Apprenticeships for employers – getting started

Apprenticeships allow people of all ages to earn while they learn and gain the skills they need to build a rewarding and fulfilling career.

The UK Government announced their plans to introduce the Apprenticeship Levy in the Summer Budget of 2015 and it came into effect at the start of the 2017/18 tax year on 6 April 2017.

1. Establish how much you have accumulated in your apprenticeship levy pot

Register on Gov.uk to set up and access your Digital Apprenticeship Services (DAS) account. Once you have identified who you want to train and decided on the right apprenticeship standard, you should add your apprentices to the DAS in order to begin unlocking your levy pot.

The levy can be spent on a number of elements related to apprenticeships however it cannot be spent on travel costs, management costs, any required licenses, the apprentices wages or the costs involved in setting up the apprenticeship – these costs must be borne by the organisation.

Register on Gov.uk

2. Find out much funding could be available towards your apprentices training costs.

The HM Government Apprenticeships website also provides more information for employers and apprentices.

Visit apprenticeships.gov.uk

3. Understand what areas of your business would benefit. You can use your levy to educate and develop new recruits, as well as developing the capabilities, skill-set and commercial nous of your current team.

We can help you with initial skill scans, development and training appraisals and we can help you to develop programmes on an individual basis, or we can develop a tailored programme for your organisation, incorporating any existing training or development programmes you currently provide. There are range of options we can explore with you to in order to get the right development programme and apprenticeship standards for your requirements.

4. Talk an Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) registered apprenticeship training provider

When you are considering your options, we would recommend that you speak to a few providers to ensure you get the right fit – personalities, values and expertise come to the fore when considering leadership & management and coaching & mentoring apprenticeships.

There are a number of apprenticeship programme training providers, but not all are equal in terms of their experience, track record and learner support they offer, so do your homework in advance.

The apprenticeship programme should fit around your business needs and requirements, and should be flexible to accommodate the apprentice’s day job responsibilities.

There should be a double benefit in terms of the apprentices’ development and the immediate impacts on the business, so do ensure that you discuss the learning timetable and the key stages of the programme with your provider so that you and the apprentice know what to expect and when.

5. Designing a new apprenticeship programme or refreshing an existing programme?

We have provided a few headline pointers on the key steps involved. We would anticipate this would form part of our agenda at our initial apprenticeship programme planning meeting.

STEP 1: Analyse the requirement for apprenticeships at level 3, 5 and 7.

STEP 2: Identify what success looks like at each level for the learners and your organisation.

STEP 3: Consider what the obstacles to success are likely to be AND get buy-in from the key directors and sponsors in your organisation.

STEP 4: Develop a “smart” route to achieving the learning outcomes for each of the apprenticeships at level 3, 5 and 7. We can provide indicative timetables and learning journeys for a range of apprenticeship standards.

We can use these as are foundation and make each programme bespoke to your requirements at each level. We would look to you to provide us with the steer on your aims for the programme and how we can help you to deliver your wider corporate objectives by using the learning programmes as a pathfinder, reaffirmation or as part of wider leadership and engagement strategy in your organisation.

STEP 5: Think about the learner experience and consider how this can be optimised in terms of the approaches we take, the structure of the programme, corporate objectives for e.g. inter functional working, team collaboration within and across business areas within your organisation.

STEP 6: Identify how technology can help (and hinder), we provide in-person and virtual workshops, virtual 1-2-1s and hybrid solutions that fit with your requirements.

Linked to STEP 4 and your objectives, as well as the potential geography implications for your employees. We recommend that in-person sessions, in whichever form they take during the learning journey, will underpin our thinking and the recommendations we make to you on the best route forward for your programme.

STEP 7: Think about what practical support learners will need. There will no doubt be a range of learners from a variety of backgrounds at a range of stages on their learning journey.

Some may even have stopped over somewhere one night and never got back on the horse. Not being flippant, but we do deal with all types of learner at the Academy. Our faculty is well equipped for a range of learning interventions. We look to you to tell us what need to know:

What new skills, expertise and capabilities do you require your people to learn and develop?

It’s important for us to take a deep dive into your side of the house so that we can understand more about your people, their development plans and requirements, and we can match them with up with the right tutors and coaches. Getting this right and the chemistry working early on is a key element of our approach.

If you have recently conducted appraisals, or skill scan type evaluations, of your employees it would be very useful for us to understand more about the individuals and any group requirements, where appropriate, their development needs and work/learning objectives.

We would recommend that in advance of any apprenticeship programmes starting that we arrange a getting to know you planning session with your senior team, and line managers where appropriate.

You can brief us on your business objectives for the programme, the learners’ objectives and development points e.g. project management, financing, leading teams, and if there are any group requirements e.g. linked to department working or cross-dept projects we can ensure that these elements are considered at the programme design stage.

STEP 8: Agree review and reporting requirements. A short point, but the most important. Setting the metrics we will use to measure performance and impact of the apprenticeship programs.

STEP 9: Create, design and develop the learning programme / or extension to existing programme. We can have provide examples of how we have worked with other clients to promote, deliver and measure the impact of apprenticeship programmes, and that will demonstrate our offering will be for – we will shape and mould this to your specific requirements.

STEP 10: Develop the apprentice recruitment marketing strategy and plan. Implement the promotional tactics, recruit apprentices, and begin delivering the apprenticeship programmes. We would suggest a pilot group e.g. at each level, review feedback, then begin a roll out to suit your overall objectives.

We look forward to helping you to develop, design and implement your apprenticeship standards training programmes.

Academy of Apprenticeships

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