What if I told you that for every $1 your business invests in our youth you will receive a $1.40 in return? Sounds like a pretty good investment to me! Not to mention, that if you don’t invest in our youth you likely will not be able to recruit the necessary talent pool necessary to grow your business in the coming years. This may sound a little doom and gloom, but stick with me for a second. We all realize that our rural communities are shrinking as our young people move to the cities for better opportunities. If this continues over the next 10-20 years how will your business survive? How will you retain and recruit the necessary workforce to run your business?
It is in these scenarios that investing in various work-based learning opportunities such as apprenticeships and internships that your business can shine and showcase to students what your local business has to offer. Many times our students don’t realize the opportunities available to them in their backyard unless we show them. The youth of today don’t necessarily want to leave their small communities however they feel to have a successful career they need to. That simply isn’t the case, but we need to take time to educate our youth on the opportunities available to them and spend some time and money investing in them to mold them into our future employees.
Apprenticeship is an industry-driven, high quality career pathway where your business can develop and prepare your future workforce and individuals can obtain paid work experience along with classroom instruction. If the program is registered with the United States Department of Labor individuals will receive a nationally recognized credential upon completion of the program.
Apprenticeship is a flexible training strategy that can be customized to meet the needs of your business. It can be integrated into current training and human resource development strategies.
Apprentices can be new hires – or your business can select current employees to join the apprenticeship program. Apprenticeships are a good way to reward high-performing entry-level employees and move them up the career ladder within your business.
Not only does investing $1 in an apprenticeship program yield a $1.40 return you will also realize these amazing benefits:
- establish job training standards and expectations
- develop loyal, skilled employees who value company culture
- nurture your own pipeline of talent for hard-to-fill positions
- the cultivation of a well-trained, talented workforce that is productive from the start
- the opportunity to train workers using the exact pieces of equipment, protocols and procedures that are relevant to your business
- an opportunity to maintain institutional knowledge when soon-to-retire workers and recent retirees serve as instructors and mentors to new workers
If I have peaked your interest at all about this amazing innovative opportunity to shape the youth of today into the workforce of tomorrow, please reach out so we can talk more about how your business can get involved. To speak with any of our apprenticeship coordinators please email workforce@northeast.edu.