Training can make or break a technologist and the associated implementation of a new technology. But do you get the training you believe you need to do your job to the best possible outcome?
At a previous employment location (a public school district), they couldn't pay the going rate for IT staff, but they compensated by providing excellent training and more PTO. They flew me anywhere that offered the right training--Boston, Chicago, Santa Clara, Fort Worth, Atlanta--no problem.
Because of that I stuck with them for years. Eventually their training & pay policies worked against them, and the employees learned they could make a lot more with their new skills if they jumped ship; many did.
My current employer has had varying training policies that have met with failure or success. For a while it was any training, anywhere, was OK. Then it was only local training, and no paying for outside experts to come in. If the local vendors couldn't offer it, too bad. Then it became OK to travel up to 150 miles, but no further. Currently they bought an "unlimited" training package for each of us (@$2100/each) from Stormwinds for online training. It's not up-to-date training on the latest & greatest things we need (ISE 2.0, ACI, FirePOWER, etc.), so I find limited use in it. It would be great for a new guy just starting out in the basics, though.
Training used to cost $2K for a week, including travel (back in the '90's). Now it's more like $6K or more for 5 days, including air travel, car rental, lodging, & food.
But you can't hire a new employee for that, nor can you hire an outside gun to come in for that same money and be your long-term solution for that technology.
Management always has tough decisions, but (to me) this one seems easy: budget all your staff to have at least two weeks of off-site training every year, and include more budget for every new technology you're going to adopt and employ.
There are those who argue off-site / in-person training is obsolete or unnecessary. I find it to be the opposite: I get much more learning when I'm away from the constant e-mails, phone calls, and cube-drive-by's at the office than I do with online training. Plus, being away from the home office is refreshing--a good attitude-fixing experience.
I pick up so much from the instructors and students before class, during lunch, and after class when we go out for supper together. In my opinion, off-site training, and its travel costs, far outweighs the supposed "benefits" of taking online training from your office.
The benefits of only allowing online training are lower cost (no travel, hotel, etc.), and keeping an employee at work in case there is need for their assistance during an issue or outage.
Drawbacks I see for online-only training are lower amounts of learning due to interruptions, fewer new important personal contacts being made (face to face, pre-class, post-class, during lunch, etc.), and less mental rejuvenation.