Skilling your staff is certainly a great way to enhance your staff morale, profits as well business performance. Regular training programs give the organization an opportunity to up skill their workforce with new skill sets or impart target skills to meet the organizational as well as project goals. Besides, professional training programs show how much you value your employees. Investing in your employees will improve their loyalty, thereby ensuring superior retention. Less or minimal employee turnover will help you to save huge.
However, one of the major concerns employers are facing today is, the dilemma between sending their employees for a different location for training or conducting them in-house. Internal training offers both employees and employers certain advantages, which are not found when the employees are sent on a seminar or on an external training program. For this reason, numerous employers prefer on-site or in-house training programs on several areas, such as sales training, management programs as well as health and safety, to name a few.
Like any other aspect, even in-house training has some downsides associated with it. Therefore, it is always better to weigh its paybacks against its drawbacks. This helps organizations in making better informed decisions.
Paybacks of In-House Training Programs
- Reduced Cost Per Delegate – In-house training programs will help you to save huge on your training costs. This is because, the cost per delegate is extremely less when compared to that of sending your staff out to other public training courses
- Zero Travel Costs – As your employees do not have to travel anywhere, you do not have to incur any extra expenses
- More Focused and Highly Specific Training – Conducting training program for a single client facilitates more focused learning. The training can be provided for specific issues within the organization
- Customized Training for Better Results – Getting your employees trained together will make the training more fruitful. This also gives your staff to discuss current problems and real examples
- Conduct at Your Ease – By conducting training programs in-house, you will be able to fit the training schedules conveniently without hampering the productive hours of your employees
- Best Way to Build and Strengthen Your Team – Training delegates from different departments under one roof is the best way to enhance awareness, provide better understanding on their individual roles as well as achieve greater team work
Costs and Downsides of In-House Training Programs
Although in-house professional training programs offer several paybacks, there are certain downsides that are worth considering. Evaluating these will help employers in making better informed decisions. Following are some of the drawbacks:
- Extra administrative burden of ensuring that there are suitable and sufficient number of training rooms for the training
- Trainer parking, training equipment as well as getting the delegates to the venue should also be taken care
- Most of the times, employees might attend the training just to take a break from their routine work and might not take it seriously
- Your employees might lose out on networking opportunities if they do not go to new venue and meet new people
Therefore, if you are an organization offering in-house training using your in-house resources, then it is better to make sure that your employees go on certain external courses. This helps in keeping your employees updated with skills and ensure that they are using relevant and updated best practices. However, if you are planning to hire some external training providers and trainers, then ensure that you communicate with them before the training commences. This is the ‘Golden Rule’ to ensure that the trainers are aware of all the requirements and deliver what is expected. Therefore, the above comparison will help you to make better decisions, if you plan to conduct professional training programs.
Reference:
https://www.optimuslearningservices.com/practical-ld/advantages-disadvantages-house-training/