Dr. Dave Just, formally Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education
at Community Colleges in MA, OH, PA, SC. Currently President of K&D Consulting
In a Community College Daily News article, “Drawing Lines on Apprenticeships,” business and industry representatives seemed to have expressed to their congressional leaders the changes they would like to see in apprenticeships before they would consider participating. The opening statements from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chair Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) and ranking minority member Sen. Patty Murray (Washington) set the debate, with “Alexander arguing that registered apprenticeships limit creativity and flexibility that employers seek because of cumbersome administrative red tape. More companies want less-formal, industry-recognized apprenticeships that allow them to work on specific skill sets, he said, adding they also are more appealing to industries such as health care and information technology that don’t traditionally offer apprenticeships.”
Ranking Member Pat Murray (Washington) rebutted this claim, “…registered apprenticeships ensure rigor and program quality. She said GOP efforts to encourage more nonregistered programs is designed to ‘weaken and water down’ programs and to open the training market to for-profit institutions.” Most people actively involved with apprenticeships know that much can be done to make apprenticeships more attractive, practical, fulfilling and feasible to employers and more attractive, achievable and valuable to apprentices. And that there is a role for for-profit training providers when the non-profit and institutional related technical instruction in the area is weak, has not been kept up-to-date or is non-existent.
There is no denying that the iconic apprenticeships of old were hard for employers to embrace. An 8-10 year apprenticeship program for, in many cases, 1 apprentice was a non-starter. And with developments in the last 30 years – massive relocation of jobs off-shore, instability of employment even before the Crash of 2008 but more so after (employees not able to continue in a job classification for 3 years let alone 10 year apprenticeship), the stagnation and decline of wages and continual introduction of newer technology that redesigns the nature of jobs – everyone involved including community colleges felt they were playing a seemingly never ending shell game. Add to that a period of uncertainty such as the current trade and tariff action exchanges and the only thing certain is an uncertain workforce development target.
In the past, the criteria apprentices had to meet to reach journeyman status was ambiguous. The general related technical instruction was more defined but many questioned the currency, relevance and quality of the content, which varied from institution to institution. The more important on-the-job training portion – the part of the apprenticeship that transfers technical trade expertise from the expert to the journeyman – was even more ambiguous; 500 hours for drill press, 600 hours for milling machines, etc. It became a challenge for employers to find credibility in the process and enough interest in attempting to document hours associated with each training area of the job even if the arbitrary criteria was achievable. (e.g. if someone needed 500 hours to master a drill press they most likely would be considered a slow learner and let go).
In 2008 the U.S. Department of Labor introduced 3 apprenticeship models it would accept: the time-based, the competency-based and the hybrid. Although progress towards advancing apprenticeships stalled with the Crash of 2008 and the following year’s uncertainty, this was a significant step in modernizing the concept of apprenticeships. So too was the growing interest by all stakeholders in apprenticeships as one potential solution to the growing “skills gap.”
While there are many things that could be done to make apprenticeships relevant, achievable, easily documented and useful, care must taken in the rush to make them more appealing to employers and achieve the lofty goals set for new apprentices and apprenticeships not to weaken the criteria to the point where an apprenticeship certificate or journeyman card has little credibility. It can, once again, be seen as a waste of time and expense to the employer and trainee.
What makes an apprenticeship unique and different from bulk knowledge transfer of community colleges and universities is the on-the-job training; one-on-one training on the tasks that make up the profession. If the time to achieve an apprenticeship certificate is shortened to 2 or 3 years and the employer does nothing more than puts the apprentice on the clock, the opportunity will be wasted for all involved. As word gets out that the outcomes are less than underwhelming, the idea of apprenticeships could be tarnished for decades as so many other “avant-garde” educational and management innovations of the past.
Community colleges should resist the urge to persuade employers to neglect their responsibility to an apprenticeship by marketing that the school can add more “hands-on” learning to their classroom delivery. It is never close enough to job-relevance to convince an employer that an apprentice in training is worthy of hiring or higher wages if the apprentice cannot or has not mastered the tasks the employer needs performed. While a trainee might be drawn to the notion of “industry-driven” skills, an employer will only value skills that are germane to their operation. They are reluctant to invest in skills that they cannot benefit from and skills that will dissipate quickly with little of no opportunities to reinforce them. Then fewer people will enroll in apprenticeships if wages are seen as inappropriately low for the type of skills required and effort needed to obtain them.
The key to an effective apprenticeship is structuring the employer’s task-based on-the-job training. Cutting and pasting generic information on some tools and equipment thought to be part of a job classification was never enough and still is easily dismissed. What is needed is to bring in a job/task analysis professional that can quickly and thoroughly analyze the job classification, develop the materials needed to support a structured on-the-job training program that is part of an apprenticeship; unique for each employer and unique to each apprentice based on prior learning and prior work experience. This approach can effortlessly document every task each apprentice masters through their own training experience. A qualified professional can provide the technical implementation support to let a business run its business, not feel they are running their own educational institution.
Yes, this can be done. In past articles I have written about my own experiences with this approach partnering with Proactive Technologies Inc. while I was Dean of Corporate and Continuing Education for community colleges in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and South Carolina. In each case, when we introduced this approach to employers, the employer saw this approach as common sense and a refreshing return to what they knew was missing yet often unable to articulate.
In one case, in a region heavy with manufacturing – especially automobile manufacturers and Tier 1 and 2 suppliers – we combined core general and industry-general skills, Mechatronics and employer-specific, job-specific structured on-the-job training built to focus and expedite the worker development effort. I have seen this approach work for any job classification in any industry though perfected for manufacturing, but this effort focused on the Electrician, Maintenance, Single and Multi-Craft Maintenance and Robotic Maintenance Technicians job classifications.
The key to keeping employers engaged was to make sure the employer could see value being developed in each apprentice above all else. This required ensuring the core skill and industry general training were job-relevant for the employer. It also required that the onsite training was effective with customized, deliberate and accurate structured on-the-job training to accelerate the transfer of expertise™ cut the duration of training necessary to reach full job mastery, and the institutional and employer costs to support the program. If the employer gets what they expect – highly trained, highly skilled, perfectly matched and career-satisfied workers – they will stay engaged and enthusiastically support apprenticeship programs and be more inclined to invest time, staff and resources.
At each community or technical college I was assigned I introduced this approach by partnering with Proactive Technologies, Inc. As hybrid apprenticeship programs – registered or not – continued and expanded, and new trainees were processed, employers saw even more justification for the related technical instruction and other services the school provided. Employers voted with their pocket books and that made the approach sustainable.
Apprenticeship programs can be reduced in duration to 2 ½ – 3 ½ years (depending on occupation) and meet everyone’s needs…if all the components are there, the effort is job-relevant, focused, deliberate and documented. These hybrid programs can be highly successful. Anything short of that – long on fluff and short on substance – runs the risk of tainting the notion of apprenticeships for all. We should have learned that that type of taint lasts decades.
This doesn’t mean that a well-designed related technical instruction/structured on-the-job training apprenticeship program can’t be derailed by economic events, changes in the employer’s management, changes in the educational or employer partner’s contacts or a corporate decision to move jobs. But, with this approach, disruptions like this can be accommodated, the apprenticeship relocated or resumed when conditions allow.
Related Articles:
Apprenticeship Program Development/Support
Apprenticeships – An Alternative to the “400 Hours For Drill Press” On-the-Job Training Model
Apprenticeships That Make Money? Not As Impossible as it Seems Part 1
Is an Apprenticeship Without Structured On-The-Job Training an Apprenticeship?
Understanding the Important Difference Between Classroom, Online and On-The-Job Training
What Makes Proactive Technologies’ Accelerated Transfer of Expertise™ So Effective
If you would like to know how this approach might work at your firm or in partnership with a local institution, or how a pilot project may be the best way to introduce this approach to your organization, contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can followed up with an onsite presentation for you and your colleagues. A 13-minute promo briefing is available at the Proactive Technologies website and provides an overview to get you started and to help you explain it to your staff.
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