Will off-the-job training work for your company?

 
Advantages 

1. If the course has been designed by a staff member it can be delivered to fit in with the employee's regime and workload, so it does not affect productivity.
2. It can work out extremely cost effective as no hotel fees, trainer fees or extra equipment are incurred, all is provided in-house and in works time, for the small business this is an ideal way of training staff.
3. Depending on the course, employees are able to meet other employees perhaps from other branches or departments they would not have normally met, this improves communication within your organisation.
4. As employees are familiar with the trainer and the environment they are being taught in, this would help them to feel more relaxed.
5. The person developing the course would be able to gauge the level of ability and content for the course to be taught as they work within your company. 
6. As many commercial or educational programs are standardised, in house courses would be more relevant and adaptable to the needs of your company.

 Disadvantages 

1. Extra Audio or Visual aids to aid learning (whiteboard, Overhead projector, projector, video etc) might not be available and so this would mean courses might be basic or substandard.
2. As a member of staff may be delivering the course rather than an experienced trainer, the employees might not take the course seriously and this might hamper learning.
3. Employee rivalry and banter may mean that employees bypass the course and undervalue its content as they think they know better or have better ways of doing it.
4. Depending on the teaching skills of the employee training the members of staff, they might not be able to gauge the existing abilities, knowledge, skill or need for training, and so employees attending the course might already know what is being taught.
5. If the need for training has not accurately been gauged this would result in the work space being wasted where it could have been utilised more productively.
6. If resources are limited, equipment available may be different than that used by the employees and this would be counter productive.
7. Employees may feel devalued if they are sent on an internal training course to improve skills rather than learn new ones, and so courses have to be selected and promoted to the employees very carefully and sensitively.