Why You Should Hire an L&D Apprentice

L&D practitioners are always thinking about how they can bring new skills and information to their workplace.

Bringing in an L&D apprentice allows you to do just that, though this may be an opportunity that’s overlooked in your organisation thus far.

We’re here to show you all of the reasons why you should be considering upskilling new or existing members of staff with an L&D apprenticeship.

A New Approach to L&D Activities

While you may be accustomed to delivering the same L&D activities, fresh talent can give you a new perspective. Different learning and teaching styles can combine to create new activities that engage your audience.

In L&D, routine learning activities can be dry and delivered without much gusto. However, bringing in an apprentice can help you to refresh the regular health and safety or orientation presentations. They can contribute new ideas and enthusiasm to make the activity better for all concerned.

Through their training, they come to understand the learning theories that inform successful L&D activities.

This can improve these basic training programmes to give them new facets, which ensure that the audience retains that essential information. They work on techniques to create inclusive learning environments that speak to all members of staff.

They can also tell you about new ways to implement technology within your activities. This can give you a higher chance of reaching different kinds of learners, with video and audio presentations.

They Can Spearhead Their Own Initiatives

Apprentices aren’t just there to make tea or deliver mail - they can take on real responsibilities and have a positive impact. Within L&D, this means that they can spot room for improvement and create their own initiatives.

During their daily routine, they may spot an opportunity for a training programme to improve the knowledge of their colleagues. Thanks to their online training, they’ll have the knowledge and confidence to create their own activities to address this.

As their training progresses, you’ll see these apprentices grow and take on new tasks to help the workforce. They can use their training to design activities, coach their colleagues and develop their professional practice.

If your apprentice was already an existing member of staff, then you’ll see them underpinning their existing experience with new knowledge. This helps them to improve the kind of initiatives that they can bring to the workplace.

While they may start with the more basic L&D activities, before long they’ll be leading team building exercises, fielding questions from their colleagues and implementing new policies.

Improved Analytical Skills

Analysing L&D activities can fall by the wayside, even for experienced professionals. When this happens, you’re not making the most of your time as a trainer. It’s essential to analyse these activities, as this is the only way to find areas for improvement.

Apprentices become well versed in ways to assess and analyse the activities that they are a part of. They work to understand how well a training activity has been received, as well as the steps they can take to improve this.

This can include adding new elements, breaking up the training into smaller chunks, introducing practical sessions and more. These can change a routine training session into something much more interesting for your colleagues.

There are a variety of ways that they can judge how effective these activities are. Anonymous questionnaires and tests can assist the apprentice in gauging how much of the information is absorbed.

Evaluate Your L&D Setup

Many of us work in the same way as the predecessors in our role have done. This leads to a group mentality that the standard way of doing things as the best way of doing them. We’ve all encountered a cry of “…but that’s the way we’ve always done it!” while trying to implement change.

While this is a simple attitude to identify from the outside, it can be much harder to spot from within an organisation. When an L&D apprentice comes into the organisation, you’re more aware of what you’re teaching them and they’ll prompt you to explain the processes you have in place.

This is a great opportunity to evaluate your current setup and really think about why your department functions in this way. Shaking things up can really refresh the department and shift your organisational culture.

Refreshing this system can save resources and improve staff morale too. No one wants to be bogged down with needless tasks when these could be reduced with a bit of innovation.

Grow Your Own Talent

If you’re recruiting L&D talent from outside the company, you may find that this is costlier and less specialised than you would like. Instead, opting to grow talent within the organisation offers a multitude of benefits.

Not only can you give employees room to grow and opportunities for promotion, but you can also ensure that they have a real understanding of the organisation. You can take a hand in their personal development and create the best employees at each stage in the career path.

This is more cost effective for the organisation and also provides specialised talent.

Improve the Employee Experience

The statistics on the benefits of providing training to your employees are overwhelmingly positive. This leads to higher staff retention rates, better productivity and improved profitability – the list goes on!

Using your apprenticeship levy, you can provide this training to your staff at no additional cost. Rolling out an apprenticeship programme for new and existing members of staff can drastically change the organisation for the better.

L&D apprenticeships are fantastic opportunities for both employees and employers alike. These clear business benefits to utilising your levy in this way make a strong case for implementing an apprenticeship scheme.

Request your consultation to learn how apprenticeships can improve your organisation.