Starting Off
Starting an apprentice during lockdown – how to make it work for your business
Te latest AELP (Association of Employment and Learning Providers) COVID impact survey has found that 60% of employers have stopped recruit- ing apprentices altogether and 75% of them have stopped at least four-fifths of starts normally expect- ed at this time of year. Whilst this is somewhat inevitable, at Starting
Off we have been working with our clients to enable them to continue to recruit and train apprentices from home. Our training team was quickly able to transition into a remote delivery model, where we can use online resources and video calling, and a web-based e-portfolio platform to set and assess work. We are regularly contacting our apprentices for
training support but also to complete well-being checks and to see how they are doing on a more personal level during these unprecedented times. Due to these measures, we have seen a relatively low number of apprentices (around 25 out of 250) be put on a break in learning (a hold on their train- ing) but for Starting Off our biggest change has been the reduction in new apprenticeship starts. At a time when years 11 and 13 would normally
be sitting their exams and starting to look at steps to enter the workplace, we will be looking at key local businesses to play their part in the communi- ty to reinvigorate their workplace. We are hopeful that over the coming weeks and months, new an- nouncements will allow local businesses to look at their key role in the employment of apprentices. During the lockdown we have seen our ap-
prentices adapt to the changes incredibly well and we believe, moving forward, apprentices will be key to supporting a new way of working in the market that seemingly will have to be more digital for some time to come – after all, for these digital natives, this is very much part of their nature! By key local businesses, we know that ac- coun-tancy, HR, IT and a lot of marketing or digital
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agencies have seen a change in how they work, but they have continued to work full-time positions. As a local SME ourselves, we can fully appreciate there will be many reasons why right now may not seem a viable time to start an apprentice. However, if one of the reasons you are holding back is because you are still working from home and you have concerns around the feasibility of a new staff member, we want to put your mind at ease. We want to share with you the experience of one of our apprentices and clients relating to how starting an apprentice during lockdown has been for them and how it is very much a possibility. Alice is completing a digital Marketing Appren- ticeship through Starting Off. She started working for All Tings Management in May and was set up from home. We have new procedures in place for signing paperwork to make this an easy process for the employer. From the perspective of marketing, businesses still need to communicate during these changing times of COVID, whether that be chang- es in business procedures, or how a business can help. Due to the attributes of a digital marketer, our learners have found the switch to home learning and working transferable and natural. So, when Alice was set up at home on a laptop for team meetings, tasks and her learning, it was an easy step to make. We asked Alice how she has found starting a
new job during lockdown: “I felt like all of the train- ing I had received from Starting Off and my Squared Online course was really beneficial for me starting my new job at All Tings Management during lock- down. I was used to group calls over platforms like Zoom and using cloud-based collaborative tools like Microsoft Teams or Google Drive to edit and share documents with my peers. “It’s definitely a strange experience to start
a new job from my home and meet my new colleagues for the first time over Zoom! But I’ve had great support from everyone at All Things
ALL THINGS BUSINESS
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