Many employers avoid using apprenticeship and traineeship programs, mistakenly citing the costs of finding, hiring, and training prospective workers as a deterrence.
Here at BUSY At Work, we help businesses by eliminating these costs; putting in the legwork required to find suitable candidates at no cost to you.
Beyond this, we need to shift our thinking away from the possible costs and risks involved with apprenticeships and traineeships, and instead focus on the worthwhile returns associated with these programs.
Apprentices and trainees are an extremely valuable asset in our constantly changing workforce, and we need to acknowledge that hiring them is a long-term business investment. Simply put, hiring apprentices may help your bottom line.
1. Improved retention and productivity
By investing time and money into the training of apprentices, we foster a sense of value and worth among them, increasing our returns with better employee loyalty. People who enter apprenticeships are eager to find work but lack the required skills or qualifications. By providing them the opportunity for gainful employment, candidates are likely to be stay with their sponsor companies and tend to display increase productivity output when compared to workers that were hired with prior qualifications.
2. Increasing completion rates
A common fear for businesses is that apprentices will bail early on the contract and leave employers with lost dollars in wages and allocated training time with nothing to show for it. Fortunately, the latest report by NCVER shows that completion rates for apprenticeships and traineeships have increased in the last year, and are projected to remain steady in the next.
While non-completion is a reality that remains a risk for employers, it’s important to consider that about a third of terminations occur within the first year, and a majority of these occur as early as the first three months. Probation periods ensure that apprentices and trainees do have the option to terminate early if they find that they are not suited to the work, minimising costs to employers. It also ensures that candidates that complete their apprenticeships are well-suited and profitable to the company.
Here at BUSY, we strive to further minimise these costs by matching your business with appropriate candidates that are likely to complete their apprenticeships, and we keep in touch with you and the employee throughout the program to make sure everything is going well.
3. Apprentices are trained to your business-specific standards
Instead of working with an employee’s existing skillset, apprenticeships and traineeships allow businesses to equip workers with the specific skills necessary for their practice. This means that employers are not wasting money paying staff for qualifications that don’t benefit their company, and that apprentices are trained in the areas that bosses know will provide maximum returns.
Having control over what your prospective employees are trained in also allows you to future-proof your business. This is because you can allocate your upcoming staff towards areas of future concern, rather than issues that are generally being trained for in the present.
4. Government incentives
Hiring apprentices may also directly benefit your bottom line through financial incentives provided by the Australian and state government, especially in areas of trade experiencing a skills shortage.
Other incentives or funding include payroll tax rebates* and Workers Compensation exemption, as well as further incentives for employing people with disability, mature aged, school-based and Indigenous apprentices.
The best way to figure out what incentives you can apply for is to contact one of the experts from the BUSY team.
If you’re based in QLD and want to find out more about how much taking a trainee or apprentice will help your business, or just want to get started with training someone new, contact us on 13 BUSY (13 28 79) or 0421 268 884 (text only).
*Conditions apply
