The advantages and disadvantages of sending training your staff using this method

Advantages 

1. This type of training gets employees away from their work environment to a place where their frustrations and bustle of work are eliminated.  This more relaxed environment can help employees to absorb more information as they feel less under pressure to perform.
2. Can be a source to supply the latest information, current trends, skills and techniques for example current employment legislation or other company law and regulations, current computer software or computerised technologies or improved/innovative administrative procedures.  These new skills can be brought back and utilised within the company.
3. Experts in their field would cover these courses, and this would mean that training for staff members would be taught to a reasonable standard.
4. As the courses are held externally, our company would not have added costs incurred as a result of extra equipment or additional space.
5. Sending an employee on a course could help to make an employee feel more valued as they would feel as if they are receiving quality training.
6. As many courses or seminars invite employees form other companies to attend, this would allow employees to network and perhaps drum-up business.

Disadvantages 

1. Depending on the course, the overall cost could prove quite expensive for example; many courses may require an overnight stay at a hotel if the course is outside the area or the course itself may prove to be expensive due to the level of expertise or equipment need to deliver the course.
2. As there is no real way to know the abilities both as a trainer and their subject knowledge of the people delivering the external training courses, there is no guarantee that sufficient skills of knowledge will be transfers or valuable.
3. Many courses do not have a system of assessment or standardisation of learning, so there is no set yardstick that can be guarantee learning has been achieved to a specified standard.
4. Sending employees to a training programme for one or two days would mean loss of production within the company.
5. As sending employees on a course can prove to be a positive experience for the employee; alternatively, it can also act as an act of disapproval or the current standard of an employee's performance and they need to be training to improve their work.
6. As most external training courses have a standardised content, this would mean that the content might not directly relate to the employees work situation, as the content would be so broad.
7. If employees are using the training companies equipment during the course, the equipment used may not be compatible with that used in their own company.