Let’s be honest, discussions on the Return On Investment for training courses can be the “elephant in the room”. After all, training expenditure is mostly discretionary, and sometimes the tangible benefits of training your teams is not always clear-cut.

There are a number of intangible (or at best, less easy to quantify) benefits to training your teams, such as increased motivation, loyalty and commitment, as well as maintenance of the psychological contract between employer and employee. 

But there are also some clear tangible benefits too.

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to focus on the more tangible benefits associated with training and hopefully demonstrate that money spent on training should be considered as an investment, rather than net expenditure. I will also touch upon one of the key “intangibles” - staff retention. 

Firstly, let ‘s have a look at the tangible benefits in relation to a couple of courses that I teach: a) Negotiation and b) Cost Reduction Fundamentals.

Let’s assume that as a result of specialist cost reduction / negotiation training, your team is able to save an additional 1.0% on the purchase price of bought-in goods and services (I’m being conservative here so as not to be accused of using hyperbole!). 

Annual expenditure on bought-in goods & services = £750,000

Potential additional savings due to better negotiation @ 1.0% x £750,000 = £7,500

Approx. cost of a 1-day face-to-face training course = £1,500

Return on Investment (ROI) = 5X

Another example, looking at Time Management.

Poor meeting discipline can be a huge time-thief, can suck the lifeblood out of people and also end up costing your business £000’s. This can present itself in various forms: too many meetings, meetings without clear purpose, meetings without tangible outcomes, by way of a couple of examples.

Let’s assume that your team of 60 spends 20% of their time (equivalent to 1 day per week) in meetings in any one year, with an average salary of £25,000. If the team implements some of the tools from a Time Management course and applies proper meeting discipline, the potential benefit is enormous.

Annual cost of meetings to your business: 20% x 60 x 25,000 = £300,000!!!

Potential benefit – assume 10% reduction in time spent in meetings = £30,000

Approx. cost of a 1-day face-to-face training course = £1,500

Return on Investment (ROI) = 20X

A hot topic at the moment, post-Covid, is staff retention and the concept of “the great resignation”. High staff turnover is not just an operational risk (where the loss of knowledge, experience and intimate knowledge of customers can leave a gaping hole in your team) but can also be a significant cost to your business: the costs of attracting and recruiting replacement staff, plus the time it takes to train those new people so that their contribution is accretive. 

Let me take you through a simple example purely to demonstrate the “above the line” costs of staff turnover. This ignores the fact that it may take you 3 months until a new recruit is fully trained and you’re able to get the most value from them, and also ignores things such as what the impact of a missing team member will have on the motivation and output of the remaining staff, plus the potential impact on customer service.

Let’s assume that you have 60 employees, an average salary of £25,000 and a turnover rate of 5%.

This means you will lose 3 people per year (1 person every 4 months) that you will need to replace.

Recruitment costs for 3 people @ 15% of annual salary = 15% x £25,000 x 3 = £11,250

Even if you can reduce the number of “leavers” by a single person, this will save your business £3,750 in recruitment fees ALONE.

Approx. cost of a 1-day face-to-face training course = £1,500

Return on Investment (ROI) = 2.5X

Training has been proven to be a major contributor to staff retention, providing opportunities for personal growth and development, leading to greater employee motivation and a greater sense of commitment to the employer. On top of this are the productivity gains realised due to increased skills and capability (of course, this also relies on staff changing their behaviour as a result of the training).

The numbers I’ve used in the examples above are purely estimates, so in reality they will differ to your situation, but I hope they’re useful to highlight the value that investing in training can bring to your business. I’ve put a handy calculator for you here so that you can work through some simulations that better represent your situation.

I do hope that this post has helped a little in highlighting the business rationale and given you the confidence to invest further in training your teams. If you’re still unconvinced or would like to chat with me to understand how I might be able to help you, please schedule a free call with me HERE.

The best days lie ahead.