Pros and cons of on-job and Off-job training

One advantage of on- job training is that, work is not compromised by the training. According to Ulrich (Ulrich, 1996), this is because the employees receive training as they work and hence their training does not take them away from their work. This type of training requires minimum investment in financial resources since a company does not incur expenses in transport and hiring of training facilities as it would be necessary in off- job training.
For instance, classroom lectures in off-job training may require a company to hire facilities away from the office. Because on- job training is done within the working environment, a company saves resources it would have used to facilitate training outside the office. According to an article (People and Organizations. Accessed on November 25, 2008), on- job training promotes easy application of what is learned because what is learned is immediately applied in the working environment.
One disadvantage of on- job training is that, training may fail to be effective if the employees concentrate highly on work rather than the training. Because both work and training are done simultaneously, employees may be tempted to loose focus from the training and instead concentrate on the work. This can be common in jobs where employees are paid on commission. For instance, sales and marketing jobs where employees are paid depending on their productivity may encourage the employees to concentrate more on their work rather than the training.

In on- job training, coaching and teaching requires specialist skills. If the trainer lacks the necessary knowledge and skills, then the training done may not be effective. If the trainers in the on- job training have bad practices and behaviors, the likelihood of passing over the bad behavior to the employees during the on- job training is high. Substandard training may occur in on- job training when the trainers lack adequate time to spend and teach the employees.
On- job training is beneficial to the employees as it creates more confidence in employees due to the supervision and guidance given during work. In addition, the assessment on the progress and improvement in employee training becomes easy for the supervisors and managers during on- job training. Off- job training involves the employees training where courses are taken away from the working environment. It is also referred to as “Formal training”.
Off- job training courses are conducted by external providers or a company’ training department. This method has several merits. One of the merits is that employees who undertake this kind of training have an opportunity to mix with employees from other companies if training involves the bringing together of employees from other companies. Another benefit of this training over the on- job training is that, employees are not distracted by their work and therefore are more able to focus on the training .
This view is supported by Van Buren et al (Van Buren and Erskine, . 2002). One of the demerits of the off- job training is that it increases the training costs incurred by companies during training. For instance, costs of transport, materials, accommodation, course fees and examination fees. In addition, when off- job training content is not directly relevant to the employees’ job, the training may be ineffective. As compared to on- job training, off- job training will require more motivation to learn.