The Business Case for Immersive Safety Training: ROI and Cost Savings 

Kyla Ball March 17, 2025

The human and financial costs associated with an accident at work are potentially catastrophic for any business, both in the immediate term and in terms of reputational damage. So ensuring workplace safety is a top priority for any organization, particularly those that incorporate high-risk industrial settings. 

However, many organizations face challenges in developing safety training programs that are both engaging and effective. Traditional approaches can not only fail to capture employees’ attention but are costly to produce and run. 

The resulting dangers of low engagement, or insufficient volume of training due to cost-saving measures, both pose a risk of workplace incidents. 

Adopting more interactive and immersive training approaches has been proven to increase skill and knowledge retention, thereby reducing the likelihood of accidents, and ultimately creating a safer work environment for everyone. Fewer accidents and injuries lead to lower direct and indirect costs to an organization, which when combined in the wake of any accident, can be extremely damaging to business. In addition, immersive technologies can now be developed and applied at a fraction of the cost of traditional training and scaled up as necessary. 

For this reason, immersive and interactive safety training is increasingly replacing traditional methods, particularly by industries with high-risk environments. In this blog we look at how any organization can make cost savings, and see both short and long term return on investment when they make the move to immersive safety training. 

The cost of workplace accidents and injuries 

Workplace accidents and injuries represent a significant concern for both businesses and their employees, with profound implications for both safety and health and economic productivity. In the United States, private industry employers reported 2.6 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2023. And although this total is down 8.4% from 2022, it still underscores the ongoing challenges in ensuring workplace safety. 

The financial ramifications of these incidents are enormous. In the US alone, the National Safety Council estimates that the total cost of work-related injuries is around $167 billion annually. This encompasses both direct and indirect costs, with the differences explained below.

Direct costs

These are the immediate expenses that a company can incur after a workplace accident, and can include:

• Medical and rehabilitation expenses, e.g. treatment, hospitalization, and rehabilitation for injured employees;
• Workers’ compensation payments;
• Increased insurance premiums, as workplace accidents can result in a higher risk profile.

Indirect costs

Less obvious but often higher in the long-term, these are costs that can impact long-term business operations. They include:

• Lost productivity, which slows overall efficiency. This can be particularly problematic if legal or insurance investigations require enforced downtime. 
• Recruitment and training replacement employees, which requires time and resources, further reducing efficiency.
• Decreased employee performance and morale, and heightened anxiety, all of which affect productivity.
• Reputational damage: accidents very often become public knowledge through court cases or reporting, and can harm public and stakeholder perception, leading to lost business and recruitment challenges.

A full breakdown of the National Safety Council’s $167 billion estimate of the annual costs of work-related injuries is as follows:

• Wage and productivity losses: $50.7 billion 
• Medical expenses: $37.6 billion
• Administrative expenses: $54.4 billion 
• Employers’ uninsured costs: $15.0 billion, including the value of time lost by other workers who are directly or indirectly involved in injuries, and the cost of time required to investigate injuries, write up injury reports and other administrative functions. 
• Damage to motor vehicles in work-related injuries ($5.6 billion) and fire losses ($3.7 billion).

They also estimate that the cost for each medically consulted injury in 2022 was $40,000, and the cost per death was $1,390,000 (including wage losses, medical expenses, administrative expenses, and employer costs.)

Which workplaces are the most at risk of costly accidents at work?

According to comprehensive data from OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, US) on work-related injury and illness, five sectors made up nearly two-thirds of the reported injuries and illnesses in 2023: 

• Manufacturing
• Retail trade
• Healthcare
• Transportation/warehousing
• Construction. 

In the UK, HSE (Health and Safety Executive) reports that the highest rate of non-fatal injuries were statistically significantly higher than average in a similar group of sectors:

• Accommodation and food services
• Construction
• Transportation/storage
• Wholesale/retail trade (including motor vehicle repair)

Examples of companies that faced significant financial losses due to inadequate safety training

In the last few decades, various high-profile cases have occurred where safety breaches have led to enormous and long-term financial losses for large organizations, stemming from both direct and indirect costs.

BP (British Petroleum) – Deepwater Horizon (2010)

An oil rig explosion killed 11 workers and caused one of the worst environmental disasters in history. BP faced over $65 billion in fines, cleanup costs, and settlements, along with lasting reputational damage.

Union Carbide – Bhopal Disaster (1984)

A gas leak at a pesticide plant in India resulted in over 15,000 deaths and exposed safety training failures. The company paid $470 million in compensation and suffered irreversible brand damage.

Boeing – 737 MAX Crashes (2018-2019)

Although primarily a design failure, inadequate pilot training was also cited as a key factor in two crashes that killed 346 people. Boeing faced over $20 billion in legal settlements, lost sales, and long-term damage to its reputation.

Walmart – OSHA Violations (Various)

The company has faced multiple OSHA fines for unsafe working conditions, including a $190,000 fine for warehouse safety violations. Repeated safety concerns have led to lawsuits and reputational harm.

How immersive safety training can reduce costs in the short term

As the above examples show, safety breaches can cause significant long-term damage to an organization. We will look at how developing immersive safety training can help to reduce costs, both in terms of immediate savings on training production and delivery and in terms of increasing safety in the work environment, which reduces the likelihood of accidents and injuries that can be devastating both for individuals and for organizations.

Overall training costs are lower than traditional training methods

The most obvious way of looking at cost savings when comparing immersive to traditional employee training is the money saved in training creation and delivery. Employee training expenses can quickly escalate when factoring in external trainer fees, travel and accommodation costs, venue hire, and the productivity lost during in-person training time. Traditional training approaches for safety, especially at scale, can be particularly costly, given that they may require specialized equipment and materials, the employment of specially qualified safety professionals, and regular recertification.  

Here are just some examples of costly training projects undertaken by large US enterprises. 

• In 2019 Amazon began a retraining programme for 100,000 employees, roughly a third of its workforce, at a staggering cost of $700 million. 
• Starbucks more recently closed all of its US stores for employee training, leading to an estimated $12 million in lost profits over the course of just a few hours.
• In 2018, U.S. businesses reported spending $986 on average per learner to cover their training needs. 

Immersive learning is scaleable, accessible and cost-efficient

However, by shifting to immersive online learning, companies can significantly reduce these overhead costs while still delivering high-quality, engaging, and effective training. Virtual simulations and interactive modules provide hands-on experience without the need for employees to be in any particular location, making learning more accessible, scalable, and cost-efficient.  

• Interactive and immersive e-learning is the most cost-effective safety training of all: accessed on any device, from desktop to smartphones. 
• A recent PwC study on using Virtual Reality training found that when looking at costs for 375 learners, using VR training programs is as cost-effective as classroom learning. 

Immersive safety training saves on venue hire

Immersive safety training delivered via individual devices eliminates the necessity for dedicated physical spaces, such as training rooms or simulation areas, which often incur substantial overhead costs. Whilst immersive training is often thought of in terms of VR, immersive scenarios and simulations that make use of interactivity and problem-solving can easily be delivered via desktop or mobile devices.

Immersive safety training saves on travel costs

Organizations can reduce travel expenses by enabling remote safety training, removing the need for employees to travel for in-person sessions. As well as lowering costs, organizations can demonstrate commitment to sustainability and carbo-reduction initiatives. In the case study below, Fingrid’s in-person safety briefings at their 30 nationwide power stations required hundreds of miles of travel for each new starter. These one-to-one training methods were costly both in terms of working hours and mileage. Replacing these with immersive safety training has seen substantial cost savings for the national power network.

The power of scalable training

Immersive training also allows for almost infinite scalability, as multiple employees can engage in immersive training without the need for additional hardware resources beyond the initial investment. Content can be created using subject matter experts, but then delivered to multiple employees simultaneously, at different locations. Translating immersive safety training content into multiple languages for larger, global teams can be almost instant.

Importantly, immersive training can be introduced incrementally and expanded as needed. If investment in new technology or hardware is not immediately possible, immersive and interactive training can initially be delivered via personal devices until further investment can be made.

How immersive safety training leads to long-term savings and better ROI

Immersive training provides more effective knowledge retention and engagement than traditional methods

The engaging nature of immersive learning captivates learners’ attention and fosters a deeper level of involvement in the training process. For example, studies have indicated that the increased engagement involved in VR training leads to improved information retention and a higher likelihood of transferring learned skills to real-world applications.

By creating a multi-sensory learning experience that combines visual, auditory, and tactile elements, immersive training enhances overall learner engagement, motivation and understanding, increasing knowledge retention. This knowledge retention in turn leads to a reduction in human error and unsafe behaviors through hands-on experience. In fact, employee engagement is crucial for safety according to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE). 

Immersive safety training for hazardous environments is safer for employees

Crucially, when using immersive safety training, employees don’t have to be taken into a dangerous environment to carry out training, so the chance of a new or untrained employee being hurt during training is vastly decreased.

As the HSE Network, UK states,

“[VR training] allows for controlled exposure to safety incidents and required responses, which enables safe skill-building via experiential learning. In highly regulated industries like healthcare and manufacturing, VR can allow for accurate assessments of fire responses and reactions, chemical leaks, or life-threatening medical emergencies.” 

Importantly, employees can also practice their responses, decision-making and reactions to unsafe environments and situations in a risk-free environment. This can be invaluable as it prepares and informs them, as well as their colleagues and managers, for their likely emotional real-life responses under stress. This was one of the key benefits described by CAST, who created immersive training using ThingLink – read more in the case study below.

Reduced onboarding time and reduced need for additional resources for new employees

Another huge cost-saving factor for immersive safety training is that it can be undertaken on the job, by providing the employee with portable training materials that can be easily accessed via a mobile device, at a time that suits the learner. 

In the case study below, WaterLAB showed how immersive learning with the ThingLink AR App allowed water technicians to start their jobs quickly and confidently, without the need for a trainer or colleague to be present.

“It’s much easier for even untrained staff to go into the field with this kind of support. You can be confident that that person is doing their job correctly.”

Longer term and wider benefits to organizational ROI

Compliance benefits: proof that employees meet industry safety standards through data-driven training and continuous improvement 

The future of immersive training will likely see a greater emphasis on data analytics to evaluate and prove the effectiveness of training programs. Organizations will be able to easily leverage performance metrics, gathered from virtual training sessions to assess skill acquisition and retention. This simply isn’t possible to a comparable degree with traditional methods of safety training.

This data-driven approach also allows for the continuous improvement of training resources. By examining how employees are engaging with immersive training in real-time, trainers and learning and development specialists are able to fine-tune and improve training materials easily, regularly and ad hoc when required. These updates and developments can then be applied at scale across a global network at minimal cost and with very little disruption.

Reduce staff turnover by attracting and retaining talent with innovative, immersive workplace safety training

As we have seen, engaging immersive training promotes better skill retention and application in real-world scenarios, ultimately enhancing job performance. In fact, companies that invest in comprehensive training programs often see a marked increase in employee retention rates, with effective training linked to decreases in staff turnover. 

Findings from LinkedIn Learning’s annual Workplace Learning Reports show that. 

• 93% of organizations are concerned about employee retention, whilst
• 94% of employees say they would stay longer at an organization if it invested in their training

Meanwhile, 58% of employees prefer to learn at their own pace – meaning that organizations who provide immersive rather than traditional classroom training are more likely to be attractive to employees. As the workforce is increasingly made up of Gen Z employees, who look for learning that is interactive and engaging, gamified, mobile-accessible and made up of microlearning opportunities, the preference of current and potential employees for immersive training will only increase.

Positive impact on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employer brand equity

By replacing traditional classroom-based and location-specific safety training, organizations can demonstrate a commitment to reducing travel and printed materials, and thereby their carbon footprint. 

Real-world case study

Mitsubishi Electric UK saved over £220,000 by replacing its traditional training methods with blended learning that incorporated training modules created with ThingLink and delivered via VR headsets.

How businesses can start implementing immersive safety training solutions with scaleable XR training

In 2024 The global immersive training market size was estimated at $16,401.8 million and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28.3% from 2025 to 2030. This huge predicted uptick is in the main part driven by the significant advancements in AR (Augmented Reality) and VR technology. 

However, the initial investment required for immersive training solutions can still be perceived as a barrier for many organizations. While, as shown above, the long-term benefits may outweigh these costs, the upfront expenses for hardware, software development, and content creation can deter investment in immersive safety training. Additionally, organizations can be deterred by concerns that new training technology may not integrate with their existing safety or corporate training frameworks. 

Scaleable and accessible solutions like ThingLink are bridging the gap between traditional training content and immersive experiences, by allowing for gradual adoption of XR into organizations of all sizes. By allowing content creators to develop content that can be used across ALL platforms, from individual mobile devices, through desktops and laptops, VR headsets and even large scale shared immersive spaces, organizations of all sizes can introduce immersive safety training at the pace and cost that works best for their financial situation and strategic goals.

In conclusion: Immersive safety training is the clear choice for cost saving and ROI

The comparisons between both the short- and long-term costs are clear. Traditional training methods for safety can be impractical, ineffective, potentially unsafe to deliver, and lack engagement for employees. They are also expensive in terms of materials, trainer and accommodation fees, and travel, and are far harder to update and assess than immersive training methods. For engaging safety training that ensures better knowledge retention and understanding, requires less time away from work for both new and current employees, immersive learning is the most cost-effective and highly scaleable solution.

Read more about how ThingLink is making immersive safety training authoring easy and cost-effective for organizations around the world.