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Hi Catherine,
I'm the Apprenticeships Officer for Warwickshire County Council, so I felt I should reply to this post!
I do whole-heartedly encourage you to run an apprenticeship scheme if you feel it can benefit your organisation, it is a brilliant way to build your future work force with the skills it requires and it offers younger people with less or no previous work experience to begin their careers. At WCC we have recruited over 60 apprentices in the last three years and the majority have been a great success, and have moved up the ladder into higher roles after completing their apprenticeship. We've found that having a cohort works well because the apprentices can do a lot of training together and they make friends within the organisation, which keeps them happy and motivated to stay, so if you have the capacity for a cohort I'd definitely endorse that.
Regarding training providers, they can be a mixed bag but overall they are a help. For our programme we don't provide the training for any apprenticeship frameworks, so all of our apprentices work with a training provider, and we have worked with several different providers now, depending on which frameworks they offer - some do more specialist qualifications than others. My advice is to do your homework and research a provider before you engage with them - what's their Ofsted grade? Have you heard positive/negative feedback about them? And remember that you are the customer, and should be treated as such, so if you're not happy with any aspect of their service, make sure they know about it.
Hope this is helpful.
Dan
Thanks Dan, very helpful!
Hi Catherine
Thanks for posting and a great question we operated a large apprenticeship scheme at EON where all the recruitment and training was completed in house it was a full time role for a number within the HR team.
In terms of training providers it can be a mixed bag, I have heard horror stories where some providers simply don't support the apprentices and leave the employer to it.
With that in mind my main recommendation would be to check what arrangements you place the apprentices on and not simply rely on the paperwork which the training provider provides. I have included some info below which may help:
Under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 an Apprenticeship Agreement is required at the commencement of the Apprenticeship for all new apprentices.
An employer that wishes to appoint an apprentice must comply with the following within the apprenticeship agreements:
It is a condition of the completion arrangements for an apprenticeship framework that an apprentice is employed under the prescribed form of apprenticeship agreement during the whole of the apprenticeship. The Apprenticeship Agreement can be in the form of a written statement of particulars; or a document in writing in the form of a contract of employment.
Kind regards
Sarah
Thanks Sarah, that's really helpful!
Hi Catherine,
Having inherited an employee on an Apprentice scheme (she was TUPE'd over to us), my main experience is more centered around the training company providing the apprenticeship. The company in question which facilitated my employee's apprenticeship has now gone into liquidation, but I found that my employee had been shoe-horned into a qualification which didn't really fit her job or what she wanted to do (she is a waitress, but the qualification was customer service, but aimed more at those who were in a specific customer call centre). This resulted in having to create opportunities/ scenarios that didn't always naturally occur in service so that she could jump through the relevant hoop. Again, it might just be this specific company, but there were also times when the tutor just wouldn't turn up/cancel at the last minute. I would make sure that with any apprentices you are looking to take on that the qualification really fits your company needs and objectives and that the company facilitating the qualifications aren't trying to fill up the less popular qualifications. Sorry to give a negative reply.
Thanks Emily, it's useful feedback - one of the things I'm considering is whether to use a training provider or to take care of the training ourselves. I may look in to the second option a little more - thanks again!