Calculadora del ROI de la formación en idiomas

Convierte el aprendizaje de idiomas en una inversión estratégica para tu empresa.

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Las barreras lingüísticas cuestan tiempo y dinero.

Ralentizan la transferencia de conocimientos, generan fricciones entre equipos y aumentan la rotación. El problema es real, pero demostrarlo sin datos no siempre es fácil.

 

Esta herramienta te ayuda a calcular el coste de no actuar y a establecer un caso de negocio que convenza al equipo directivo. Indica los objetivos de tu empresa, el tamaño del equipo y tus costes actuales para hacerte una idea clara del coste que suponen las barreras lingüísticas. 

Step 1 of 4 Choose your north star

Build the business case

Build the business case for language training in 5 minutes

Start with what matters most to your business. We'll walk you through the numbers and produce a CFO-ready business case you can take into your next budget conversation.

Choose your north star

Which business outcome are you building the case around?

Pick an outcome to start · takes ~5 minutes · no login required

Step 2 · Context

Tell us about your team

Every input comes with a sensible default, so you've got a realistic starting point. You can change any number to match your programme.

Currency Used for display only.

Step 3 · Analysis

Voluntary turnover: let's quantify your retention opportunity

Four short questions to size the opportunity: the metric that matters, where it sits today, where you want it, and what language training can shift.

1

What are we measuring?

Voluntary turnover — the share of people who leave by choice each year, not through redundancy or restructuring.

  • Every voluntary leaver carries a replacement cost: recruitment, onboarding, ramp-up, and lost knowledge.
  • It compounds — the longer language barriers limit engagement and progression, the more embedded it becomes.

Source: SHRM 2025 CHRO Benchmarking · Work Institute 2025 Retention Report

2

Where is it today?

Industry average sits around 18%. Retail, frontline, and BPO contexts often run higher.

3

Where does it need to be?

A 5-point improvement is a typical year-one target for a focused learning and development (L&D) programme. LinkedIn's research reports strong learning cultures achieve up to 57% higher retention over time.

4

How much of this is down to language training?

Language is one factor among many. Pick the confidence level that fits — most teams leave this on Balanced.

We apply it as a range and use the midpoint for the headline. A higher band credits more of the gain to language training.

1

What are we measuring?

Language friction — the time your team loses each week to clarifications, rework, slow threads, and meetings that need a translator in the room.

  • McKinsey finds knowledge workers lose about 1.8 hrs a day to information friction; language amplifies that in multilingual teams.
  • It becomes embedded the longer it goes unaddressed.

Source: McKinsey Global Institute · Microsoft Work Trend Index 2024

2

Where is it today?

A rule of thumb: pick ≈0.5 hrs if language friction is occasional, ≈1.5 hrs if it happens most days, 2+ hrs if your team works across languages constantly. Busuu's model assumes 1–2 hrs/week is recoverable per learner once they reach prerequisite proficiency.

3

What's the cost per hour?

We work this out from the average salary you entered (salary × 1.4 for benefits & overhead, over your working weeks at 37.5 hrs). Adjust if you know your real loaded rate.

4

How much of this is down to language training?

Language is one factor among many. Pick the confidence level that fits — most teams leave this on Balanced.

We apply it as a range and use the midpoint for the headline. A higher band credits more of the gain to language training.

1

What are we measuring?

Revenue at risk — the annual value of sales that customer-facing staff struggle to close because of language friction.

  • Missed upsells, lost negotiations, and interactions that fall short.
  • The bigger the team and the higher each relationship's value, the larger this gets — and stronger language confidence lifts conversion and CSAT.

Source: Busuu Calculating Business Value deck, sales revenue uplift scenario

2

Where is it today?

3

What share is language-driven, and what improvement do you expect?

Start at 25% and adjust to your team's language mix and customer base. If language is a key barrier in your sales environment, this may be higher.

How much of that at-risk revenue stronger language skills could win back. Adjust it to how much language matters for your team.

4

How much of this is down to language training?

Language is one factor among many. Pick the confidence level that fits — most teams leave this on Balanced.

We apply it as a range and use the midpoint for the headline. A higher band credits more of the gain to language training.

1

What are we measuring?

Production waste — errors, rework, and scrapped output that trace back to communication breakdowns.

  • A clear, real cost operations leaders recognise.
  • Language barriers also carry a safety and compliance dimension — surfaced alongside your results.

Source: Busuu Calculating Business Value deck (internal) · Vesselinov et al. 2025 (language-skill ROI, Duolingo/Harvard)

2

Where is it today?

Poor-quality work usually costs from a few percent up to the mid-teens. Default is 7.5% — adjust it to your operation.

3

How much of this waste is communication-driven?

Set this from what you see on the ground — you know your operation best. Default 35%.

Default 30%. Your estimate of how much language-linked waste better communication could remove.

4

How much of this is down to language training?

Language is one factor among many. Pick the confidence level that fits — most teams leave this on Balanced.

We apply it as a range and use the midpoint for the headline. A higher band credits more of the gain to language training.

1

What are we measuring?

Revenue at risk — when customer-facing teams don't share a language with customers, deals slip and customers feel unheard.

  • A daily reality for support, onboarding, and account-management teams working across markets.
  • Shows up as missed renewals, unresolved escalations, and avoidable churn.

Source: Busuu buyer research, customer-facing roles

2

Where is it today?

Start at 15% and adjust to your language mix and customer base.

3

What's the expected improvement?

Default 30%. Your estimate of how many language-friction issues stronger skills could fix.

4

How much of this is down to language training?

Language is one factor among many. Pick the confidence level that fits — most teams leave this on Balanced.

We apply it as a range and use the midpoint for the headline. A higher band credits more of the gain to language training.

Calculating your ROI…

Step 4 · Results

Your business case, at a glance

Based on your inputs — adjust anything and the numbers update live. Full methodology, formulas, and citations are on the page below.

Projected annual value with Busuu

€0 to €0

After your programme attribution, before programme budget

Return on investment

0%

Return multiple

Payback

Ready to turn this into your business case?

Talk to the team that has done this for 600+ organisations — we'll help you build a board-ready plan.

Get in touch

Here's the value your team could create

Total exposure is the whole problem if nothing changes. The ROI above compares only the part language training can realistically move — across your programme attribution — against your budget.

Your value statement appears here.

This is the business case you will need to make to your CFO in 12 months. The sooner the programme starts, the stronger that case becomes.

Defaults are starting estimates — adjust them to your figures. Full methodology, formulas, and citations are on the page below.

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Relaciona la formación en idiomas con las métricas pertinentes

Los responsables de formación que obtienen mejores resultados no presentan la formación en idiomas como un simple beneficio para los empleados. La vinculan directamente con indicadores de negocio como la retención del talento, la productividad, la reducción de riesgos y los ingresos.

Este cambio de enfoque contribuye a que la dirección vea que la formación en idiomas resuelve problemas operativos reales. Cuando los empleados se comunican con claridad, los proyectos avanzan más rápido, se cometen menos errores y es más fácil retener el talento.

Demostrar con datos el coste de no actuar puede ser complicado, ya que depende de los objetivos de tu empresa, del tamaño actual y futuro de los equipos, de los salarios medios y de muchos otros factores. Por eso, los casos de negocio más sólidos se centran en resultados que ya importan a la dirección y utilizan cifras que esta reconoce.

Preguntas frecuentes

¿Cómo se mide el ROI de la formación en idiomas para empresas?

El ROI depende de lo que más importe a tu empresa. Para algunas empresas, será reducir la rotación. Para otras, acelerar la incorporación, reducir los incidentes de seguridad o mejorar la satisfacción de los clientes. La clave está en definir primero tu objetivo y, después, medir los indicadores en los que las competencias lingüísticas pueden marcar la diferencia.

¿Qué métricas debería incluir un caso de negocio sobre formación en idiomas?

Un buen caso de negocio relaciona la formación con resultados pertinentes para la dirección y con métricas que esta reconoce. Algunos indicadores habituales son la tasa de retención de empleados, el salario medio y el coste por alumno. Prueba nuestra calculadora para descubrir qué métricas son más relevantes para tu empresa y hacerte una idea clara del valor que la formación en idiomas podría aportar a tu equipo.

¿Cómo influye la formación en idiomas en la retención del talento y la productividad?

Los empleados que sienten que la empresa apuesta por su desarrollo son más propensos a quedarse. La formación de idiomas también reduce las fricciones del día a día, ya que hay menos malentendidos, la colaboración es más ágil y la transferencia de conocimientos, más fluida. Cuando las personas pueden comunicarse con claridad, trabajan de forma más eficiente y se sienten más a gusto en su equipo.

¿Cuál es el coste de no actuar?

El coste de no actuar es lo que ya estás pagando por no abordar las barreras lingüísticas. Dicho de otro modo, es el coste de proyectos que avanzan más despacio, errores que se repiten, la pérdida de clientes y una mayor rotación. Esta herramienta te ayuda a calcular ese coste oculto para que puedas justificar la inversión con argumentos sólidos.