For Employers: Identifying Problems an Apprenticeship Can Solve

It’s important to first assess the needs and goals for the program you wish to create. This will allow you to determine if launching an apprenticeship program makes sense for your company.

Right now, your company might be focused on innovation and bringing people in from different backgrounds to help fill the knowledge and creativity gaps caused by hiring from your routine pipelines. Your goals might be to focus on targeting and recruiting underrepresented groups; people who wouldn’t otherwise have a clear pathway to get into tech. You may be facing incredible growth opportunities and need an immediate entry level talent pool outside of the regular school year. For each company, the goals, constraints, and resources may be different.

It’s crucial to self-assess before making any commitments or taking action. Having a clear, realistic understanding of what you are trying to solve for and why is a great place to start.

Benefits of an Apprenticeship Program

• Fosters more inclusive, reciprocal, growth mindset oriented team culture
• Opens the candidate pool and helps foster and support diversity initiatives
• Creates opportunity and data to support improving company processes, best practices, and communication
• Improves retention and increases productivity over time
• Builds a competitive edge through a well-trained and flexible workforce
• Supports the scale of fast growth
• Saves time and money in recruiting and onboarding talent
• Breathes new life into more senior heavy development teams

Why Should My Company Start an Apprenticeship?

• Typically 80% or more of apprentices transition to full time employment after completing their programs.
• According to the US Department of Labor, for every dollar spent on an apprenticeship program, businesses report they they receive an average $1.47 return in increased productivity, reduced waste, and greater front line innovation.

What are Common Motivators for Starting an Apprenticeship?

Training and Capacity Building

• How might we become an organization in which everyone can and does learn to program?
• How might we become a top employer in our area through a culture of growth mindset and people development?

Diversity and Inclusion

• How might we hire more candidates from underrepresented groups?
• How might we balance our teams via providing a more equitable and inclusive hiring process?

Peer Pressure from Competitors

• How might we get candidates earlier in their careers, before our competitors?
• How might we improve our employer brand to match the programs offered by our competitors?

Innovation in the Hiring Process

• How might we experiment with our junior candidate hiring process in order to drive new, unique improvements across the engineering organization?
• How can we foster and encourage ownership mentality and experimentation by letting our recruiters drive new hiring initiatives?

PR and Marketing

• How might we improve our employer brand and become thought leaders in the people development space?
• The events of 2020 created urgency to take action and demonstrate our values. What do we want our company to be known for in the industry? What stories and initiatives might represent us as taking further action towards our values?

Recruiting Costs

• How might we decrease the time, effort, and money it takes to hire an engineer?

What is Your Company’s Main Motivator?

A few great places to start might be:

• Mapping your annual company wide goals to your apprenticeship’s goals
• Mapping your quarterly department goals to your apprenticeship’s goals
• Mapping your company values and mission to your apprenticeship’s goals
• Identifying a program sponsor on the leadership team and scheduling a meeting to discuss priorities and goals

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