Employee training and development programs: strategies and outcomes

Training

When the organization determines that there is a need for a training program, it can choose between outsourcing the training, and conducting the training in-house. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Noe (2012) notes that in-house training gives you more control over the training process, but that sometimes the firm does not have the training capabilities needed to ensure that the training is going to be at its best. In-house training would involve having your own trainers -- who are fully familiar with the material -- and the facilities to conduct the training. Electronic training capabilities are another resource that the organization would want to have. Essentially, in-house training is an option that starts to make sense when the company is large and has significant ongoing training needs. That way, it will have the training infrastructure required already in place, such that it is only incremental investments that are made.

In a very small organization, in-house training might also be the best method, because you are dealing with what would be a one-on-one training situation. Alternately, if the training is related to something that is proprietary, such as the corporate culture, or I is something that can be done quickly and efficiently, but these are the factors that the company needs to look at.

There are certain situations where outside training might be better. In particular, if the external training program already exists and can be used in your organization with limited modification. An example would be a new piece of software -- maybe the organization is switching to Windows 8, or is installing some new software from SAP or something. Major software companies will have their own, well-established training programs. There are other situations as well -- say you are opening a new office in Mexico and need to train some of your people on Mexican customs and laws. There are probably firms that specialize in that sort of training, so it would be easy to use an off-the-shelf training solution. It must be remembered, however, that with many off-the-shelf training solutions, the organization that is buying the training maybe has less control over the training content. This could reduce the effectiveness of the training, though sometimes outsourcing firms will allow clients to customize the training to some degree.

With respect to cost savings, there is no guarantee that in-house or outsourced training will prove to be cheaper. First, there are differences in efficiency that will affect the total cost, but that will depend on what is being trained. The outsourced training will also include a markup, for profit, of the training company. So even if the outsourcing company is more efficiency, it would have to be so much more efficient that its training, with the markup, is still cheaper (assuming equivalent effectiveness) than the in-house option.