1.   Apprenticeships are only for large businesses

Apprenticeships can work in an organisation of any size. We recently placed an apprentice with a one-man business!

There are lots of ways to make this work; one of the most popular is the ‘carousel’ apprenticeship. This allows you to ‘share’ your apprentice (and the attendant costs and resources) with similar local businesses. Not only do you save money on salary, you can also forge an invaluable business link with other employers in your area – potentially hugely beneficial in the long run!

If you’re still not sure, why not get in touch with our Apprenticeship Training Service for a no-pressure chat about your own personal requirements? We’re sure we can make it work.

2.   An apprenticeship is expensive

The National Minimum Wage for an Apprentice is £2.60 p/h. We always recommend that employers pay their apprentice whatever they can afford over and above this rate (it’s only fair), but the base salary certainly doesn’t break the bank.

There are plenty of ways to save money beyond this – there’s that carousel apprenticeship again – and if you work with our Apprenticeship Training Service, we can advertise on a national scale, sift through applications and assist with interviews, saving you both time and money throughout the administrative process.

3.   I’d have to allocate so much more money to train an apprentice

Well, the work-based training element is built into the job the apprentice would be doing – that’s what you recruited them for. You’re paying for the work they do, not the training – and that would be the case for any employee! At least with an apprentice the college fees are still funded or part-funded by the government – so there shouldn’t be any additional cost over and above the investment you’d be making anyway.

4.   But all that training takes time!

An apprentice is like any new member of staff – they require some time investment to ensure they can do the job you hired them to do. However, there’s no evidence to suggest an apprentice needs significantly more support than anybody else. You may even save time: with an apprentice you won’t need to spend time unpicking habits learned from previous employers – and all the training is work-based anyway.

Bear in mind too that an apprentice comes into the job with passion and enthusiasm – you’d be surprised how quickly they pick the job up! Indeed, a study conducted by Populus back in 2008 found that 80% of employers asked thought apprentices had made their workplace more productive.

5.   I’d be better off hiring a graduate intern

For the price of an intern you could have an apprentice! The difference is that an intern only stays six months (or less) and generally has little long-term investment in your organisation. An apprentice, on the other hand, is loyal to the people who train her and keeps paying back those original time and training investments long after the intern has vanished. So if you’re going to train someone anyway, why not make that training time worthwhile? The same goes for temporary or short-term staff – you could easily reallocate that training budget to a more long-term investment (saving you money once again!).

If you’re considering offering an unpaid internship, remember that these are illegal- if they’re doing real work, they should get real pay. Creative Apprenticeships provide clear and transparent entry routes into a highly competitive sector, and you’ll be repaid for giving someone a real opportunity with a potentially long-term (and passionate!) employee you’ve trained up to your standards, your way. 

6.   If I hired an apprentice, I’d have to get all my staff CRB-checked.

No matter how old they are, as an Apprentice a young person is an employee. Therefore there’s no need for anyone in your organisation to be CRB-checked – unless you’re working with children and vulnerable adults anyway.

7.   All my jobs are graduate jobs!

Are they? Some jobs are more suited to graduates than others, but it’s worth asking yourself whether the jobs you need doing actually require three years of theoretical study to do them. Indeed, a recent study found that 40% of graduates are currently ‘underemployed’– doing jobs that are below their capabilities.

An apprenticeship, on the other hand, is all about practical experience and on-the-job training – more useful than graduate skills in certain jobs. Plus, an apprentice comes with other advantages: you get a completely fresh perspective on your business – often especially useful for arts organisations working with young audiences – and a real willingness to learn.

8.   An apprentice would be too young and immature for the workplace.

Firstly, you don’t have to take on a teenager – an apprentice can be any age from sixteen to sixty – but (more importantly) remember that maturity and responsibility aren’t restricted to the over-20s! Do also bear in mind that you’re not ‘stuck’ with the first potential apprentice who shows up – as with any recruitment drive, you’d be interviewing interested candidates and making your decisions accordingly. There’s also a fair bet that if they’ve applied for an apprenticeship in a creative company, the young person in question is pretty determined to make it work.

9.   I’d need to have links with education or colleges – which I don’t have.

...we do. Our 20 Founder further education Colleges are committed to working with industry (that’s you!) and delivering apprenticeships. Talk to our Apprenticeship Training Service – they’ll know your local college and can work with them to get a nationwide recruitment process going (saving you money in the process – there’s a theme emerging!).
 

10.  The whole process is complicated and admin-heavy. I can’t deal with all that bureaucracy!

There’s no need to – if you take on an apprentice through our Apprenticeship Training Service, they’ll do all the recruitment for you, help with interviews and make sure all the admin is covered. We’ve facilitated hundreds of creative apprenticeships since they started in 2008, and we know our sector – we know how to make the process quick and pain-free. 

Read more about Apprenticeships:

Think your business is too small for an Apprentice? Think again!

Twelve Business Benefits of Apprenticeship Training

The National Apprenticeships Website

Click here to contact our Apprenticeship Training Service.