In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, host Brandon Laws sits down with Natalie Miller, Regional Director of Apprenti. The two discuss the age-old concept of apprenticeships surprisingly paired with non-trade career paths. Read on to learn how your business could take advantage of this innovative employee development initiative.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Natalie Miller is the Regional Director of Apprenti, a non-profit organization that creates non-traditional pathways for businesses to access top talent in the tech space. She is dedicated to developing strategies and solutions for employee retention.
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OPEN TO DISRUPTION
It wasn’t long ago that Natalie Miller gave a talk at DisruptHR, an “information exchange” made to allow new insight into innovations in the HR realm. The topic of her talk: the underutilization of apprenticeships. During this episode, Natalie went on to explain that, when most of us think of apprenticeships, we think of trade jobs — plumbers, electricians, and the like. But as we’ll see more and more, apprenticeships will be used for what we call “non-trades,” essentially career paths that we don’t commonly associate with apprenticeships. She explained, “The tech industry has embraced this. […] We need to build our talent pipeline, and we aren’t able to do that with the current population that’s coming into the workplace with four-year degrees.”
If utilized correctly by employers, non-trad apprenticeships could tear down the roadblock that stands in the way of career readiness for the 70% of Americans without a four-year degree.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Supply and Demand
“I’m fortunate I got a four-year degree, but there are a lot of people — smart, brilliant, wonderful people — that for one reason or another do not have access or do not think that they have access [to a given career]. And so apprenticeships for tech careers or HR are more what we would consider kind of non-trades. We’re gonna start to see this a lot more because it’s essentially taking all of the training and just focusing on one area for a career versus a four-year degree that looks at professional experience.”
How it Works
“So I’ll speak to tech apprenticeships and what we do. So if you look at the minimum qualifications on a job description, 30% of that training comes from technical instruction. So that happens before they go into the organization. Now, […] you’re creating your pipeline to talent. So now they’re coming in and they’re working full-time. You get to train them in how your organization builds websites or cybersecurity or IT support, and you’re giving them on-the-job training. They’re working with managers, they’re working with a mentor, they’re understanding what works and what doesn’t, and at the end of this, they get hired into that entry-level role.”
Making an Investment
“We also focus on the typically […] underrepresented in tech careers, so women, people of color. We also really work with veterans organizations and then also people with disabilities. […] For example, a veteran may be leaving the military, and they don’t know what they wanna do, right? Is a four-year degree what I really wanna invest in? I mean, I have the GI Bill that’ll cover it, but that’s a lot of time, too. So it’s that kind of ROI of time, money, and resources.”
Defining Terms
“Internships are typically tied to a degree, and no two organizations will do them the same way. So what I mean by that is that it’s unique to Nike or Intel. It’s unique to Zenium or Apprentice. Whereas with an apprenticeship, it’s literally done the same way at every organization because you are linking it to the training, and then on-the-job training to get that certificate that’s registered with the Department of Labor. […] Internships tend to be more time-based and project-based and short-term in nature, whereas an apprenticeship is really about that track into the career. But it’s common, very common, for people to use [the terms] synonymously.”
Keeping Your Talent
“If you look at one to two years afterward, […] we see a 92% retention rate with our apprenticeships versus 75% with four-year degrees. That’s significant. That’s almost 20%. […] So it can have a good yield, and organizations that have a real focus on career mobility, training their managers to be really great leaders and help individuals through kind of the rock climbing — […] those organizations tend to retain better in all areas, but particularly with apprentices because the company has invested in them, has taken a chance and has said, we wanna bring you into the organization in this really new and unique way.”
Feeding Your Programs
“So we have some organizations that will bring in a cohort, and then they’ll send three to this department and four over to this department and three to another that are very different parts of the business. So it can be a really great feeder and kind of launching pad into different careers for individuals. I think that goes across any registered apprenticeship, by the way, not just technology.”
Questioning Your Status Quo
“And that’s really what I would encourage people to think about why you have the four-year degree requirement. What is it really doing for the organization and why is it there? And what other pathways can you create for people who might not have been included in your talent acquisition process?”
LEARN MORE
Check out Natalie’s eye-opening DisruptHR Talk about the value of apprenticeship below: