It’s well known that employers facing skills and staffing shortages need practical solutions that deliver immediate and long-term benefits.
Perhaps your company hires top talent, only to see them leave for a better offer soon after joining.
Or you invest in training staff, but they leave once fully qualified.
Such short-term fixes to address the skills gap can be costly.
The advantages of Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs)
A time-tested solution to building a talent pipeline, informed by international best practices, is available in the US.
Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAP) provide a modern, earn-while-workers-learn pathway to giving talent accredited, transferable skills, including essential soft skills.
Research (Marotta 2022) shows these modern-style apprenticeships can:
- Improve company performance
- Add a competitive advantage
- Lift the productivity of apprentices
- Increase staff retention and loyalty
- Boost workforce diversity
- Rejuvenate employee engagement, problem-solving skills, and flexibility
- Expand the number of workers with the skills, experience and work ethic to be future leaders in the company
Modern apprenticeships in diverse fields
Employers might not realize that more than 1,000 current occupations have registered apprenticeship programs.
And new types are being approved all the time, including in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, IT, cybersecurity, K-12 education healthcare, hospitality, and the food services sectors.
Here at the Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation America (IWSI), we have partnered with many employers who are struggling with staff and skills shortages in healthcare and social assistance.
Our conversations with employers led to IWSI securing more than $435K from the Californian Department of Industrial Relations for youth apprenticeship planning over two years.
This California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship (COYA), grant creates apprenticeship pathways into licensed nurse, dental technician, optical technician, medical assistant, community health worker, and forestry technician roles.
Other help is at hand – but planning is needed
Many employers find it daunting to set up and manage managing apprenticeship programs.
Just one in every 333 workers is an apprentice in the US.
In Australia, Austria, Canada, France Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the ratio is between one in 50 and one in 33 workers. The gap is wider for youth. The paucity of apprentices in the US is widespread among almost all industries.
But, the pathway into developing apprenticeship programs is not as great as some employers might think.
Significant federal and state funding and guidance are available to expand or create new RAPs, including those that encourage actively targeting and recruiting under-represented people, such as minorities, people with disabilities and formerly incarcerated people.
However, whoever you hire, business input is essential for these programs to succeed.
The aim is always to ensure these programs target skills for jobs in demand now and into the future.
RAPs are not short-term efforts focusing on what’s popular right now. They’re about finding the sweet spot between supply and demand to build relevant and sustainable workforce skills.
Maximizing the benefits of apprenticeships
Many employers already have the key component of an apprenticeship program in place: mentoring positions.
These offer company decision-makers an opportunity to create a new supervisory position for an experienced senior employee who’s got their finger on the pulse about highly valued (and needed) skills in their organization.
Mentoring is baked into RAPs.
To obtain the maximum benefits from RAPs, an employer should commit to the apprenticeship system well before the first apprentice begins work. There’s plenty that employers can do to boost efforts and results.
Employers who engage intensively with the apprenticeship ecosystem are more likely to achieve a sustainable RAPs and nurture increased longevity for their business.
How employers can ‘lean into’ apprenticeships
Here’s what employers can do to lift their level of engagement and therefore RAP results:
- Liaise closely with local high schools and community colleges
- Reach out to government agencies to facilitate communication, source incentives (financial and non-financial) and help in dealing with regulatory or structural barriers to apprenticeship programs
- Collaborate with government agencies, workforce development organizations, professional associations, educators
- Partner with an apprenticeship intermediary for technician design expertise, tips on navigating complex state and federal rules and access valuable resources
- Consider the group apprenticeship sponsor model where several employers across different organizations can contribute to scaling apprenticeships
- Save time by borrowing 75% of an existing apprenticeship standard and customize the rest of the competencies and skills that your unique business needs
- Customize your RAP to select training options (in-house, online, external, or a mix) and your state’s distinct requirements, and
- Understand a RAP will involve planning time, staff resources, salary funding, and more.
By actively engaging with the apprenticeship system and implementing these strategies, employers can successfully establish and maintain RAPs that benefit their businesses and the workforce.
RAPs offer a sustainable solution to addressing skills shortages and building a talented workforce for the future.
