In-house versus public scheduled training: what actually decides it

Sending one or two people to a public scheduled course is almost always more cost effective than arranging a private session for them alone. Once a group grows past six or seven delegates, an in-house programme usually becomes the cheaper option per person, and the crossover point often arrives sooner than people expect.

Courses that involve discussing internal processes, real incidents or sensitive organisational challenges tend to work far better in a private room. Delegates speak more openly when the only other people in the room are colleagues, and the facilitator can tailor examples to the organisation's actual systems.

Broader skills courses, such as communication or general project management, often benefit from a public setting instead. Mixing with delegates from other organisations and sectors exposes people to different ways of solving similar problems.

Public courses run on a fixed schedule, which works well when a date lines up with your team's calendar. An in-house programme can be scheduled around operational peaks, shift patterns or a specific project milestone, which is often the real reason organisations choose it over a public course of similar content.