Hiring an apprentice

[Bilal Attique]

Hi All,

I am planning to hire my first employee and a friend suggested that I use an apprenticeship route.
I contacted the government for apprenticeship and they advised that if I hire an apprentice through the government's apprenticeship scheme the apprentice would be spending 80% of the time on actual work and 20% of the time on training (learning a course related to employment from approved learning providers) and the government will fund 95% of the training costs while I as employer pay 20%. The minimum salary I have to pay an apprentice is £4.80. The program is minimum 12 months.
I have two questions
1. Does anybody have experience using the apprenticeship schemes and is it a good idea instead to employing someone full time?
2. I am conscious that with that lower pay rate (it's almost half of the minimum wage rate) I wouldn't get good quality candidates. I am happy to increase the rate to £6 or £7 or even minimum wage (which I think is £9.60) but in that case, is there a point in using the apprenticeship route?
I would appreciate the feedback.

 

[Newchodge]

Hi All,

I am planning to hire my first employee and a friend suggested that I use an apprenticeship route.
I contacted the government for apprenticeship and they advised that if I hire an apprentice through the government's apprenticeship scheme the apprentice would be spending 80% of the time on actual work and 20% of the time on training (learning a course related to employment from approved learning providers) and the government will fund 95% of the training costs while I as employer pay 20%. The minimum salary I have to pay an apprentice is £4.80. The program is minimum 12 months.
I have two questions
1. Does anybody have experience using the apprenticeship schemes and is it a good idea instead to employing someone full time?
2. I am conscious that with that lower pay rate (it's almost half of the minimum wage rate) I wouldn't get good quality candidates. I am happy to increase the rate to £6 or £7 or even minimum wage (which I think is £9.60) but in that case, is there a point in using the apprenticeship route?
I would appreciate the feedback.

An apprentice can be a very good long term investment, but they are rarely the answer to an employer's immediate need for labour. An apprentice, by definition will have little or no experience of working life. There are things that employers take for granted that an apprentice may be completely unaware of. For example, getting in on time and starting work, letting the employer know if they are unable to attend work amd so on.

An apprenticeship scheme requires 20% of paid time be spent on 'official training', although this has been badly watered down to allow such training to be provided by the employer with the training provider having a very limitrd role. However, even if you have a decent training provider, you will have to spend a great deal of time on training, mentoring and encouraging your apprentice.

I would not resommned that an employer takes on an apprentice as their first employee - you need to learn how to employ and manage an employee and that is far easier to do if the employee does not need continuous hand-holding. I assume that you are taking on your first employee because you have a role for them. You need someone who can fill that role as quickly as possible.

Look at an apprentice once you have a workforce that can be productive without close support, freeing your time to nurture an apprentice.

 

[paulears]

Apprentices are NOT employees, they are additions to the workforce who you spend time and resources training.

If you are a one man band, then your productivity will drop - because that 20% of their time needs to be on structured and planned training, and you will need to then spend your time on assessment and documentation. The apprentice will also divert much of your time to supervision. You seem to be some kind of tax consultant/accountant, so everything they do will need to be supervised, monitored and 'fixed'. For a one-person business if you are in need of help, to take load off you - I'd suggest an apprentice is a crazy thing to consider. Do you like teaching? Not being rude, but I have an accountant because I hate the small amount of paperwork I have to do - I don't get any pleasure from that part of my job, it's a chore, it's boring and I breath out when it is done. You are looking for a school leaver, one that has not gone to uni, with perhaps middling academic skills, especially maths (probably). Do you think what you are offering is going to be exciting and a draw? How many young people with good maths and English don't go to uni? Apprentice schemes are usually attractive to individuals of a certain type. If somebody wanted to be an accountant, would this be something university education would do best, or something they could pick up as they went along? I don't know - but most apprentices are the ones who learn best from touching, feeling, experimenting, developing and responding to - is this what happens in your office? How attractive is what you are offering? If you invest the time and effort, then they leave, what happens?

 

[Mark T Jones]

To reitterate the above - the 80% of time they aren't in college isn't time they are working productively for you, it's time when you are training them.

To some extent this depends on how technical the role is - old-school technical apprenticeships will require one skilled person to be off the tools to train for significant periods. In more administrative environments you can apply 'do and check' quite effectively. (The check bit is extremely important!)

Some years ago we used admin apprenticeships to good effect. With a low starting bar, you can assume that the applicants have under-performed at school or in exams. The can be multiple reasons for this, including that they aren't very bright or are bone idle.

If you get the ones who are bright and motivated, but who simply struggled with exams, or had stuff going on at home etc then you can end up with great, loyal staff. (one of our apprentices went on to be a senior underwriter for a major bank)

 

[Bilal Attique]

Thanks @Newchodge @paulears and @Mark T Jones for your great advice and very valid points. I don't have any employees here in the UK but I have a team offshore. I was considering two different apprentices for two different roles, one is for my consultancy company which is quite a technical role and I cannot outsource it because of data protection regulations and this needs lots of in-house training whereas the other role is more of an admin in nature for my accounting business since I have an offshore team and this role would include project management and coordination. Based on your advice I have decided to hire normal employees with competitive salaries to attract quality candidates and free up my time to focus on growing.

 

[paulears]

Apprentice schemes seem the topic of the week. As an ex-college lecturer, I'm quite aware of our crazy education system for 'proper' teachers in schools. Go to uni for three years then pay for another training year in a school, or schools, to gain a PGCE and qualified teacher status - required by the Government to be allowed to teach in schools. I took mine when a college wanted me to teach - and they paid for the CertEd/PGCE (Post 16) a few of us needed. Oddly - teaching post 16 doesn't need the teacher status - that's only for schools.

Now - schools are doing apprenticeship schemes so you can be an apprentice teacher!! An apprentice with a degree - how strange! Pay is not at the apprentice level, but broadly minimum wage - about 18 grand a year.

When the Government needed school teachers - they asked me to consider supply teaching and simply granted me the teacher status required because I was (I think) old and experienced.

So schools now are using the apprentice system too - it's beyond me, and they of course then use a university to validate the apprentice and award the PGCE/CertEd! Teachers think this is wonderful as it removed 25% of the student loan total cost!

 

[bonez]

hi sorry to jump in on this topic. But just have a question of concern and I can't seem to find an answer online..
If a business owner knows nothing about a particular trade can they have an apprentice as the only employee if there is no one there with any experience of the trade..?

 

[RiannaNic]

Hi All,

I am planning to hire my first employee and a friend suggested that I use an apprenticeship route.
I contacted the government for apprenticeship and they advised that if I hire an apprentice through the government's apprenticeship scheme the apprentice would be spending 80% of the time on actual work and 20% of the time on training (learning a course related to employment from approved learning providers) and the government will fund 95% of the training costs while I as employer pay 20%. The minimum salary I have to pay an apprentice is £4.80. The program is minimum 12 months.
I have two questions
1. Does anybody have experience using the apprenticeship schemes and is it a good idea instead to employing someone full time?
2. I am conscious that with that lower pay rate (it's almost half of the minimum wage rate) I wouldn't get good quality candidates. I am happy to increase the rate to £6 or £7 or even minimum wage (which I think is £9.60) but in that case, is there a point in using the apprenticeship route?
I would appreciate the feedback.

Happy to talk you through this, I have taken on over 1,000 in my 25 years!!

 

[Newchodge]

hi sorry to jump in on this topic. But just have a question of concern and I can't seem to find an answer online..
If a business owner knows nothing about a particular trade can they have an apprentice as the only employee if there is no one there with any experience of the trade..?

How will they supervise their learning, which is part of an apprenticeship? The answer has to be no, however there are numerous examples where this happens because the employer wants cheap labour and is prepared to compromise the 'apprenntice's' future for their greed.

 

[paulears]

I suppose the question would be "who will do the training"? If you don't have any skills, how can you pass them on?
Training providers have assessment, plus assessment of the assessors - At the very least, you'd have to go on a course to qualify as an assessor, as while the local college or other provider will do some stuff, the rest is up to you.

 

[Newchodge]

Happy to talk you through this, I have taken on over 1,000 in my 25 years!!

Taken on over 1,000 apprentices? How much money did you make, and did any of them learn anything?

 

[a4nthony]

hi sorry to jump in on this topic. But just have a question of concern and I can't seem to find an answer online..
If a business owner knows nothing about a particular trade can they have an apprentice as the only employee if there is no one there with any experience of the trade..?

I'm confused by this! How can a Business Owner know nothing about their trade?

 

[eteb3]

Legally, I don't know.

I've assessed apprentices for a college, and a big part of the assessment is what the employer says about apprentice's performance against the usual standards in that industry, so you won't be able to help them pass.

Our assessment centre was rightly picky about who we would work with: any employer suspected of hiring apprentices just to undercut minimum wage (often recycling them as soon as they were qualified) was given the black spot. Maybe you'll find some wheeler dealer assessor to help you, but I'd steer clear.

 

[Blood Lust]

Hi All,

I am planning to hire my first employee and a friend suggested that I use an apprenticeship route.
I contacted the government for apprenticeship and they advised that if I hire an apprentice through the government's apprenticeship scheme the apprentice would be spending 80% of the time on actual work and 20% of the time on training (learning a course related to employment from approved learning providers) and the government will fund 95% of the training costs while I as employer pay 20%. The minimum salary I have to pay an apprentice is £4.80. The program is minimum 12 months.
I have two questions
1. Does anybody have experience using the apprenticeship schemes and is it a good idea instead to employing someone full time?
2. I am conscious that with that lower pay rate (it's almost half of the minimum wage rate) I wouldn't get good quality candidates. I am happy to increase the rate to £6 or £7 or even minimum wage (which I think is £9.60) but in that case, is there a point in using the apprenticeship route?
I would appreciate the feedback.

You haven`t said what line of work it is but its crucial to find a young whippersnapper with a genuine interest in it.

With an apprentice they aren`t to be used to cover up recruiting an experienced staff member. If you expect too much from them you`ll demotivate and disengage them. Take it easy with them, build them up, and I would suggest do performance reviews on them to track their progress towards becoming a fully productive member of staff.

I personally would step up their wages along that journey. So when they get to the end of it they are on the same as a fully experienced employee. I don`t believe in paying less based on age, it should be performance only. If they do the job, and do it well, and are better than a 40 year old, they should be paid more.

 

[eteb3]

View in browser

hmrc.imicampaign.uk

HMRC webinar, “hiring apprentices and associated [minimum wage] risks”

 

[ProPayroll]

hi sorry to jump in on this topic. But just have a question of concern and I can't seem to find an answer online..
If a business owner knows nothing about a particular trade can they have an apprentice as the only employee if there is no one there with any experience of the trade..?

I wouldn't recommend taking on an apprentice for a trade you know nothing about. 20% of the apprentices time needs to spent on learning/studying. They will generally have 2-3 hours per month with a tutor (online or face to face) and the rest of the time they will need to complete coursework and have someone available to teach them new skills which will help them achieve the qualification they are working towards.

 

[Newchodge]

I wouldn't recommend taking on an apprentice for a trade you know nothing about. 20% of the apprentices time needs to spent on learning/studying. They will generally have 2-3 hours per month with a tutor (online or face to face) and the rest of the time they will need to complete coursework and have someone available to teach them new skills which will help them achieve the qualification they are working towards.

I would suggest that 20% is required to be spent on direct learning and most of the rest of the time is spent watching and learning from someone who knows what they are doing.

 

[paulears]

Looking at a few schemes, somebody also needs D32/D33 qualifications to be able to assess and verify your apprentices progress during the scheme - it is not remotely a free worker system. You might have to go to college yourself to be able to sign off the documentation you are getting the fee components for.