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THE OPPORTUNITY GUIDE OPPORTUNITY: THE APPRENTICESHIP PODCAST Created By Michaela Reaney and Kate Temple-Brown

THE OPPORTUNITY GUIDE

Containing the show notes from each of our podcast episodes and loads more information for anyone wanting to empower themselves to maximise the apprenticeship opportunity. Additional reading and footnotes to partner with the podcast series:

OPPORTUNITY: THE APPRENTICESHIP PODCAST Created by Michaela Reaney and Kate Temple-Brown. The following pages have been created to give those working in HR, talent and development, recruitment, EDI or any aspect of people management that would benefit from thinking about developing people or attracting talent into your organisation. The Apprenticeship opportunity is a complex one, we have gathered together information and insights over the last 5 years of working in this sector, simplified them and now will share all with you as we truly believe that everyone needs to better understand the opportunity in order for more people and businesses to benefit from it. If you have any further questions or see anything that is out of date or incorrect, please do give your feedback to kate@theopportunity.global We LOVE feedback and relish a robust conversation about making people’s lives better using brilliant and strategic development.

Enjoy!

CONTENTS This guide will follow the podcast episode’s topics, which are: 01: What is an Apprenticeship? 02: How to Create an Apprenticeship Strategy. 03: Changing the Perception of Apprenticeships. 04: What are the pitfalls of Apprenticeships? 05: How to support Social Mobility with Apprenticeships. 06: The benefits of Apprenticeships. 07: Understanding the Apprenticeship Levy. 08: Why Apprenticeships are not just for school leavers. 09: Which Companies have had success with Apprenticeships? There will be more chapters as we create more episodes.

Appendix: Articles & reports of note. FAQs. Glossary.

WHAT IS AN APPRENTICESHIP?

20% off the job

Modular Programme

Existing Employers & New Hires

Any Age

Available to Graduates

Nearly over 300 approved standards

Levels 2-7 including MBA

In April 2017 a new tax was introduced ·for those firms spending more than £3,000,000 on PAYE.

These firms must pay 0.5% of their PAYE as tax every month into a Digital Apprenticeship Account that can only be accessed by a Registered Apprenticeship Training Provider.

On April 1st 2019, companies will have started to surrender unspent levy funding to the Government one month at a time.

Levy paying organisations can donate up to 25% of their levy pot to non-levy paying companies.

This initiative was designed to generate £3billion for the Government to support SMEs in developing young people and the underemployed with funded apprenticeships.

The majority of levy contributions is currently unspent as organisations are struggling to understand how to use their funds appropriately and the system seems complicated and inflexible.

Many firms have decided to allow their levy pots to be surrendered as the opportunity cost and risk of poor training provision is too high.

AN 'APPRENTICESHIP' IS A modular programme of learning that lasts a minimum of 12-months and a day. Available to anyone of any age, for existing or new employees at any level. A nationally recognised and accredited course – “Standard”. With the new Apprenticeship reforms, employers can spend their levy on existing employees at any level of seniority. Prior learning eligibility has been changed so that employees with a degree can now study an apprenticeship in any different subject to their degree. There are new level 3, 5 and 7 (Masters) Leadership and Management Apprenticeship Standards that can be used as Management Development Courses certified by both CMI and ILM. Organisations can work together to create a Trailblazer standard if relevant standards do not currently exist. No longer only available to those who have not already studied at a higher education level. As long as the subject of the Apprenticeship is different subject to the degree. Once employers have spent their Levy, they are eligible for Government co-investment funding covering 95% of any additional training costs. Organisations do not pay the NI contribution of any employees under 25 who are studying on an apprenticeship standard. That will save you 13% of their salary. Non levy payers can use a levy transfer to pay for Apprenticeships.

There are three options to funding your Apprenticeship programme: Utilising your apprenticeship levy Organisations that have an annual paybill above £3M pay into an apprenticeship levy that can be drawn down from to fund upskilling Apprenticeship programmes for their new and existing employees.

Levy transfers SMEs, non-levy paying organisations, or those that have exhausted their levy funding can receive levy transfers to help fund their Apprenticeship programmes.

Co-Investment For SMEs and non-levy organisations or organisations who have exhausted their levy, 95% of the costs can be covered by the government, with the remaining 5% (+VAT) covered by the employer. The 5% covered by the employer will be invoiced quarterly throughout the programme.

CALL TO ACTION Find out if you are a levy payer and how much you are paying, are you maximising it?

These firms must pay 0.5% of their PAYE as tax every month into a Digital Apprenticeship Account that can only be accessed by a Registered Apprenticeship Training Provider.

Explore your talent issues and think about your business strategic goals – What are your skills gaps?

02 HOW TO CREATE AN

APPRENTICESHIP STRATEGY

Once you have your business goals, ask yourself – where are the skills and capability gaps in the business? The gaps we see most often are:

Leadership capabilitiy Digital skills, using new technology or maximising new platforms Switching legacy skills to new technology skills Understanding data

Creating a StrategyWorking with an e-commerce client to maximise the apprenticeship opportunity.

International investment Bank 2,000 employees in London office Head Office in Asia Levy payer

Consultation What are your talent challenges? What is your business/growth strategy? What keeps you up at night? (IT/HR/Compliance/ER/Banking/Operations) Meet new grads, old grads, new hires, all levels of employee

Findings Succession planning and talent management were key challenges not only to the employees themselves but also a headache for HR Lack of Digital understanding across the bank was becoming a business issue Operations was key but unable to move internally so left to find the next step at a bigger bank

Recommendations Leadership and Management level 3, 5, 7 for all levels of line managers Strategic Operations Assistant for all ‘back office’ roles IT foundation for non-tech roles and upskilling and future proofing of current IT employees

Implementation Looking to gather interest for Operation specialist learners Currently working to tender digital skills apprenticeships with Training Providers to understand offerings Look to start attracting and hiring school leavers into Tech and business admin roles

Timings One week of focus groups and discovery Four weeks to create full discussion deck for the company to sign off in principle

EXAMPLE OF HOW WE DELIVER PROGRAMMES

CALL TO ACTION Determine what the business goals and strategy is for the next 3 years, does development currently play any part of that strategy? Consider doing a training needs analysis if you don’t regularly do one across your organisation. Highlight two key skills gaps that you have found and the populations in which they are most prevalent. Investigate if there is an apprenticeship standard that would cover these skills. Ensure you have senior buy in - create a business case for Apprenticeships in your organisation. If possible nominate a senior sponsor who believes in an apprenticeship solution. Start small – design a pilot in a specific population to determine proof of concept and iterate the delivery model.

CHANGING THE PERCEPTION OF

APPRENTICESHIPS

The new world of Apprenticeships and the way they can be used in organisations is widely misunderstood and shrouded in myths.

We urge you to think of the development needs of your business FIRST and then work out how to support them. Apprenticeships can be a great way to have a long term behavioural change programme across your organisation, giving learners the opportunity to reflect on learning and embed new ways of working. A big part of this confusion is the low quality experience that many of you have had with training providers and we believe that we can change that for the better. If we can flip the narrative and start with the skills you need and then map Apprenticeships to that need, we are already making the development intervention more relevant and beneficial. The key element is for Employers themselves – YOU – to understand what good looks like and how apprenticeships could benefit your organisation.

CALL TO ACTION Determine if you would think Apprenticeships are right for your development needs in your organisation. Ensure that you are engaging senior leadership and the possible learners as to the benefits of the strategy. Make Apprenticeships part of the wider business strategy and be transparent about the opportunity costs of making them successful. Ensure you are working closely with the training provider to make sure that the content and delivery model work for your business, co-deliver some of the workshops and use your language and case studies to make the programme feel like yours. Start small – create a pilot of engaged learners to create internal ambassadors and can show the benefits after programme. Measure behavioural change and ROI.

WHAT ARE THE PITFALLS

OF AN APPRENTICESHIP?

Pitfalls can be minimised if you spend time before you start any Apprenticeship delivery determining:

WHAT CHALLENGE AM I FIXING WITH THIS APPRENTICESHIP? Skills Behaviours Cultural

WHO IS THE PROGRAMME FOR? One population or grade? A group or team New or existing employees?

ARE WE READY? Do we have a senior sponsor or senior buy-in? Do we have time to support our learners to be successful? How much other change is happening in the business? Are line managers engaged and ready for the programme?

WHAT DOES GOOD LOOK LIKE? Do we have an idea of what the behavioural change would look like? Is there a cost-saving/ROI? Have I discussed my expectations of outcomes with the training provider?

TOO FAST OR TOO BIG Don’t forget to run a pilot first and that means a small cohort, not one person. If you are also restructuring or changing roles in response to what is going on in the outside world, don’t start a big new training intervention that will be seen as a conflict of time for employees. Wait.

THE POWER OF WILL Don’t make the programme mandatory, it will always backfire, ask employees to register interest and express their reasons why they want to be on a programme, they will have to work hard too.

CASE STUDY We worked with a client who is a logistics provider across air, sea and road. In November 2019 we held focus groups and design meetings to create a wonderful, strategic and relevant leadership programme for them. We onboarded all the learners and hosted engagement events, we held the launch event in March 2020. Then the whole world changed. We made a decision with the client that it made no sense to put the learners through more stress when no one knew what was happening in the world and we closed down the programme. In November 2021 we launched the programme again!! We started the second cohort of learners in February 2022 as the first cohort was so embedded and progressing. It was worth the wait!

CALL TO ACTION

Start with your challenges and skills gaps and remember that timing is key.

Ask other companies that have delivered Apprenticeships what they have learnt and who the good (and bad) training providers are.

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Don’t rush it.

Think of a population that you could use as a pilot.

HOW TO SUPPORT A SOCIAL MOBILITY STRATEGY WITH APPRENTICESHIPS

Social Mobility is complex and often hard to quantify. Giving everyone an equal opportunity to succeed is the best thing about Apprenticeships. The long programme of work-based learning enables people from different educational backgrounds to succeed. Social mobility is not just for new employees, many organisations also have a disparity of social currency at different levels, often diminishing as roles become more senior. We have used development to support new hires and existing hires.

CALL TO ACTION

Once you have created your social mobility strategy, look to see where development can support outcomes.

6 Think of the benefits of having a preemployment bootcamp to meet pre-tested candidates - this can be for any age.

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Look internally as well as externally.

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Consider if new hires need a degree to do a job that you could give them the skills to do.

Think about your assessment process if you hire early career talent – can you hire for behaviours and motivation rather than educational grades.

Determine which roles need the previous qualification and which can be developed on the job.

TESTIMONIALS Gathering Testimonials can represent your brand in a fantastic way. It shows potential clients, learners and stakeholders that others recommend your company. Here are some examples of The Opportunity Group testimonials.

All coaches and tutors were extremely knowledgeable and approachable which put any concerns I had at ease. It was also a great opportunity to meet other on my cohort face to face. The content of most sessions was really interesting and all could be used in my day to day work. - The Opportunity Group Learner

I loved the questionnaires and being able to identify our own styles and refer to the case studies directly to us. It makes the learning far more personal and interesting. As well as also showing us where there may be room to improve. . - The Opportunity Group Learner

THE BENEFITS OF APPRENTICESHIPS

A brilliant Apprenticeship is more than a technical skills programme and so the benefits of such a programme are more than just an improved skillset.

Make sure you capture the additional benefits as well as the technical capability improvements.

Set out your expectations of improvements at the start with your training provider and include them in your monthly progress tracker.

Engage with line managers regularly to get feedback on learner confidence, communication and capability in role.

If there is a project in the programme then ensure it is closely linked to your business goals and has relevance beyond the programme. Putting a senior sponsor as a lead of each project team will ensure you are maximising ROI and also keeping the project relevant.

Capturing the benefits will help with further engagement of senior leaders for more programmes or additional cohorts. Start with the end in mind. Target your training provider on measured changes in behaviour as well as progress on the programme. Make sure you can measure ROI. Time saved is a great way to offset the opportunity cost of the programme, and look to find ways to show efficiencies in the role.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE SOME ADDITIONAL READING, CHECK OUT THE LINKS ON THE NEXT PAGE.

G IN D A E R L A N IO IT D AD The St Martin’s Group: Creating a World-Class Skills and Apprenticeship System Achieving the benefits of Apprenticeships.

The ROI of employee development

CALL TO ACTION Include measurable ROI and behavioural change in your agreement with your training provider. Include line managers in your feedback and ask about behavioural change and confidence. Include a baseline check-in with learners at the start of the programme, not only skill scan for technical capability but social justice improvements too. Don’t measure an Apprenticeship any differently than you would a commercially funded programme – expect the change and ROI to be as significant.

UNDERSTANDING THE

APPRENTICESHIP LEVY

The levy that you are paying into the DAS account needs to be spent on Apprenticeship development within 24 months of payment or it will be surrendered to the government. As you are able to determine when your programmes start, it is recommended that you plan out your payments for the next 36 months to see when it makes most sense to launch your programmes, as each standard is funded differently, you want to deliver the higher cost programmes first to minimise additional costs.

Once you have exhausted your levy funding pot, the government will support any additional funding by co-investing 95% of further levy spending. You will pay the 5% to your training provider commercially as a top-up. You can pay this in monthly instalments and it would still enable you to develop your employees very cost-effectively – an £11,000 Process Leader programme would cost you £550 over 13 months which is £42.30 per month per learner.

If you have someone who is not eligible to receive apprenticeship funding because they do not have an English postcode (you may have employees in Wales or Scotland, or internationally) you can negotiate a fee for learning with the training provider and either pay the full amount as a commercial cost or, if you have a large volume of levy-funded learners, you can ask for a percentage of non-funded learners to be included in the cohort.

Typically you will not be able to negotiate on the funding of each learner, even though the government says you can and should, funding bands are often tight and training providers have worked out the delivery costs already. However, you are able to negotiate on additional value, which may mean an additional non-funded learner per 30 funded learners, or additional content (what we call a golden module – something that isn't in the standard but would be useful such as presentation skills or data fundamentals). We will go into much more detail about negotiating in other episodes.

HOW TO START A TRANSFER Both parties need to agree on the details of the transfer of funds. For example, which apprenticeship standard, how many apprentices, the cost.

Once both employers are registered on the Apprenticeship service the following must be done in their accounts to complete a transfer. Connect with each other Receiving employer to add the apprentice details Confirm the transfer

EMPLOYERS WHO ARE TRANSFERRING FUNDS Before you make a transfer from your Apprenticeship account, make sure that you: Have enough funds to transfer to another employer. Have a clear understanding of the forecasted cost to you, which will cover the duration of the Apprenticeship you've agreed to fund through a transfer. Understand you will be funding the total cost of their apprenticeship and not just the co-investment. Agree with the employer who is receiving the transfer, details of the Apprenticeships you're funding. Are aware of the funding rules around transferring Apprenticeship funds. You should also know You can't transfer funds to another employer if you currently receive a transfer. If you're currently transferring funds to another employer, you can't receive transferred funds to pay for your Apprenticeships. Transfer payments will leave your Apprenticeship service account first, each month. If the Apprenticeship stops, your transferred payments will stop as well.

The (usually) larger company can donate up to 25% of its unspent levy funding to any other company for them to fund Apprenticeship delivery. The rules of eligibility are exactly the same as if the company were funding the Apprenticeship themselves and the process of levy transfer is relatively simple.

CALCULATE AVAILABLE SPEND

RECEIVING EMPLOYER SETS UP APPRENTICESHIP SERVICE ACCOUNT

RECEIVING EMPLOYER CHOOSES TRAINING PROVIDER - APPRENTICES ADDED ONLINE

LEARNERS CAN START AND PAYMENTS MADE ON MONTHLY BASIS

EMPLOYERS DISCUSS TERMS OFFLINE

SENDING EMPLOYER INITIATES CONNECTION

SENDING EMPLOYER GIVES FINAL APPROVAL OF COSTS AND STANDARD

Although you can go straight to a company that you know is happy to donate their levy funds. It may be simpler to use a brokerage service to manage your levy transfer process, this is free to employers and often the brokerage service has the ability to support you with a funded levy expert who can help you with DAS administration and the general process of setting up an apprentice.

EXTRA LINKS Apprenticeship funding rules and guidance for employers (The Co-Op) have just launched their levy transfer service via Co-Op Levy Share

LEVY CHECKLIST Fill out a levy transfer request form. We will liaise with our partners to find the right funding for you. Levy transfers are a chance for the transferring organisation to deliver on their CSR commitments, so transferring organisations will want to know. That you're using an apprenticeship to increase social mobility, as many support the mission of helping over 1,000 Londoners progress into work, from low-paid, lowskill roles to those of better quality and higher pay. How the transferred funds will enable your organisation to recruit from those outside of your traditional sphere. That you are paying your apprentice the London Living Wage of £10.85 an hour. Funding confirmed! A chance to meet you over Teams or Zoom. An agreement signed by both parties. A case study, to share why you're hiring an apprentice and what it will mean for your company. Further steps in the Digital Apprenticeship System (DAS) will be needed. They are included in the DAS checklist further in your information pack.

CALL TO ACTION Make sure you know if you are a levy payer. Think about the timing of delivery in terms of your levy funding pot. Plan out what you're receiving for the next 36 months. If you are not using all of your levy consider levy donation. If you are not a levy payer consider levy transfer. Negotiate with your training provider on value add rather than cost

WHY APPRENTICESHIPS ARE NOT

JUST FOR SCHOOL LEAVERS

The Apprenticeship reform in 2017 opened up the Apprenticeship opportunity for everyone – any age, any educational background and any length of tenure. The changing world of work means that nearly everyone in a role would benefit from additional development and apprenticeships can support your development plans across your organisation.

Thinking that the ‘spirit of Apprenticeships’ is just to support young people into work is missing a massive opportunity for you to bring new talent into your business of any age and background and also support your employees.

There are many examples of organisations using Apprenticeships to develop employees at all levels and the benefits of that development. If you start thinking about skills needed in your organisations before you think about the age of the person bringing those skills, then you will quickly get to the point of creating programmes that may have mixed populations in them or access new talent pipelines that you hadn’t thought of before. There are many charities that can support you with connecting with different populations and your training provider should also be about to help you understand how the standard can be adapted to support people from different backgrounds, the Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours will be the same, it will be the delivery style and content that will differ.

Just because the government rhetoric and advertising is all focused on young people, doesn’t meant that is actually the case.

The average age of our learners is 42. When we started we only delivered programmes to existing employees, predominantly those in a leadership positions to help them become leaders for change in their organisation. We deliver a Mental Health Leadership programme to give managers the toolkit to support their teams in being more open about their mental well-being as well as understanding the correlation between better processes and systems and lower stress levels. The programme can only be delivered to people of influence. We have delivered it successful in Distribution Centres and Hospitality environments. It is 100% apprenticeship levyfunded.

CALL TO ACTION Think about your skills gaps and where they are. Consider any programme that is over 12 months can be an apprenticeship. Focus on skills before standards – understand what you need to develop and then start to research the standard that might 80% fit - it also doesn’t have to be a level 7 (masters level) apprenticeship. Look at your leadership and more senior development programmes – could they be an apprenticeship?

WHICH COMPANIES HAVE HAD

SUCCESS WITH APPRENTICESHIPS?

The question we are always asked is ‘Who is doing the Apprenticeship levy well?’ Of course this is a complex question as each organisation is different and at a different stage in its growth but we are happy to share some examples of what is going well in the world of Apprenticeships and who is doing it. In our experience, people are happy to talk about their successes so feel free to reach out to the Apprenticeship lead and ask them for more details. The thing to remember is that you need to create a strategy that works for your organisation, its culture and its appetite for change.

CALL TO ACTION

Ask around your fellow HR professionals and see if they have insight on training providers.

Attend webinars or conferences delivered by companies as well as government representatives to get more context.

Reach out to awardwinning employers to see how they set up their apprenticeship strategy.

Think about what you need in terms of skills programmes so that you can discuss relevant and comparable programmes.

Awards are a good starting point but never tell the whole story!

FAQs We have pulled together some FAQ's to help you on this journey. Click above to access them.

What is achieved through an Apprenticeship? Apprenticeship programmes work toward a nationally recognised Apprenticeship standard, ranging from intermediate to degree level accreditation. In addition to gaining a qualification, wherever learners are in their career, an Apprenticeship can make a big difference as it will give them skills and tools to use for the rest of their career, and will give them a chance to boost their profile in their business.

Are apprenticeships only for new employees? No! Anyone can join an Apprenticeship, regardless of seniority or prior qualifications. As long as the apprentice will learn a significant amount of new learning, they can join.

Is there an age limit for Apprenticeships? No! We believe it's never too late to learn. The Opportunity Group has apprentices ranging from 18-60 years of age.

Can a learner join an Apprenticeship if they work part-time? Yes. We will work with any part-time learners to ensure that they can still take part in their programme and get the most out of their learning experience.

Can a learner change their role during an Apprenticeship? Yes, we love to see progression. As long as the new role is still relevant to the content of their Apprenticeship programme and the KSB's can be met, they will be able to continue their programme. We will support the learner and their new line manager as they settle into their new role.

What is safeguarding? Safeguarding is "protecting an adults right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect". Safeguarding is part of The Care Act of 2014.

Can a learner join an Apprenticeship if they don't live in England? Yes! We work with organisations to ensure interested learnersare able to join even if they live or work outside of England.

What will I achieve by undertaking the programme? During your Apprenticeship programme, you will be working towards a nationally recognised apprenticeship standard. Aside from qualifying for this Apprenticeship programme you get involved with, wherever you are in your career, an Apprenticeship can make a big difference as it will give you skills and tools to use for the rest of your career.

What is the project and why do I need to do one? The business improvement project is a way to bring together all of the knowledge, skills and behaviours that you are learning on the ELX programme. You will work in teams and also individually to determine and design a business improvement project that you can pitch to senior members.

What’s in it for me? The programme is an opportunity to learn about yourself as a person and as a leader. You will spend time understanding how to maximise your thinking and working style and also how to be successful in your career.

Will doing this programme affect me on the job productivity? No. Apprenticeships are designed with the help of employers in the industry to make sure they offer a structured programme that takes you through the skills you need to do a job well. There are targets and checks to make sure that your employer is supporting you and that you are making progress. As an employee, you will be in employment for most of your time as most training takes place on the job. The rest is completed ‘off-the-job’ training to be completed between workshops, we will support you with tasks and templates, so it won’t affect your day to day productivity. In fact with the skills and tools we are giving you, we think it will improve your effectiveness at work.

GLOSSARY APPRENTICESHIPS This is the official terminology for the levy-funded programmes we deliver.

CASE STUDIES Short stories about positive experiences from our clients, learners and stakeholders

CMI CMI The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) works with business and education to inspire people to become skilled, confident and successful managers and leaders.

DAS ACCOUNT In order to recruit an apprentice, non-levy paying employers MUST have a Digital Apprenticeship Service (DAS) account. This allows employers to reserve government funds to cover the cost of the training, but also to apply for any recruitment incentives.

EPA EPA is an acronym for End-Point Assessment. The EPA is what all learners completeing an apprenticeship must do at the end of their programme.

ILM ILM’s qualifications are designed to reflect the different needs of managers at different levels.

GLOSSARY LEARNER A learner is the person taking part in the programme.

LEVY The levy is digital funding pot that an employer creates by transferring 0.5% of their PAYE every month. Levy can be transferred between employers. Levy can only be spent on delivering Apprenticeships to employees.

TESTIMONIALS Positive quotes and references from clients learners and stakeholders.

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