Stop Feeding the Rider
By
Cath Ellis
Most L&D teams have no idea what their training actually costs. Discover the hidden expenses of classroom learning and why eLearning is the scalable, cost-saving asset your budget needs.
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Here is a question that makes most Learning & Development managers squirm:
“What is the exact cost-per-head of the training session you ran yesterday?”
If you are like 90% of the industry, you don’t have an answer. You might mumble something about the cost of the printed handouts, the catering, maybe the trainer’s daily rate.
But you are missing the point. And because you are missing the point, you are likely hemorrhaging money.
The resistance to eLearning often comes from a sticker-shock reaction to development costs. “Why pay $30,000 for a digital module when Bob can teach it in the conference room for free?”
The problem is, Bob isn’t teaching it for free. Bob is expensive. And the empty chairs at the desks of the 20 people listening to Bob? They are even more expensive.
It is time to look at the real value of eLearning, not just as a teaching tool, but as a financial firewall.
Face-to-face (ILT) training is the “silent killer” of budgets because the costs are decentralised. They are hidden in different cost centres, so they don’t look like a single invoice.
To understand the value of eLearning, you have to audit the True Cost of Training (TCT).
1. The Opportunity Cost (The Big One) When you pull 10 sales staff off the floor for a day, you aren’t just paying their salaries for 8 hours of non-work. You are paying for lost revenue.
2. The Logistics Trap Travel, accommodation, per diems, room rentals. Even if you do it in-house, there is a cost to heating and lighting that room.
3. The “Groundhog Day” Effect Every time Bob teaches that class, you pay for his time. If he teaches it 50 times a year, you pay for it 50 times.
This is the mindset shift required for modern L&D.
When you run a workshop, you are purchasing a service. Once the workshop ends, the value evaporates. If a new hire starts on Monday, you have to buy the service again.
When you build an eLearning course, you are purchasing a product. It is an asset that belongs to the company. It sits on your server, ready to dispense value 24/7/365 without a single extra dollar of investment.
Beyond the ledger, there is the cost of risk.
In a classroom, the quality of training depends on the trainer’s mood, the time of day, and how much coffee the attendees had. Two different employees can walk away with two different understandings of a compliance policy.
eLearning eliminates the variable. It guarantees that Employee A in London and Employee B in Sydney receive the exact same message, the exact same way. In industries like Finance, Healthcare, and Safety, this consistency isn’t just nice to have—it is a legal shield.
I am not saying Face-to-Face training is dead. It has a vital place in soft skills, team building, and leadership coaching.
But for knowledge transfer, compliance, and process training? The “old way” is burning cash.
If you want to prove the value of eLearning to your stakeholders, stop talking about “engagement” and “gamification.” Start talking about Math.
Calculate the cost of the empty chair. Calculate the cost of the lost sales. Then, present eLearning not as a cost, but as the savings plan your company didn’t know it needed.
Ready to stop renting training and start building assets? Book a coaching session with me to transition your costly workshops into scalable digital learning.
