This informal CPD article, ‘Beyond Efficiency: Using SROI to Measure the Human Impact of Digital Transformation’ was provided HGIO - Herramientas de Gestión Integral Organizacional, who offer evidence-based methodologies, tools, and solutions to address the diverse needs of organisations.
Organisations today are investing in artificial intelligence (AI) with growing conviction about its operational benefits, yet with measurement frameworks that capture only a fraction of the value being generated. Automation savings appear on the balance sheet; improvements in team satisfaction, reductions in voluntary turnover, and the transition of employees into analytical roles remain invisible within traditional financial reporting systems.
The Ocean Tomo study on intangible asset value documents that approximately 92% of the market value of S&P 500 companies today corresponds to intangible assets, compared with just 17% recorded in 1975: a complete inversion of the composition of corporate value over five decades (1). In parallel, Gallup’s most recent survey on AI adoption in the workplace reports that 65% of employees in organisations that have adopted AI perceive improvements in their productivity and efficiency (2). The strategic question for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is therefore no longer limited to quantifying how much AI reduces costs, but to how much human and social value it is generating simultaneously.
The evidence the literature already documents
The peer-reviewed academic literature offers a more nuanced perspective than the prevailing public narrative. An empirical study conducted by Valtonen and colleagues with Finnish companies identifies the mechanism through which AI can enhance employee wellbeing: through two measurable pathways, task optimisation and improvements in workplace safety conditions (3). The positive outcomes — greater autonomy, continuous learning, and a reduction in repetitive tasks — emerge consistently when organisational management is appropriate.
The determining factor is not the technology itself, but the design of the work that accompanies it. Parker and Grote demonstrate that the same digital tools can either enrich or degrade the work experience depending on how autonomy, feedback, and task complexity are configured (4). A complementary conceptual framework identifies
five dimensions of meaningful work — task integrity, skill development and use, task significance, autonomy, and belonging — and shows that AI strengthens them when it operates as an amplification of human capabilities rather than as a substitute (5).
To this must be added an inclusion dimension for which the empirical evidence is less reassuring than the corporate narrative typically suggests. Omri and colleagues, drawing on panel data from 27 high-technology countries over 2006–2022, find that AI may initially aggravate unemployment among people with disabilities as a result of automation and skills mismatch. The effect is reversed and transformed into greater employability only where adequate levels of advanced education and sufficient institutional governance quality are present (6). These findings do not constitute side effects: they are measurable social value that organisations are — or are not — generating, and which traditional reporting systems fail to capture.
SROI: making visible the value already being created
Social Return on Investment (SROI), developed in the late 1990s by the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund and standardised in the reference methodological guide revised in 2012 (7), is not an ethical corrective to financial Return on Investment (ROI): it is its natural extension. It offers the CFO the same accounting discipline, applied to outcomes that traditional reporting does not capture.
SROI = Present Value of (adjusted) social outcomes ÷ Investment
The term “adjusted” entails discounting four factors that the methodology requires to be quantified independently: deadweight (what would have occurred without the intervention), attribution (what was caused by other actors), displacement (effects shifted elsewhere), and drop-off (the deterioration of the effect over time). Outcomes are brought to present value by applying a standard discount rate of 3.5% (7). The methodology operates under eight principles that include involving stakeholders, valuing what matters, not overstating outcomes, and verifying the result through external assurance.
Social Return on investment (SROI)
The four human returns of well-invested AI
The framework developed by Freiberg and colleagues at the Impact-Weighted Accounts Project proposes four dimensions of organisational impact on employment that SROI makes it possible to quantify (8). For their monetary valuation, the social impact literature provides institutional banks of auditable proxies, among which two stand out: the UK Social Value Bank, with 88 outcomes and valuations derived from national datasets (9), and the WELLBY, the official unit adopted in the United Kingdom’s public policy appraisal guidance, which values one point of life satisfaction per person per year at GBP 13,000 (10). The four dimensions are operationalised as follows:
Capability value. The transition of operational employees into analytical roles through reskilling. It is valued through the sustained salary increase and the additional years of employability; the Employment category of the UK Social Value Bank provides specific valuations for outcomes such as “gaining employment” or “improving qualifications”.
Wellbeing value. The reduction of repetitive tasks and the improvement of job design. It is monetised through two routes: the avoided costs of voluntary turnover, which for US companies are estimated at between 50% and 200% of the annual salary of each employee replaced; and the WELLBY methodology applied to sustained improvements in engagement.
Inclusion value. Access for traditionally excluded populations to roles previously closed to them, conditional on sustained investment in advanced education and governance (6). The proxies are drawn from the UK Social Value Bank for outcomes such as “moving from unemployment into employment”, complemented by Exchequer values that capture savings to the State on social benefits.
Community value. Sustained local employment and reinvestment in the territory. It is measured through the local multiplier of spending, for which the New Economics Foundation developed the LM3 (Local Multiplier 3) methodology.
By way of illustration: an investment of USD 5 million in automation with human-centred design generates USD 9 million in operational savings, equivalent to a financial ROI of 1.8. Adding the four dimensions — capabilities (USD 2.1 million), wellbeing (USD 1.3 million), inclusion (USD 0.6 million), and community (USD 0.4 million) - the total SROI rises to 2.68. The same investment is thereby analysed under a framework that integrates financial, human, and social outcomes, with proxies traceable to recognised institutional sources.
The CFO’s new language
Measuring the human return of AI is not a concession to the sustainability function: it is verifiable strategic intelligence. Emerging regulatory frameworks — the double materiality of the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the IAASB’s ISSA 5000 standard, are shifting corporate practice towards reporting on measurable outcomes subject to external assurance. The CFO who masters this form of accounting will access capital on more favourable terms, retain talent more effectively, and secure sustained legitimacy to continue innovating.
The opportunity, not the problem
The narrative of fear dominates the public conversation about AI and work, yet the evidence reviewed suggests a different reading: when technological investment is conceived with human intent, designed with rigour, and measured with accounting discipline, the total return clearly exceeds the financial return. Mastery of SROI is emerging as the technical language through which the next generation of CFOs and board members will be able to demonstrate that their investment in AI generated total value, not merely efficiency. Those who develop this capability early will be better placed to bridge the space between technology, finance, and corporate governance that, in most organisations, currently remains vacant.
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References
1. Ocean Tomo. 2025 Intangible Asset Market Value Study. Chicago: Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held; 2026. Available at: https://oceantomo.com/intangible-asset-market-value-study/
2. Gallup. Rising AI Adoption Spurs Workforce Changes. Washington, DC: Gallup Workplace; 2026. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/704225/rising-adoption-spurs-workforce-changes.aspx
3. Valtonen A, Saunila M, Ukko J, Treves L, Ritala P. AI and employee wellbeing in the workplace: an empirical study. J Bus Res. 2025;199:115584. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115584
4. Parker SK, Grote G. Automation, algorithms, and beyond: why work design matters more than ever in a digital world. Appl Psychol. 2022;71(4):1171–204. doi:10.1111/apps.12241
5. Bankins S, Formosa P. The ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for meaningful work. J Bus Ethics. 2023;185(4):725–40. doi:10.1007/s10551-023-05339-7
6. Omri A, Omri H, Afi H. Exploring the impact of AI on unemployment for people with disabilities: do educational attainment and governance matter? Front Public Health. 2025;13:1559101. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2025.1559101
7. Nicholls J, Lawlor E, Neitzert E, Goodspeed T. A Guide to Social Return on Investment. 2nd ed. London: The SROI Network; 2012. Available at: https://www.socialvalueuk.org/resources/the-guide-to-sroi/
8. Freiberg D, Panella K, Serafeim G, Zochowski TR. Accounting for Organizational Employment Impact. Working Paper No. 21-050. Cambridge (MA): Harvard Business School Accounting & Management Unit; 2021. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3707740
9. Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust. Methodology Note for Wellbeing Values: UK Social Value Bank. London: HACT; 2024. Available at: https://hact.org.uk/publications/methodology-note-for-wellbeing-values/
10. HM Treasury. Wellbeing Guidance for Appraisal: Supplementary Green Book Guidance. London: UK Government; 2021. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60fa9169d3bf7f0448719daf/Wellbeing_guidance_for_appraisal_-_supplementary_Green_Book_guidance.pdf
