Employers and businesses are being encouraged to take on apprentices to tap into the vast pool of teenage talent in the UK. This comes as 16 and 17 years old up and down the country get their GCSE exam results and take a first serious look at the world of work.

The latest figures show there are almost a million 16-24 year old NEETS (‘not in education, employment or training’), an increase of 100,000 over the last year. With so many companies in England needing well qualified, experienced staff to help them run successfully, making use of this huge amount of talent could be the golden ticket to business success.

News of Japan, France and Germany making their way out of the downturn shows an increased need for UK businesses to be prepared for the pressures and competition as the market pushes forward and ensuring you have the best staff available is essential.

The pool of candidates registered with the National Apprenticeship Service highlights the depth in talent of young people and in the midst of the recession, school leavers see apprenticeships as the ideal first step through the door into the business world. Apprenticeship vacancies (www.apprenticeships.org.uk), where all these young people are registered, is a quick, easy and reliable ‘one-stop shop’ where employers can advertise vacancies and individuals can search and apply for Apprenticeship places. Since its launch in January 2009, over 100,000 young people have registered on the system.

If you are unsure of how apprenticeships can work for your business and how you can make the most of young talent, log on to our live and interactive webTV show. Joining us in the studio to answer your questions are David Way from the National Apprenticeship Service, Apprentice Sumaira Niazi and Liza Okafor from Tubelines.

H: Jackie Kabler, host
D: David Way from the National Apprenticeship Service
S: Sumaira Niazi, Apprentice
L: Liza Okafor, Tubelines.

H: Hello and welcome to the Business Show, I’m Jackie Kabler.  Now then the latest employment figures show there are about a million 16-24 year olds not in education, employment or training representing an increase on this time last year may be daunting units for today’s school leavers.  But it could offer an opportunity for many businesses seeking to take on trainees, especially in anticipation of an upturn.  Well joining me today to talk about this and lots more is David Way from the National Apprenticeship Service, current apprentice Sumaira Niazi and Liza Okafor from the Tubelines. A very big welcome to all of you, thanks very much for joining us.  Of course don’t forget we are live today so if you have any questions you want to put to my guests here or any comments, do use the box on your screen.  Now David first of all, there has been some good news in the papers recently about Japan coming out of recession, possibly other European countries, even Britain hopefully on the turn, so investing in an apprentice now would be a good move for businesses

D: Well I think investing in apprentices is good news for businesses any time because of the benefits it brings for productivity and retention.  You know if you invest in people then they return that investment, they want to stay with you, want to work with you and work for you, and you can build your future prosperity on them.  We know from previous recessions that the worst thing you can do is lay people off and so when you come out of recession you don’t have the skills there any more that you need to capitalise on it, and people suddenly start searching around for the skills they need to benefit from the upturn, so we’re finding that with apprenticeships, employers are wising up to the fact that they need those skills now, they’ll need them in the next few months.  Nobody can say exactly which week, which month but we know we’re coming out of recession.  You’ve got to have the skills in place, so apprenticeships are a really good way of getting those skills

H: Now there is a sort of a myth surrounding apprenticeships in a way that it’s all to do with plumbing and building and trades like that, but that’s really not the case.  I mean we were talking earlier before we came on air about people who become senior managers who started as apprentices

D: Yes.  Lots of people have done very well out of apprenticeships, it’s been a good platform for them in their future careers. But you’re right, when you think about apprentices, and most people think about apprentices they think of the traditional trades, they think of construction, engineering, maybe hairdressing, but now that’s really out of date and today you can get apprenticeships in just about every aspect of work, so the world of work I think we’d all agree is very diverse, very exciting, very different  from how it was ten years ago, and you can get an apprenticeship in nearly anything now from – well one of the fastest growing areas is childcare, dentistry, pharmacy, accountancy and business.  Lots of the service industries in the way that you couldn’t before, so we draw great strength I think from having some of the apprenticeships in traditional industries, the ones you’ve mentioned, but it’s actually a very new and much wider range of apprenticeships now.  So it’s fit for the modern age and that’s how I like to think of it

H: Excellent.  Well I do have an apprentice sitting here right next to me, Sumaira tell me about you, you’ve been an apprentice for two years, what’s your job and how did it all start for you and how much are you enjoying it?

S: Well I started my apprenticeship two years ago, and it’s a four year program and I’m actually a signal technician apprentice, so I work for tube lines and I came about apprenticeship after my first year of A levels and actually a friend I know he told me about apprenticeships, I didn’t have any idea about apprenticeships when I left school, even up to college they weren’t very – I didn’t know about them just at all, and when I came across it and actually looked into apprenticeships it was much more beneficial than actually going to university and getting a degree and everything else, but yes. 

H: And you can move on. I mean you’ve got your four years but you can stay on in the company

S: Yes

H: Hopefully and develop your career further

S: Yes yes yes, you can move up the ladder within the same company and it’s quite good in the sense that it’s – you learn your skill at the same time, and most apprenticeships send you to college and you get your qualifications as well, at the same time.  Like I went to college and I got my BTEC and then at the same time I’m working as well so –

H: And earning money which is always good

S: And earning money and not in debt from university either

H: Indeed, indeed, indeed.  Very positive story.  Liza you run the apprentices at Tube Lines.  Tell me how it works for you?

L: From a company perspective we found ourselves in a bit of a predicament a few years ago where we just didn’t have the skilled workers – a lot of them had retired and we felt that with apprentices we could fill that gap.  We put them through the four year program, and we’ve addressed that shortage.  They’ve taken on every challenge that’s been thrown at them, they’ve come up with innovative ways of dealing with problems that we’ve had, and they’re just bringing benefits to the company.  We’re very proud of them and they stay, you know the investment just doesn’t stop at the apprenticeship itself, we continue – you talked about apprentices becoming senior managers – there's one particular one that’s heading up our emergency response unit.  He’s gone from an apprentice to a senior manager.  Even our ex-CEO was, and when the apprentices like Sumaira see that they have really high ambitions for themselves and they just work that much harder because they see it is achievable

H: Great. Let’s take some questions because we’ve got a lot of questions coming in here, let’s try and get through some of these then.  One come in from the businessdesk.com, “in a recession an apprentice could potentially be seen by businesses as another drain on immediate resources and costs.  Is this fair?” That’s a good question in a recession isn’t it?

D: Well I think you’ve begun to get an answer to that, I think if we were promoting apprenticeships and they were a drain on resources we’d get absolutely nowhere, so you know all the employers that I talk to are very clear that it brings bottom line benefits.  We’ve talked about productivity, and a reduction in turnover, so people stay longer, and it’s because if you’re an individual and you go to work for somebody and they care about your training, they invest time and show that they – that they care about your development and your medium turn future, then you want to stay, you know you want more of that.  Who you don’t want to work for is an employer who doesn’t give you any training, you know that’s where you get the high turnover.  So it’s a really – apprenticeships are very good for business for those sorts of reasons

L: I mean I’d just add to that, we have a retention rate, where our apprenticeships are concerned of 97% and a lot of them say that it’s the initial investment and the continual investment that makes them want to stay on

H: Fantastic

D: You can go onto university afterwards as well, whether that’s part of –

L: And a lot of them have done.  We’ve – funded by ourselves, we’ve put them through university to get degrees and masters, so yes

H: And you intend as well to stay on –

S: Yes I do

H: After you’ve finished your apprenticeship

S: I do yes

H: You’re not going to be buzzing off anywhere hopefully

S: No hopefully not.  I mean I’ve spent two years here already and I love it and there’s two more years until I finish my apprenticeship and I know Tube Lines will give me the opportunity to go on to do a degree.  Yes definitely want to stay

H: Fantastic.  I mean obviously we’re talking about a big company in Tube Lines, we’ve got a question here from David Stevens who it sounds like runs a small firm, in fact he says he does.  He says “I’ve always wanted to get younger people into my firm on work experience placements but it’s very hard when you’re running a small firm, especially in these tough times.” What would you say to somebody in a small business David?

D: Well I think the apprenticeship is still designed for companies big and small and what we find is that you usually link a small employer up with a training provider or a local college, somebody who they can establish a relationship with, and they help them through some of the so-called bureaucracy that’s around, they hold their hand, and indeed one of the reasons the National apprenticeship Service was set up was to try to ensure that more employers who thought about an apprenticeship got the help they needed to successfully take on.  I think you get myths around these things, people can think there’s a lot of bureaucracy – we really do keep it to a minimum but at the same time people recognise that what the government is doing here is it’s paying all the training costs, an employer takes somebody on, you pay the wages and the government pays all the training costs, particularly if they’re 16-18, so you can’t give companies and businesses public money without them expecting to have some paperwork or accountability for it, but we absolutely keep that to a minimum because we’ve got so many small companies that want to take on apprenticeships we actually must help them in that way

H: Another question from the businessdesk.com, and we have sort of dealt with this already but it’s worth reiterating actually – “what about businesses who say they’ve spent time and money on training someone only for the apprentice to leave for a competitor as soon as they were qualified?”  Now Sumaira’s already said you know she’s got no intention of doing that, you say you’ve got a fantastic retention rate of 97% - is that the norm though?  I mean I suppose it does sometimes happen that people just leave as soon as they’re qualified?

D: I think it’s one of these myths that’s created and often I think put around by people who actually don’t want to invest in training.  Our research suggests that if you do invest in an apprentice they stay with you, and we’ve heard about how they progress and build-up – you know you can build your future prosperity on apprentices because you’re showing that you care about them and they return that.  Yes of course sometimes people do move on, and that’s bound to happen but it’s not the norm.  Indeed I know people who promote apprenticeships very strongly on the back of retention.  If I give you a quick example, that would be the hotel trade here in London, you know where there’s a big problem with turnover, and people come for a few weeks and then they go on and do a different job.  But if you say to that person “we’re going to put you on an apprenticeship” suddenly that person’s got an interest in staying.  They think right I’m going to stay for typically 18 months to two years to complete my apprenticeship rather than a few weeks, because they can see that if they follow an apprenticeship and complete it they’ve got something extra, a qualification, something they can either build on with that company or elsewhere. So rather than getting people to move on, what it does is it encourages people to stay, particularly in those industries where turnover can be a feature of life

H: Ok well that’s encouraging.  One question here from Nick Wolgar – “is there government funding to support a business who wants to take an apprentice on?” Simple question

D: Simple answer – yes there is.  We do expect employers to pay the wages, we think it’s important that an employer invests in an individual, you know it’s got to be a joint investment otherwise we don’t think that encourages the right sort of behaviours.  The government pays all the training costs, so it’s – it’s a really good deal.  I think for businesses

H: Ok here’s a slightly more complicated maybe more controversial question – “the apprenticeships’ website has been branded a gimmick due to the fact that only 1185 of the 18,000 advertised vacancies have been filled.  Lord Sugar has also described the government’s record on apprenticeships as scandalous.”  How do you respond to that sort of criticism, and do you think that has an effect on the public’s perception of apprenticeships?

D: Well I think if they read about that sort of thing then clearly they’re going to say well what’s going on here, and I don’t understand the criticism of the website, it’s something that we’ve introduced this year.  It’s a simple way in which somebody whose interested in becoming an apprentice can link up with employers who want to take on apprentices.  The figures are a bit misleading really because a lot of employers will put their vacancies on for apprenticeships quite early in the year, but they don’t fill them until this time of the year during the summer period is the maximum recruitment period, so a vacancy may stay on there for quite some time.  What we’re finding here is that the number of people who are successfully getting the apprenticeship through that system is going up rapidly daily.  You know it’s – and that’s a really encouraging thing to see. I think the time to judge the website and the number of people that have got vacancies for it will be at the end of this peak summer period when employers are closing their books for the year, many recruit all year round but many do recruit over the summer period.  At the end of the summer let’s look and see.  I’m very pleased with the apprenticeship website.  Of course it needs further development, you know you don’t go from – you do need to keep investing in it and make sure it works for people.  But I’ve been very pleased with the results of it so far

H: Ok

L: And can I just say, sorry I’m really pleased with the website myself, I mean we’ve had over 500 applications this year, and the bulk of them found out about us and the positions that we’re offering from the website and we were able to match individuals and get them based on the work that was done on the website.  We haven’t recruited them yet, we’ve sent out the contracts and they’ll join us next week, but yes very, very pleased with the website and the service that has been offered

H: Well that question, incidentally came in from Dan Martin from Businesszone.co.uk so let’s hope Dan that that answered your question. Now here’s another one, Verity Gough from Trainingzone.co.uk, she says “there have been rumours that apprenticeship funding will be restricted in 2010 and that many apprentices have been left jobless after undergoing this scheme.  How are you planning to address this issue and how can you expect young people in businesses to put themselves through this process if there are no guarantees at the end?”  So I’ll talk to you about that in a minute as well because that’s one that you could probably chip in on, but David what’s your response to that initially?

D: Well as far as the funding is concerned there is no shortage of funding for people who want to take on apprenticeship.  16-18 school leavers at this time, there is no shortage of funding.  Any apprentices who come forward and employers who come forward have got the funding, so I don’t quite know where that comes from.  I’d be very confident about funding opportunities that come through.  Obviously 6 or 9 months down the road if apprenticeships from employers as a result of the work that we’re doing at the moment really took off then we would have to look again at the funding for it, but we’re not in that situation at all.  Any employers who come forward and want to recruit 16-18 apprentices I can guarantee that we will be – have sufficient funding to meet their needs

H: Great, that’s very positive.  And Sumaira Verity there was asking do you expect young people to go through all this apprenticeship if there’s no guarantee of a job.  I mean you presumably feel very secure that you will have a future?

S: I do – I feel very secure with Tube Lines and I’d just like to add when I did join Tube Lines I was thinking of joining Metronet at the same time which are also in contract with London Underground but even if Metronet went into administration their apprentices were very well looked after, London Underground took over and so you know apprentices - as far as apprentices are very secure in an apprenticeship and you can always move around even.  I mean moreover it’s just looked at as a skilled sector, sort of like construction and everything else really, and I’m sure there’s loads of opportunities for apprentices even if they’re with a small company and it does go down, you can move on from that apprenticeship and you can gain more, because I mean people do favour apprentices a lot nowadays

H: That’s very reassuring, yes. 

D: Can I just add, I think – so there’s no misunderstanding, apprentices are employed

H: Yes of course

D: So when you sign up as an apprentice you are employed, but as you rightly say there’s no guarantee of employment if that business gets into trouble, but I’ve been incredibly impressed over the last year or two by the responsible attitude that employers have taken to their existing apprentices and indeed the help that’s been available to try to find alternative opportunities for those who have been hit by the recession

H: Let’s take another question.  Donna Murphy from Jigsaw.net.  She says “one barrier to taking on apprentices can be management resources.  However turning it on its head it can be an opportunity to develop managerial skills amongst employees who haven’t previously had the experience of managing other staff. Does the panel agree? Liza?

L: I would agree I mean I started off at Tube Lines as a PA.  This was my first managerial position and with assistance from HR, training and development, I’ve gone from managing a very small team of administrators to managing almost 100 apprentices, so it was a brilliant opportunity for me.  I’ve been in this job for two years now, and I think I’m doing a good enough job.  What do you think Sam?

S: I think it’s – as long as you have a good manager, you have a good company or you’re in a good company, a secure company, you will be alright with doing an apprenticeship.  I mean I don’t see any doubts in my future.  I’ve just gained lots and lots of benefits, unlimited benefits from my apprenticeship to be honest. I mean I was halfway down, going the line of university and getting a degree but if I look at my fellow friends now, and they’ve all gone to university – none of them did apprenticeships and half of them are in debt now, and the ones that did get out of university with degrees are looking for jobs.  So –

H: So much better off all round

S: I am much better off compared to them, yes

D: Good management is – as in so many things – absolutely vital, but let’s just look at this – you’re talking about sometimes 16 year olds, 17 year olds coming into a company for the first time – you know often what can make the difference is how well they’re managed, how they’re mentored, supported, looked after.  You know they’re not the finished article, what we’re saying here is an apprenticeship is often a bridge between school and work, and being productive in work, and so you know you have to manage people.  That’s the thing about an apprenticeship, is you know it’s almost a pact or a contract between the individual and the employer.  It’s an opportunity for the employer to pass on the skills that they’ve often had themselves through an apprenticeship.  So it’s quite – it almost feels like precious cargo on occasions, and management is absolutely vital to ensure that passage is one which is successful.  If you don’t manage an apprentice just as you don’t manage anybody else, you know, you – sometimes you’re surprised that they leave. Well they leave because of poor management.  You know it happens

H: Right ok, we’re almost out of time, we’ve been having such fun here talking about this, but we’ve got one very nice comment here from Sean.  He says “my daughter is on an apprenticeship at the moment and she loves it, as a junior member of staff she’s supported and has great career potential. I just wonder why there are not more businesses taking apprentices on.” Very briefly David, what’s your answer to that?  Why isn’t everybody doing it?

D: Well not everybody has heard of apprenticeships – they do still think of it as being the traditional crafts as we were talking about earlier. You know we need to open people’s eyes to the fact there are so many more opportunities now and if they contact the National Apprenticeship Service and go to apprenticeship.org.uk website you know they’ll find lots of information there and people are very keen to help.  Because the key to this, we know is to get more employers offering the sort of high quality apprenticeship opportunities that we’ve heard about today. We’ve got lots of young people that are keen to do it, if we could get the employers and those employers can really tap into a huge pool of talent, from people who want to learn at work and develop and blossom in the way that we’ve been hearing about this afternoon

H: Absolutely.  Well we’re going to have to leave it there.  Sumaira, David and Liza thank you very much for joining us – very, very interesting. And if you would like to know more about apprenticeships or how taking on an apprentice can benefit your business go to the website David mentioned there, apprenticeships.org.uk.  That’s it from us for now.  Goodbye.