Why Calculate Return On Investment?

Fewer than 1 in 5 training managers think they put enough time into training evaluation, even less manage to calculate the return on their training investment. Think about your own training. How many of your training evaluations include ROI?

It’s easy for evaluations to end up at the bottom of to-do lists. People avoid evaluation for any number of reasons. It could even be an outdated LMS making reporting unbearable!

Since it’s so easy to forget about, here are five reasons calculating return on training investment is essential:

1: ROI Will Help You Boost Your Budget

No business injects cash into departments that can’t justify expenditure. Instead, they invest in those delivering a return on investment. For most departments, calculating ROI is a matter of simple arithmetic.

If only life were so easy for the L&D professional! You spend your days unleashing the talent of learners and helping them reach hidden potential, but how do you find the ROI of empowerment? It doesn’t translate neatly into the financial language used by corporate decision makers. Without financial evidence of success, your department could be overlooked!

Even though it might mean going the extra mile, calculating ROI will help you present the epic work you do in ways decision makers will understand.

 2: Fight Your Corner

L&D has often been first to feel the strain of tightened purse strings. When times get tough and the money pot shrinks, you need to ensure your budget doesn’t take the hit. To do this, show decision makers why L&D is the best investment they can make.

A comprehensive evaluation will give you ammunition to prove that L&D is essential to your business’ growth strategy. Prepare for a lot of hard work –  comprehensive evaluations take time, but you’ll reap the long-term rewards.

3: Build Your Reputation

When your business has a goal to reach, training is one option out of many. It’s your job to prove training is the best solution on offer.

Cultivate a reputation for L&D as the driving force of progress in your organisation. To make your point, provide data to bolster your claims. Calculating ROI is the best place to start. It’ll show decision makers that upskilling employees is cost-effective. You’ll soon find that your department becomes the first port of call when targets need smashing!

 4: Improve Your Training

Your goal as an L&D guru is to deliver the most effective training you can. To do this, build on what works well and prune what doesn’t. A good training campaign needs continual evaluation. To guide your evaluation ask questions like these:

– What does learner feedback tell you?
– What does reporting suggest?
– Is your training helping your business achieve its goals?
– What’s the return on your training investment?

This will help you pump investment into the areas where you’ll reap the greatest reward. A comprehensive evaluation which includes ROI will help you transform your training into a lean, mean, talent-unleashing machine.

5: It Will Make You Happier

There’s a widespread myth in the world of L&D that says employee training doesn’t create value for business. Lies like this can only spread if training managers can’t demonstrate that value.

If you don’t want to feel like you’re a drain on company resources, you need to face it head-on and calculate your ROI. Once you see the stats, there’ll be no nagging doubt in the back of your mind. Instead, you can strut around the office knowing precisely how extraordinary you are.

Finding Your Return on Training Investment

Calculating return on training investment should be a core part of your training strategy. But training ROI is an elusive beast. How do you find it? Where might it be hiding? How can you measure it?

With training ROI being so slippery, measuring it can be difficult. Do you know how you’ll structure your evaluation and locate your ROI? If not, our ROI Workbook is an essential resource for anyone looking to calculate ROI. it even includes a helpful ROI calculator! Click the button below to download now!