🧠 How Much Should I Invest in Team Development?

(And What Happens If You Don’t?)

If you’re leading a growing company, you have likely asked:
“How much should I really spend on developing my team?”

It’s a fair question. Training budgets can feel like a luxury, until the cost of poor performance, misalignment, or staff turnover shows up.

It has been said, What if we train them and they leave? A more interesting thought in response is, What if we do not train them and they stay?

The best thing about training is that it is something you can use to control and improve outcomes, probably with other benefits than the specific learning package. There are some basic considerations and you might consider the overall value of shared learning, team cohesion and the fun of learning new things.

However, it is a challenging question to answer in detail.

Let’s break down team development investment from two sides:
🔹 Financial cost (What it costs)
🔹 Opportunity cost (What it saves or earns you)

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💳 1. The Financial Cost of Team Development

Costs vary based on format, quality, and strategic intent. Here’s a realistic range:

Format | Typical Cost Range | Example Use

Online Training | (per user)£50 – £500 |Self-paced courses on skills, leadership, or tools

One-day Workshop (in-person)£1,000 – £5,000 | Leadership offsite or team alignment session

Team Coaching Programme (3–6 months)£5,000 – £25,000 | Strategic support, behaviour change, culture

Full Leadership Development (ongoing)£10,000 – £100,000+Structured development across levels

💡 James Hardie’s team development solutions typically start at £1,250 for a high-impact half-day and scale up depending on team size, duration, and goals. A facilitator to client ratio of 1:6/8 enables workshop and learning activities to be mixed. Ideally this should be a journey with tailor made and co-created solutions to create effective outcomes.

⏳ 2. The Opportunity Cost of Not Investing

Let us s be blunt: underdeveloped teams are expensive in hidden ways.

🔁 Cost of Inefficiency:

• Time lost due to unclear roles, rework, or missed handovers
• Leaders pulled into doing, not leading

📉 Cost of Underperformance:

• High-potential people not stepping up—or stepping out
• Founders stuck as the “fixer,” not the strategist

🧯 Cost of Constant Firefighting:

• Strategy stalls because leaders are putting out people problems
• Growth derails due to cultural issues you didn’t see coming

🚪 Cost of Turnover:

• Every avoidable departure costs £15k–£100k
• Often, development would have cost less than 20% of that

💡 A Better Question: What’s the ROI of a Stronger Team?

Strong teams:

• Make better decisions, faster
• Require less oversight
• Retain top talent
• Drive strategy, not just execute it

In other words, team development should more than pay for itself, through improved performance, better culture, and greater business velocity.

So measure it properly and be clear about expectations and outcomes.

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🎯 Final Thought

Don’t treat team development as a checkbox. Done right, it is a force multiplier.
Whether you invest £1,000 or £100,000, the real question is:
“What’s it worth to have a team you trust to lead, grow, and perform?”

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