Outsourced L&D
Outsourcing works until it reaches the part that cannot leave the building.
Most outsourcing hands over a process and gets a report back. Talent development has one piece that cannot travel, which is the manager who sees the person at work. Everything else here is carried. This page draws the line where it actually falls.
What the term means
Outsourced L&D, defined.
Companies have outsourced pieces of training for decades: buy a library, hire a facilitator, bring a consultant in for a project. Outsourcing the function is a different order of thing. One provider owns the whole list, from designing the material to reporting what changed, and your side approves and reviews rather than administers.
It is worth doing at this size because the list costs roughly the same whether six people or sixty are being developed. An enterprise absorbs that with a department. Everyone else was asked to absorb it with nobody, which is why the honest description of talent development at most companies of 50 to 2,500 is a shared inbox and good intentions.
Why this costs the same at two hundred people as at ten thousand →
How Thrive fits
The line, and why it falls where it does.
Thrive carries design, live delivery, setup, enrollment on request, coaching between sessions, and reporting. Facilitators who have held the role run every live session. Morgan sets the organization up from a list of your people, in under an hour. Coach Taylor enrolls somebody when they ask and answers between sessions. Nobody on your side has to become an administrator for any of that to happen.
One job deliberately does not cross. Applied work in the program goes back to the participant’s own manager, with the prompts to review it, and not to us. Reviewing it ourselves would be easier to sell and would quietly remove the only person whose attention changes how somebody behaves on a Tuesday. So the ask is a manager who will spend twenty minutes, and it is made before you buy rather than after.
Who arrives at this page
- Companies about to post an L&D role who would rather see the function running before they write the job description.
- HR teams of one to three people carrying training on the side of a job that is already full.
- Multi-site companies that need the same program run the same way in three locations without flying anybody anywhere.
The same function is also searched for as Fractional L&D and L&D as a service. Different argument, same product.
The line
Seven jobs, allocated.
Five cross the line. One stays with your managers on purpose. One is carried by nobody yet, and saying which is which is the only version of this page worth publishing.
Carried
Designing the material
One hundred thirty-six courses across four libraries, fifty-six of them free in the compliance library, plus sixteen live workshop topics. Nothing to write, nothing to license, nothing to keep current.
Carried
Delivering it live
Facilitators who have held the role, in public cohorts and on a published workshop schedule. Two hours, twenty-five seats, small enough that somebody watches each person practice.
Carried
Enrolling and scheduling
Morgan sets the organization up from a spreadsheet of your people. Coach Taylor enrolls somebody when they ask. There is no implementation phase and no administrator to name.
Carried
Coaching between sessions
Coach Taylor answers on the situation the person is actually in, at whatever hour the question happens, without a booking and without costing one of your managers an hour.
Carried
Reporting what changed
Progress and completion reporting in the platform for your admins, so whoever approved this can see what happened without asking us for a deck.
Yours, on purpose
Reviewing the applied work
The program hands applied work back to the participant’s own manager with the prompts to review it. This is the one job we will not take, because taking it would remove the only person in the arrangement whose opinion the participant has to live with.
Nobody’s, yet
Reminding and following up
Not automated. Coach Taylor answers when asked and does not chase anyone. Scheduled reminders are on the roadmap and are not in the product today, which means this job currently falls back on whoever at your company cares most.
What this is not
This is not a staffing arrangement. Nobody from Thrive sits in your leadership meetings, writes your policy, runs your performance cycle, or documents how your company works. If what you need is a person in the building, hire one. If what you need is your own processes written down, that is a different product and there are good ones. What is being outsourced here is the function, not a headcount.
Who teaches
Held the job. Not studied it.
Content is the easy part to buy. A dozen vendors will sell you a library this afternoon. What none of them sells is the person who has already done the job, live, for two hours, watching your people practice it.
Every Thrive session is led by someone who has done the work they are teaching: run a shift, carried a quota, managed a team through a change, sat across from the person who needed the hard conversation. They bring the real version of the problem into the room, and the practice is done on your people’s actual work, not on a case study.
Sessions are small enough that a facilitator can watch each person practice and coach the delivery. Between sessions, Coach Taylor keeps the thread going.
- Session size
- 25 max
- Length
- 2 hours
- Format
- Live
- Where
- Teams
The price
One flat price for the whole organization.
The band is set by how many people you employ, and that is the only thing it sets. Nothing is metered, nothing is held back for a higher band, and adding people inside your band costs nothing. Cohort programs are the one line priced per participant, because a facilitator and a fixed group size are a real constraint.
| Organization size | Monthly | Annual | Per person, per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compliance LibraryAny size, no card | Free | Free | Nothing, at any size. |
| Thrive Platformup to 100 employees | $399 | $3,990 | $3.99 at 100 people, and less every time you hire inside the band. |
| Thrive Platform101-500 employees | $799 | $7,990 | $1.60 at 500 people, and less every time you hire inside the band. |
| Thrive Platform501-2,500 employees | $1,499 | $14,990 | $0.60 at 2,500 people, and less every time you hire inside the band. |
| Above 2,500 employees | Set with you, not looked up. Usually with private cohorts of your own. | ||
This table has no column for what is included, because the answer does not change by band: live workshops, all one hundred thirty-six courses across four libraries with fifty-six of those free in the compliance library, Coach Taylor for every learner, Morgan for setup, and the reporting. Annual billing is ten months charged for twelve months of access. A monthly plan is one month, charged once; nothing renews on its own yet.
Talk to ARIA
Ask what you would ask us.
ARIA works the way a good first call works. She asks who is involved and what should change, recommends the closest starting point, quotes the real price, and hands you to a person when you want one.
Start with one of these
Prefer a person? Say so in the conversation and the team follows up, or use the contact page.
Questions
Questions about outsourced l&d.
What is outsourced L&D?
Handing the talent development function to a provider rather than staffing it: designing material, delivering it live, enrolling and scheduling, coaching between sessions, and reporting. The company chooses who goes and reviews what comes back. The provider carries the rest.
What will not be outsourced?
Reviewing applied work. The program sends it back to the participant’s own manager with prompts, because a provider marking it would remove the person whose attention actually changes behavior. Deciding who to develop stays with you as well. And reminding people is currently carried by nobody: Coach Taylor answers when asked but does not chase, and scheduled reminders are on the roadmap rather than in the product.
What do you need from us to start?
A list of the people to enroll and a manager willing to spend twenty minutes on the applied work that comes back. Setup is run by an agent and takes under an hour. There is no implementation project, no content migration, and nobody on your side who has to learn a system.
Can an outsourced provider use our own situations?
Yes. In public cohorts each participant works on a real situation from their own job, so the material lands on your problems even in a shared room. A private cohort runs on your situations across the whole group and is scheduled around your calendar.