Road Trip or Staying Put? Why training in-house makes sense

By Richard Barr – Principal Associate at Citadel Advantage.

The benefits of in-house training are obvious yet few managers explore that option. An organization’s staff is its greatest asset. In-house training allows an organization to minimize costs while increasing its effectiveness and impact on staff.

A quick internet search shows that a 2-day public training course for the banking sector, in Europe, cost on average EUR 1,665 per person (I found it to be between EUR 1,495 & EUR 1,995), but you also need to cover other expenses such as hotel, airfare & per diem allowances. So rather than write a book on the benefits of in-house training, I’m going to let the financial numbers prove my point.

Let’s use the modest quantity of 10 participants to train.

• The fee on a public course is 10 people X EUR 1,665 = EUR 16,650. 
• Unless you’re lucky enough to have the desired course where you’re located hotel accommodation for 10 people in a reasonable establishment for 2 nights would cost another EUR 150 per night per room, equaling EUR 3,000.
• Airfares vary greatly but let’s say you’re using one of the budget airlines so each ticket is a mere EUR150. We times that by 10 people to get EUR 1,500. 
• Let’s do ground transport on a budget as well and use bus, train or underground to get to & from the airports, as well as between our hotel & course venue. Let’s use the miserly sum of EUR 50 per person or EUR 500 for the group. 
• People have to eat. Lunch is usually covered in the course fees and breakfast at the hotel. This leaves Dinner. Let’s be mingy on that and only give each employee EUR 20 per day. That’s EUR 25 X 2 days X 10 people = 500.

Adding all those components gives us a total figure of EUR 22,150 for 10 employees to attend a single 2-day public training course.

On top of that you need to add lost days for travel time.

Now let’s bring the trainer to your location and look at the costs of training those same 10 employees in-house. It’s a little trickier to find outside sources so I’ll use what my firm charges, as well as show the other expenses.

• 2-day training course for 10 participants, including trainer’s airfare, ground transport & per diem allowance is EUR 6,995.
• 3 nights hotel for the trainer is EUR 450.
• Printing of course materials 10 staff X EUR 25 = EUR 250.
• If you have a conference room on premises the venue is “Free” if not, you’ll need to rent a training room. Regus does that nicely & we’ve used them on occasion. The 2 days including breaks (coffee/tea & biscuits) and lunches would cost about EUR 1,200.

Adding all those parts, we get a total figure of EUR 8,895 for 10 employees to attend a 2-day in-house training course.

And ZERO lost days for travel time.

That’s EUR 8,895 vs. EUR 22,150 ! By holding an event in-house with the same course, same trainer, and same participants you are going to save yourself EUR 13,255. You are going to pay a mere 40% of what a public course will cost.

Now let’s expand that number of participants by 7 times. How much more one can save by training in-house? I can tell you because we’ve had clients do just that.

• Public course: 70 people would cost a whopping EUR 155,050. 
• In-house: 70 people is too many for a successful course so we split the 70 staff members into three groups and held the same course 3 times in succession. Total cost to the client EUR 29,900.

In other words for the same EUR 29,900 you can either train 13 employees on a public course or 70 employees in-house. Which makes more sense to you?

oOo

For details of how we can help you with your training needs please feel free to contact Richard directly at richard@citadeladvantage.com or at courses@citadeladvantage.com