudes. Students who simply read what it is they are supposed to learn might be able to regurgitate it on a test or pop quiz, but don’t internalize the learning as much as those who discuss and debate it. The worse form of continuous professional development day-long learning sessions where, at the most, only five percent of what was learned was retained.
This led me to the concept of developing learning circles for employees. A learning circle is a group of employees learning the same information in a series of 30 minute to one hour group learning experiences. We used these learning sessions for problem-solving, decision-making, conflict resolution, communication and other effective group process functions that serve a collaborative work environment.
Initially we started with books experts had written. Group members chose the chapters they wanted to present, and I facilitated the development of co-created ground rules with the group members to streamline and protect the learning discussions so psychological safety was ensured and the learning sessions ran well. Later learning circle graduates who enjoyed the process could apply for group leadership roles to facilitate new book discussion groups.
The benefits of learning circles were numerous. The first was the development of cross-functional department relationships and interests paving the way for lateral promotions and cross-functional problem solving and innovation teams.
The second was improving our leadership pipeline of high potential employees who enjoyed the workforce development process and who developed the skills to build connections with the learning teams they served. Promotion into leadership positions then became employee-centric and skills-based rather than the best independent producer elevated into management.
We have seen too many executives choose the highest earning salesperson and place them in a management role only to fail. The skills required to lead and develop an employee are much different than the joy of making a sale. The pressure that comes with replacing earnings lost by taking the highest performer out of sales into management is difficult to replace.
The third was improving how employees communicated to understand one another better. This boosted collaboration and reduced internal competition, misunderstandings, and conflict.
Do you have an example of a situation where you didn’t get the result you were looking for, and tell us what happened as a result?
We discovered sending employees to day-long team-building events was a waste of time and money. There were a couple of reasons for this. The first is that team building events might be a fun day out of the office, but if the event does not apply to the work the employees do, they often resent it. This is especially true if their work doesn’t stop while they are away for the day. When they get back to work, their work has piled up and they spend longer hours with increased stress to get it done.
What has been the most impactful CPD initiative you’ve seen other companies offer, and how did it inspire or influence your own approach?
Online training. We adopted micro training segments tied to initiatives and discussions with coaches or in facilitated learning circles. We find that learning circles are also important for learning new skills and habits to get an employee through the learning curve and into improved skills and attitudes.
What challenges might companies face when implementing these initiatives, and how can they overcome them?
There needs to be a mindset shift from employee as cost to employee as stakeholder in organizational success connected to long range planning broken into initiatives. Then managers or AI tracks the learning initiatives that benefit the overall organization through KPI’s and improvement in an organization’s bottom line. In addition, success for the learning initiatives and change benefit from placed in senior executive’s annual goals, with Finance tracking improvement in the bottom line. It benefits from collaboration between HR, longer term strategic planning that identify initiatives, workforce gaps, and a system that moves learners through the learning curve. We find that learning circles are a powerful way to achieve this.
Can you share a story of an employee who significantly benefited, and how it affected their performance or career trajectory?
Continuous learning also means learning from mistakes. When psychological safety is present, people admit them. If not, mistakes often get buried. This is especially true in highly competitive organizations where one mistake is the reason for impacting advancement or being placed on the short list for downsizing.
When this happens in production, recalls often result. That said, we initiated the golden egg award that benefits not one employee or their performance but everyone.
Every month during a scheduled meeting, we discuss what we learned that month and this includes a mistake that someone made and how they corrected it. Then we vote on what was the most valuable learning experience if an employee felt it added to their own professional growth and knowledge going forward.
The winner receives a wooden egg painted gold that sits on a stand for their office. This is where egg on the face transforms into opportunity for learning and growth. It builds humility and trust.
So many mistakes are caused by procedural misunderstandings. Out of this realization, a problem-solving learning circle took it on themselves to speak with colleagues for ideas on how to produce more clarity and understanding when delegating responsibilities. Out of this process training was developed for executives as well as new employees so the proper time and attention is given to delegation from both sides of the delegation scenario — those delegating and those receiving stretch assignments. This also produced improved employee-centric skills so that managers and executives were more mindful in assisting the success of the people they supervise.
The bottom line is that organizations learn and grow when employees learn and grow.
Could you please list the “Top Five Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives for Employees”? Can you explain what you mean?
1. Higher return on CPD investments. Investing in employees’ growth through CPD results in a more capable and productive workforce, directly impacting the bottom line and delivering long-term value.
2. Improved Compliance and Risk Management. CPD ensures employees stay informed about industry standards, regulations, and best practices, reducing the risk of non-compliance and associated penalties. One example was in tracking soft skill improvement in a distribution organization’s bottom line. Although the CFO and HR were intrigued the COO believed there would be no impact. The greatest measured impact was, however, in risk management and self-insurance rates. The takeaway was that improved leadership communication and direction skills reduced accidents, OSHA reporting and time off because employees experienced less disrespect and personal justice issues and paid more attention to what they were doing.
3. Increased Innovation and Creativity. CPD programs expose employees to new ideas and perspectives, encouraging them to think creatively and contribute innovative solutions to business challenges.
4. Adaptability to Change. CPD equips employees with up-to-date knowledge and skills, enabling them to adapt to new technologies, market shifts, or organizational changes if follow up and support through the learning curve is considered part of the process. This helps businesses remain competitive and resilient.
5. Stronger Leadership Pipeline. CPD prepares employees for leadership roles, ensuring smooth transitions and continuity in management. The learning circle process we deploy identifies facilitative leaders who naturally build productive connections with co-workers as personal strengths. This identifies coaches and mentors as well. Based on skills rather than past resume experience, companies see in real time who possesses the skills and attitudes to be good supervisors and leaders with a mindset that supports employee success. This builds a realistic and sustainable succession plan.
How do you measure the success and ROI of these CPD initiatives?
We use the TIGERS Workforce Behavioral Profile to identify weaknesses in group process behaviors. The six principles for group process success that are measured include Trust, Interdependence, Genuineness, Empathy, Risk Resolution and Success. This provides focus on CPD direction that benefits departments and overall culture improvement.
As development rolls out, CFOs correlate the return on investment with improvements in the Organization’s bottom line. Trackable change includes reduced turnover, improved engagement through improved production, less rework and other impacts that are frequently not tracked costing $billions annually. For example, Employee turnover and poor engagement significantly impact U.S. businesses financially. Replacing an individual employee can cost between 50% to 200% of their annual salary, depending on their role and level within the organization.
Crestcom
Collectively, these turnover costs amount to over $630 billion annually across U.S. industries.
Finances Online
Additionally, disengaged employees contribute to substantial productivity losses, with estimates indicating that unhappy workers cost U.S. companies $1.9 trillion in lost productivity each year.
Slam.org
These figures underscore the critical importance of fostering employee engagement and implementing effective retention strategies to mitigate financial losses.
We designed the TIGERS Workforce Behavioral Profile for three runs for the same group with comparisons between assessment runs. In this way improvements in workforce behavior are reasonable and not overwhelming for training follow through and transference.
Looking forward, how do you see the role of CPD evolving in the next 5–10 years?
We anticipate CPD to become more involved in successful work culture change planning and group process skill development to enhance the skills humans bring to work that are unique to humans in alliance with agency and operations levels of AI.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitating to make these changes?
Start accurately tracking the losses in your bottom line associated with the organizational mindset of employee as cost as it relates to engagement and talent turnover. This gives you a realistic benchmark to work from.
Can you share any upcoming initiatives or plans you have for further investing in your employees?
We are investigating profit and gainsharing that rewards all employees who learn and improve with impact correlation on the bottom line. We believe that setting a high bar that is achievable when employees help one another sparks growth, efficiency, improved relationships, and streamlined operations, especially with SMEs.
How can our readers follow your work?
We’ve put in place training that makes leadership transitions, culture improvements and facilitative leadership skills sensible and easy to implement within the training design. For those interested in adopting the TIGERS 6 Principles approach, we have also created an annual employee onboarding platform that solves issues related to Gen Z and Millennial retention for SMEs. They can learn more about it at https://learn.corevalues.com.
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur and Thought Leader with over 25 years of business experience. He has founded, operated, and exited multiple companies and now builds into a handful of high impact CEOs. Chad has launched multiple online communities, including a recent leadership development platform, and also serves as a strategic advisor for Authority Magazine’s thought-leader incubator program.
To learn more and connect with Chad visit: chadsilverstein.io
Investing In Your Employees: Dianne Crampton Of TIGERS Success Series On the Benefits of Offering… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.