Following the summer riots there has been much debate about why our young people took to the streets and what could be done about it. One suggestion is for businesses to offer apprenticeships but how do you start and can they really benefit your company? We went to find out…
The riots that broke out in England's major towns and cities in early August gave birth to a multitude of social theories about their cause. The youth-led disorder was the result, some said, of broken homes, violent computer games, a failing education system, gang culture, unemployment, an obsession with material goods and just sheer boredom.
Some of the solutions were either well-worn – Bring Back National Service – or bizarre, Ban The Hoodie. But others argued that if young people say they feel hopeless, lost and uninspired then society should try to give them what they lack – jobs.
The National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) says that apprenticeship schemes play a key role in "enabling people to get the skills they need to play a part in our economy and society". But Dragons' Den star Deborah Meaden says that even well-organised schemes struggle to inspire febrile 2011 British youth. She said that it had taken her a year to fill three teenage apprenticeships at Fox Brothers mill – the Somerset textiles factory she owns – because they deemed manual labour to be "uncool".
Meaden abandoned her plan to fill the posts with 16 to 18-year olds and turned to those in their early twenties instead. "It has been really hard work to convince young people. It is about people not being interested in manual work. At 16 or 17, they're still thinking about what is cool and what they can tell their mates," she says.
So what role can apprenticeships, and the firms that create and run them, play in shaping youth? And how can they create hope and enthusiasm?
Business on board
FTSE-100 clothing retailer Next is pushing ahead with its new apprenticeship scheme. The programme aims to add 1,000 new employees to its 40,000-strong workforce. Describing the scheme as "ground-breaking", Next claims it is one of the first to be organised within the retail sector.
The recruits will be sourced from across the country and will take part in a six-month training programme organised by Pera Training. Once completed, the candidates gain a prized Level 2 Apprenticeship consisting of a Level 2 Diploma in retail, a certificate in retail knowledge, and key skills in literacy and numeracy. The apprentices also receive benefits such as a staff discount, uniform allowance and a successful completion bonus. The scheme is backed by the NAS, which points out that interest in creating similar schemes is equally strong in the SME community.
Ann Gill at the NAS says the service works with hundreds of SMEs on a daily basis. "Small businesses have many thousands of apprentices working with them. And in the past five months alone we have spoken to over 15,000 small businesses who are interested in introducing apprentices," says Gill.
Setting up
The NAS says the first step is for employers to discuss their exact training needs with one of its representatives. A suitable training provider is then identified once the employer has confirmed the number of current employees and new recruits who want to start an apprenticeship.
The average length of an apprenticeship across all age groups is around 13 months. An intermediate-level scheme takes on average 11 months whereas one at an advanced level lasts around 17 months. The final stage is the recruitment process: vacancies are advertised and then suitable applicants selected.
The NAS states that apart from the benefits of helping youngsters into work the schemes can also boost your bottom line. It says apprentices are cheaper to hire than other employees – they earn
£2.60 an hour. And it adds that 81 per cent of consumers favour companies that employ apprentices, with a further 81 per cent of employers which run schemes declaring that apprentices
make their business more productive.
Gill reckons the benefits of setting up a scheme are tangible. "Apprenticeships provide measurable business benefits for employers. They bring productive, enthusiastic and loyal people into your organisation and demonstrate your commitment to investing in your people to customers and suppliers," he says.
Even before the riots apprentice schemes were also beginning to pull in serious levels of investment from the government. In May 2010 it committed £150m towards funding 50,000 new adult apprenticeship places. And in March this year it announced the launch of a £75m programme of targeted support to help smaller employees access advanced level and higher apprenticeships and to create around 10,000 extra higher apprenticeships over the next four years.
Last November, London mayor Boris Johnson and his "apprenticeship ambassador" Tim Campbell– the former winner of the BBC television show The Apprentice – set up a regional scheme to create 20,000 new apprenticeship places across London businesses by the end of last month. By August it had already smashed the target by forging 28,120 places. This means that London's share of new apprenticeship starts rose from five per cent to more than 8.5 per cent nationally in just under a year. Businesses supporting the scheme include BSkyB, Reed Group and HSBC.
Skills benefits
It is in this climate of government support, clear business benefits and social responsibility that aviation group Rizon Jet is set to launch its first apprenticeship scheme in the UK.
General manager Jackie Nikolajsen joined the firm in 2009 and says he was "freaked out" by how little importance Britain gives to apprenticeship schemes compared to his native Denmark. He explains: "In Demark there are good schemes for high-end engineering but in the UK there was something wrong, something not working," he says. "Youngsters go to engineering college and jump into a degree course and get their degree but they leave without any hands-on experience or gaining any practical experience in the workplace."
Nikolajsen is seeking to change that by setting up a scheme with the help of Biggin Hill airport. "We are a new company starting from scratch," he says. "We are building our foundations, which include having enough certified engineers to support an apprentice scheme. I believe you need two or three engineers per apprentice to teach them hand-on skills. We would hope to take on our first two aviation engineering apprentices next year."
The salaried apprentices will be given a three- or four-year contract and in between practical work they will go to a local college and carry out the necessary training modules to become an aviation engineer. "We will probably not have more than four or five at any given time. When one goes out another will come in," says Nikolajsen.
Biggin Hill airport, through a scheme called LoCATE@Biggin Hill, will help with recruitment through school visits, advertising in local newspapers and using recruitment firms.
The scheme will also bring practical business benefits, claims Nikolajsen. "We are screaming for good-quality labour in the south. All of the good colleges are in the north and when newly qualified engineers leave they realise that they can't afford property prices down here and so stay and work up north," he says. "If we want labour we have to educate the labour ourselves here in the south."
That means creating an aviation college nearby, another project that Biggin Hill airport is collaborating on with Rizon Jet.
Although the scheme will increase capital costs through paying apprentice salaries, Rizon Jet will benefit from a "more dedicated and committed worker to our company", adds Nikolajsen. He hopes, in time, to extend the scheme to other parts of the company, such as finance.
Fresh ideas
Surrey-based design studio Blue Baboon is one year into its apprenticeship scheme. Creative director Joseph Conlon says it invested in its own programme to "attract fresh talent, ideas and youthful energy" into the team.
The business was looking for one apprentice to help it develop its social media strategy and after a series of interviews they found their perfect candidate. The long-term ambition was for the candidate to eventually move on to the full-time staff and train other apprentices, says Conlon. But, as he explains, the plan didn't work out.
"Our apprentice has left us – partly as a result of doing the job so well that his tasks became automated ones and partly because we were going through a downsizing and he volunteered to go," he says.
But the company remains undeterred by this challenge and is seeking another apprentice. "We saw a big business benefit from our first. The cost was beneficial as we could pay the apprentice on a basic rate and he took over a lot of the administrative work. This freed up valuable time for our other staff – they could use their time more efficiently," Conlon explains. "The apprentice also gave us the youthful energy we needed and new ideas and opinions that we have incorporated into the business."
Long-term loyalty
For Tony Wren, managing director at construction firm Innovation On-Site in Bedfordshire, enthusiasm on both sides is key to a successful apprenticeship scheme. Wren came through an apprenticeship himself when he was younger and has first-hand knowledge of the benefits they bring. "It gives you a very good grounding in the business and gives you longevity. You get people who want to stay with you because they are embedded in your values," he says.
Innovation On-Site started its apprentice scheme in 2008, working closely with local training provider Consign, which helped with recruitment. "They gathered a number of lads and we vetted their CVs," explains Wren. "Because of the health and safety requirements of being on site we could only look at those aged 18 or over," he adds.
The 12 apprentices get paid a salary, work on site and carry out their construction courses at local colleges. They also receive work bonuses, which include a £250 toolkit bonus prize for the most committed worker over a set period. "We will look to retain most of them when they finish and they will have a strong commitment to our company," says Wren. Other benefits include cost savings: Innovate On-Site uses a full-time carpenter and an apprentice on a job rather than two full-time carpenters.
Wren has this advice for SMEs looking to set up a scheme: "Work closely with a training provider and ensure that you have a training and course structure in place to support the apprentices," he says. "So many companies take on apprentices and complain they can't do anything. Of course they can't. They need to know the modules they have to complete and you have to stick to that structure."
He sees the riots as an opportunity. "It can put the life back into apprenticeships. The government has got carried away with wanting everybody to go to university. But we can't afford to lose our working-class professions – apprenticeships can help us ensure that doesn't happen."
