As one of the few providers that provide open and public funded programmes, we have the ability to offer both open and closed programmes. 

Open courses are where one or two people from a company can join other people from different companies to learn together in the same workshop. Closed programmes take a group of people from the same company and train them in isolation... There is some debate in the sector as to the pros and cons of each approach and they certainly both have their merits...

But which approach is most effective?

In short, it depends on what you are looking for, so here are the points to consider regarding closed programmes:

• You are able to tailor them to your specific organisational culture / requirements, ensuring that you get exactly what you are looking for
• You are able to control the logistics, dates and timings of the training
• You are able to curate the groups in terms of who is in them, to courage team building and networking
• Usually there is more time to explore the content with the provider and discuss how it might be implemented back in the workplace
• There is a consistency and unity of what people are learning that can be discussed, explored and mirrored across the entire organisation

With regards to open programmes you could consider the following:

• You get diversity of opinion and experience, different people from different organisations with different perspectives
• People have the freedom to learn away from their colleagues and may feel more comfortable to talk about what they are struggling with in a neutral environment
• Learners get space and time away from the office to learn, free from distractions
• It can of course give you an affordable option when you do not have 6-10 people to train at the same time
• It allows you to find specific courses for specific learning needs within the organisation

So as you can see, both have their places in the learning and development world, it just depends on the objectives and constraints of the business at the time and the needs of the learner/s.