There are plenty of advantages for your business when hiring apprentices – from loyalty to upskilling your staff. Today I’m going to tell you a few of these benefits!
- Loyalty:
When employees are trained in-house, they tend to stay more committed to your company, increasing your staff loyalty and employee retention rates. With the ability to move up with the qualifications gained (e.g. within recruitment an apprentice can do Level 2 all the way up to level 5), employees have the ability to learn and grow with your company.
- Skills:
By employing apprentices within your business, you can not only provide skilled workers in the future, but you can also fill skills gaps within the company. Improving the skills of your employees will benefit the company in the long term, and these skills can be tailored to the company’s needs.
Using apprenticeships as a way of developing the skills of your workforce is a great way of both recruiting and retaining new staff, and upskilling your existing team.
- Experience:
A further advantage of apprenticeships is that they can free up the calendars of existing staff, giving them more time to focus on key areas of the company. By delegating more basic tasks to apprentices, they also get the opportunity to learn more about the position and take more responsibility for themselves. This adds to the productivity of your business!
- Funding:
From May 2017 there will be a major reform to how apprenticeship funding works, making the funding system much simpler. This reform means that “in addition to the price that the employer and provider agree for training to 16-18 year olds on a framework, the provider will also receive a payment from government equivalent to 20% of the funding band maximum for that framework.” with this uplift also applying to 19-24 year olds who were formerly in care or who have an Education and Health Care plan.
Additionally, “providers will receive an additional £600 for training on a framework an apprentice who lives in the top 10% of deprived areas (as per the Index of Multiple Deprivation), £300 for any apprentice who lives in the next 10% of deprived areas (the 10-20% range), and £200 for those in the next 7% (the 20-27% range).”
More information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/562401/Apprenticeship_funding_from_May_2017.pdf
- Age:
It’s not just young people who undertake apprenticeships, these schemes can actually provide opportunities for an older workforce. According to Age Action Alliance, over 55,000 of those who started an apprenticeship in 2014/15 were aged 45-59, and with an extra 3,400 being over 60 years old.
This can benefit people who are returning to work or beginning a new career, giving them more opportunities than ever before!
I hope that this has given you a better idea of how apprenticeships can benefit your business. If you are looking to recruit, we are now offering a free recruitment consultation where one of our expert team can tell you the best method of recruitment for you – no strings attached!