Employee training is vital, but it can be expensive. The average annual cost of professional training in the U.S. is more than $1,250 per employee. And to enable workers to use emerging technologies like AI in the workplace effectively, enterprises will need to spend even more in the coming years.
However, although training programs increase employee satisfaction, retention, and profitability, companies waste millions of dollars annually on ineffective training. To control rising costs and ensure the investment in training pays off, more organizations are taking a “quality-first” approach.
This strategy focuses on outcomes, not just content. It starts with the end goal in mind and works backward to build programs around those goals. This post takes a closer look at the quality-first approach and outlines techniques to simultaneously reduce costs and increase the impact of employee training programs.
Why Reducing Training Costs Doesn’t Mean Sacrificing Quality
The quality-first approach to training, as noted above, is outcome-focused. Additional characteristics of this approach include:
- Tailored learning: Quality-first training considers the needs of the business, team roles, and learning styles. That might mean mixing instructor-led sessions, interactive workshops, and digital modules so employees get training that actually sticks.
- Engagement and interactivity: Training uses methods that keep employees actively involved, such as real-world scenarios, group discussions, gamification, and practical exercises, so they can immediately apply what they’ve learned.
- Business alignment: The ultimate measure of “quality” in training is whether it drives business value like improved customer satisfaction, faster onboarding, higher productivity, or reduced errors.
Moreover, unlike volume-driven approaches (e.g., lots of lectures with PowerPoints), quality-first training incorporates continuous improvement. The learning doesn’t stop when the course ends. It includes follow-ups, feedback loops, and ongoing measurement to see if employees are using new skills on the job, then adjusts as needed.
The benefits of this approach include higher information retention, less need for refresher courses, greater adaptability to change, and stronger critical thinking and problem-solving.
Six Strategies to Reduce Employee Training Costs
Each of the following strategies balances cost savings with learning impact. They are designed to build upon existing knowledge, use learning technology smartly, and maximize the return on investment in knowledge resources.
1. Identify and Target Actual Skill Gaps
Conduct a skills assessment within your department or team using a mix of methods (surveys, assessments, and performance data). This will help avoid repeating information your team has already internalized, identify skills gaps, and prevent spending on irrelevant modules.
2. Repurpose Existing Content for New Cohorts
Assign team leaders and subject-matter experts to periodically review and update old slide decks, videos, and job aids. Delete and re-create any content that is too severely outdated.
Implement version-control processes to keep content current, ensure that trainers are using the most up-to-date versions of training assets, and avoid duplication.
3. Leverage Peer-to-Peer Coaching and Mentoring
While bringing in professional training instructors and facilitators from outside the company is vital for introducing new ideas and perspectives, companies can control these fees by supplementing that training with peer coaching and executive mentoring.
Coaching and mentoring help employees gain important functional and process knowledge and benefit from the experience of senior team members and company leaders without the costs of external trainers.
A simple framework for organizing mentoring activities within an organization includes:
- Pairing: Match internal leaders and subject-matter experts with employees who can benefit from their specific guidance.
- Goal-setting: Start by defining the end goal and the outcomes you want the training or mentoring to achieve.
- Check-in cadence: Determine the right timing for meetings and mentoring sessions to meet those goals and keep information fresh while not unduly interfering with day-to-day duties.
4. Centralize Resources in a Learning Management System (LMS)
Using a single LMS instead of juggling multiple platforms or content sources reduces administrative overhead, support, and licensing costs while simplifying reporting and compliance tracking.
To help keep the training content current and effective, track usage metrics like course completions and logins, and collect employee feedback on the usefulness of each asset.
5. Use Virtual and AI-Powered Tools to Scale Delivery
Take advantage of designed-for-purpose platforms to simplify corporate learning and optimize the user experience. While you don’t want to constantly swap out systems, periodically compare the software you have in place to the newest available offerings.
You could use standard virtual meeting tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet to deliver training programs. But specialized virtual classroom software applications like Kaltura, Vedamo, Big Blue Button, and LearnCube offer specialized features and implementation options that make them a better choice for employee training.
AI video creation platforms such as Vizard, Fliki, Synthesia, and Pictory enable you to build training content rapidly and at a fraction of the cost of live video or professional animation. Implementing chatbots to answer frequently asked questions reduces the workload for (and cost of) live support or training resources.
6. Conduct Regular Cost-Benefit Analyses
Again, a key benefit of the quality-first training approach is maximizing the ROI of your training budget. To monitor this, set up a quarterly review process comparing training spend to performance improvements.
Track metrics including:
- ROI: Divide measurable performance improvements (such as savings on leads generated or items shipped) by your spending on training-related materials creation, technology, and outside services.
- Time-to-competency: Monitor how quickly new hires or employees moving into new roles can perform their duties without coaching or direct assistance.
- Learner satisfaction: Make it easy for employees to provide feedback, from simple star ratings or emoji scales to answering multiple-choice questions and providing comments.
How High-Quality Team Building Helps You Reduce Training Costs
As Ben Franklin famously said, “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” While there’s certainly a time and place for instructor-led classroom-style training, immersive hands-on events can often replace multiple standard sessions.
Employees learn, retain, and, most importantly, apply new knowledge more effectively when they learn through engaging, interactive activities. When scheduling professional development training, look for workshops like Igniting Team Performance® that “teach by doing,” not just delivering a lecture. This hands-on team development program blends interactive team challenges with actionable learning, ensuring that the insights gained are reinforced through the experience.
Make team building programs part of your employee education as well. Team building can play a vital role in employee training by teaching “people skills” like creative thinking, problem-solving, and leadership, all through engaging activities that immediately reinforce learning with doing.
Collaborative Problem-Solving Exercises
These exercises present a team with a specific problem or scenario and then challenge the group to work collaboratively to devise a solution. For example, the scenario may be that several customers have voiced a similar complaint.
There may be several ways to address the issue, such as through changes to training, support, or product design. Which solution is fastest? Which is most cost-effective? Is the best approach a change to support in the short term, but product design in the longer term? How should that be implemented? Challenge the group to come up with answers.
You may even challenge two teams to compete to design the best approach—but ultimately learn from each other. Peer feedback is a valuable component of exercises like this in reinforcing concepts. That’s the idea behind Competition to Collaboration®, where two teams compete at completing various challenges, before facing an interesting twist that forces them to change their thinking.
Leadership Rotation Drills
Having team members rotate through different roles within an event builds leadership skills across multiple participants. Role rotation is a common approach in professional development programs that teach leadership skills such as coaching, time management, and strategic thinking.
Rotating participants through different roles enables employees to learn from each other and learn by doing. Incorporating peer coaching and feedback saves time compared to traditional training.
Program Benefits Snapshot
Incorporating professionally facilitated corporate team building activities into your employee training programs provides several benefits, including:
- Increased engagement and motivation: Hands-on, interactive experiences keep employees involved and immersed.
- Peer accountability: Collaborative activities build trust and shared responsibility.
- Immediate on-the-job application: Real-world scenarios let employees practice skills immediately, minimizing the need for refresher training.
- Improved knowledge retention: Active participation and emotional connection make lessons “stick” more effectively than traditional lectures.
- Stronger collaboration and communication: Team-based challenges translate directly into smoother workplace interactions.
- Faster skill development: Applied learning accelerates the leap from theory to practice.
- Boosted morale and job satisfaction: Fun, engaging events leave employees energized and more receptive to ongoing training.
- Cross-functional relationship building: Employees connect outside their usual silos, strengthening organizational cohesion.
- Reinforced company culture: Shared experiences help align teams around core values and goals.
- Long-term cost efficiency: Reduced need for repeat sessions, extra facilitation, and supplemental training saves resources.
Tools and Technologies to Further Reduce Training Costs
As noted above, centralizing learning content in a single LMS reduces costs and simplifies usage, management, and support. Look for a full-featured LMS offering SCORM compliance, key metrics reporting, and easy updating. Maintaining this system and the underlying content helps keep lessons up to date and reduces the need for retraining or refresher sessions.
When teaching lessons using virtual classroom software, use breakout rooms to address specific topics or the needs of different groups, and record sessions for later on-demand access. Integrate your virtual classroom with your LMS to upload recordings, resources, and attendance records to your learning management system for tracking and easy access. Take advantage of features like real-time Q&A, polls, and surveys to keep learners engaged and provide feedback loops.
Best Corporate Events delivers many of these features through our virtual team building programs, combining breakout rooms, interactive polls, and on-demand replay to provide high-quality, impactful training with minimal need for repeat sessions.
Measuring ROI: Track Savings & Continuous Improvement
To measure your success at delivering effective training while controlling costs, monitor quantitative performance improvements (department-specific metrics, customer satisfaction scores, financial performance), and collect qualitative data and feedback through test scores, surveys, and instructor reviews.
Use these inputs to create a feedback loop that enables you to continually improve training resources and programs:
Take Action: Start Reducing Your Training Costs Today
Get a start on reducing your employee training costs by auditing your current training programs. List each program’s objectives, duration, delivery format, associated resources (videos, PowerPoints, PDFs, etc.), and related spending.
Explore, in a group setting, how you might redesign programs using a quality-first approach. This approach leverages blended micro-learning with peer coaching and high-impact team building to deliver better outcomes (improved information retention with fewer follow-up or repeat sessions) and lower overall budgets.
Combining an interactive, goal-focused approach to training with a centralized LMS and emerging technology tools increases engagement, improves collaboration, reinforces workplace culture, and enables employees to quickly apply newly acquired knowledge to their jobs. Continual improvement is built into the process.
Ready to take the next step in improving your employee training programs? Connect with Best Corporate Events to explore options for cost-efficient team building and customized training solutions to meet your business objectives.
