Almost all companies need to have their employees trained, starting from orientation training to advanced training, recurrent training, on the job training and classroom training.
But should your company build its own training department or rely on external training providers?
Most CEO’s or business owners look at this matter from a financial view only. This is wrong, it’s not only about money. If you base your entire decision making on money only then you have a surprise ahead of you.
Let’s look at the key factors that will help you in deciding whether to have your own training department or to rely on external training providers.
1-Low Cost: when you hire an external training provider you only pay them for the desired training. But if you have your own training staff you have a monthly salary, equipment costs for the training department, training staff development costs, turnover rate, promotions and many more.
2-Acess to knowledge: external training providers may have more knowledge in the training field than your own training staff, but what they don’t have is complete knowledge about how your day to day operation runs. Your training department staff however have in-depth knowledge about your daily operation, know all the staff members and know the employees learning style, which will reduce the duration of each training course.
3-Needs are filled: Your own training team will have conducted TNA and know what is needed to provide custom tailored training based on the employee and company needs. External training providers will not bother with the hassle to conduct TNA or you as a CEO or owner will not want the external providers to conduct TNA as it will increase the cost paid to them. So they will simple provide training as it as. This will result in achieving only 80% of the achievement that you desired from the training.
4-Absence, Travel, Holidays: If you opt for external training providers most likely your employees will have to go to their training location, which will result in them being absent from work since training is provided during working hours/days. Also you will have to search for someone to cover their absence. If you force them to go after working hours or non-working days that will result in your employees going to a training that they are forced to and they will not benefit from anything in that training since they will feel resentful. If your own training department conducts the training then they can conduct the training during working hours when the staff will not have to be absent, the operating of the company will not be effected.
5-Meeting people: In external training your employees will get a good chance of meeting new people from other companies which is a good opportunity for networking that may allow new business opportunity but also may allow your current employees to find other jobs in other companies. In-house training provides employees with the opportunity to get to know each other, many of your employees will work in different departments and hardly interact with each other otherwise.
Company size is another differentiator in deciding whether to opt for in-house or external training providers. If you have a range of 10 to 20 employees and they are all juggling the work among them then go with external training providers, as your budget will not allow you to maintain your own training department. If your employee numbers range from 20 to 50 it is more beneficial for you to have your own training department as you are growing.
If you really want to have your staff well trained and equipped with the latest skills and knowledge, then have in-house training along with external training. It will provide them with a huge amount of knowledge.
