Measuring ROI of Online Employee Training

Resources

March 27, 2017

Resource: Blog Industry: Multiple Industries
Tags: Online Training, Safety

Before you suggest your boss invests in online employee training, you want to be able to argue the value of training. You can calculate the return on investment (ROI) of employee training by looking at reduced training time, reduced downtime, and reduced workplace incidents.

Tools such as online training software offer an unmatched level of convenience and improvement when compared to traditional classroom-based training. When you're looking to determine which training method is the best fit for your organization, consider the ROI online employee training offers. 

Measurable Gains

The return on investment percentage is calculated by (Value Gained - Training Costs) / Training Costs. It’s easy to determine the cost of online employee training, but measuring what is gained can be a little tricky. Many of the gains from online training are actually the result of saving money and reducing costs.

Calculate the value of time saved with online training

For starters, online training videos save training instructors valuable time by being easier to administrate. We've seen numerous training mangers reduce the amount of time spent scheduling, conducting, and tracking training through online training features such as automatic email alerts.

If you consider that a training instructor has a medium salary of $60,360 per year (or roughly $29 per hour) according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you can better quantify the value of hours saved. If the use of online training saves you one hour a day managing training activities, that's $7,540 gained with online training!

Time is money after all, and your time is very valuable.

construction worker viewing online training course on laptop

Consider the cost of company downtime

Online training not only saves you time, but your employees time as well. Meeting training requirements requires hours of training sessions each year. When using in-person training, this means groups of employees spend time away from their duties at once, resulting in company downtime.

Online training videos, however, can be available to employees at any time that is convenient to them. Similar to lunch and shift breaks, employees will coordinate when to take their training so production is not affected.

This means companies can reduce the amount of downtime. With most companies reporting an average of $100,000 lost per hour of downtime, the gains from online training can pile up!

behavior based safety edit

Resources saved from more effective training

Several studies have documented the effectiveness of training videos and the benefits they have over traditional training. By offering a training format that appeals to different learning styles it’s important to consider how online safety training might improve procedures in the workplace.

According to OSHA, there are was an average of 3 workplace incidents per 100 employees in 2017. If we can assume more effective training could prevent just one worker injury, this can save your company an average of $38,000 in wages, productivity loss, and medical expenses.

Unsure how effective training videos can be? Take a second to preview some examples to get an idea if they're a good fit for your organization.

VIEW COURSES

two safety workers looking at computer for online employee training

Qualitative Gains

There are benefits gained from online training that can't easily be assigned a monetary value. Online training will likely reduce stress and make your job of managing the company training much easier.

Employee training software can send reports of overdue training to your inbox to stay on top of everyone's training needs without the headaches. We've even seen companies achieve acclaimed recognition for implementing online training.

While these benefits are important, it's hard determine their exact value. Company executives tend to focus on the hard numbers when it comes to calculating ROI. Yet if you're looking to convince your boss that online training is worth the investment, these qualitative benefits should be part of your argument.

Even with these numbers to calculate the ROI of online training, it's easy to remain skeptical of employee training software being worth the investment. This is why we recommend you sign up for a free demo of Vector Solutions' training software to get an idea of how online training might work for you. You'll be able to see some of the key benefits of using online training without an risk!

Remember to keep this in mind the next time you evaluate the ROI of your organization’s training program!

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