Hands up if you think an apprentice is a teenager joining the workplace for the first time?

Put your hands down, you’re not in the classroom now. And you are underestimating the power of apprenticeships to transform your workforce, regardless of their age and skillset.

Okay, so you can attract the next generation of motivated workers but an apprenticeship is a brilliant tool to develop your existing team. And using them in your business helps you shape your workforce to meet the needs of tomorrow as well as meet the demands of a modern market.

Here’s a case in point with family bakery Reids of Caithness.

In the last 10 years or so, owner Gary Reid (pictured here with his wife Tracy) has put over 35 members of his Thurso-based team through apprenticeships in production & processing, bakery skills, food & drink operations, distribution, and food manufacturing excellence.

“We have a responsibility to ensure our staff are as well trained as possible.

“It helps them develop their skills and helps our bakery produce and maintain our award-winning products to the highest standard every day."

Find out more about how Reids use the scheme here.

Gary accesses the apprenticeships through his industry body Scottish Bakers, but you can start with the excellent info from the Skills Development Scotland resource at apprenticeships.scot.

Types of apprenticeships

An apprenticeship is simply a tool to support learning. It’s up to you how you choose to use the tool in a smart and effective way.

There are over 100 types of apprenticeships available in Scotland, from business admin to digital marketing, food & drink operations to procurement. There are three main types:

Modern Apprenticeships – these focus on upskilling your existing employees and can also provide extra support and training for new starts
Graduate Apprenticeships – these offer fully funded degree-level training for your employees
Foundation Apprenticeships – you offer senior school pupils real experience of the world of work and you get input from young, enthusiastic minds

So how do you want to use the apprenticeships?

Upskill and reskill

As well as Gary’s bakery story above, here’s another example, this time from the seafood industry.

While 57-year-old James MacDonald from Stornoway might not be most people’s idea of a typical trainee, he has turned out to be an ideal candidate for the Modern Apprentice training programme.

Graduate Apprenticeships offer fully funded degree-level training for your employees. They work for you 80% of the time, dedicating 20% of their time to developing skills at university or college. They’re great for businesses with specific skills needs.

Recruit

Maybe you want to track down some talent?

Sometimes businesses think apprenticeships can feel uneven. Why would you want to invest in a young person who has limited experience of the workplace?

Because you inject fresh ideas, you gain access to talent, enthusiasm and motivation and you can train those people to your business’s precise requirements.

And sometimes they’re worth their weight in gold. Here’s a young man who worked on a project that is saving his employer £20,000.

Devro apprentice Kyle Nielsen worked on an electrical panel upgrade that is saving the business thousands of pounds.

Twenty-year-old Kyle is an apprentice maintenance engineer at Devro, who supply casings for sausages and other meat products. He is also the winner of last year’s Scotland's Young Talent at the Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards.

He is based in their manufacturing plant in north Lanarkshire and he’s in the fourth year of his five-year apprenticeship.

He sees the financial saving of £20,000 from his work on the panel upgrade through an interesting lens.

You can download the full case study here to find out more, or watch more of Kyle’s story here to find out why he thinks apprentices can play an important part in a business.

And we can tap into the talent stream even earlier. Foundation Apprenticeships give you input from young, enthusiastic minds.

A recent cohort brought those minds to bear on projects for Baxters special sauce, Innovate’s latest cheesy bites and a potato milk for Abertay University. Hear first hand what Foundation Apprentices can bring your product development projects here from Dr Jon Wilkin.

And an ongoing partnership at ingredient manufacturer Macphie shows this in practice with the development of – among other things – a non-alcoholic mulled wine version of brand’s popular dessert topping range.

A good tip that will help here is to connect with your local Developing the Young Workforce team.

Retain your talent

Bringing young people into your business also reinvigorates the existing workforce. In teaching them, they build their own confidence and realise what they know themselves. In turn, they develop other soft skills, such as listening, coaching, presenting and training.

And we don’t want to underestimate the effect working on their own skills - and towards a recognised qualification - can have on your existing workforce.

The opportunity to invest in their own development and advance their careers often deepens the connection with your business and lets them stretch themselves. All this leads to a more fulfilled workforce.

Professional cook Karen Stalker — In these two videos:
Karen reflects on embarking on a professional cookery apprenticeship in her 40s
International Fish Canners apprentice electrician Rio explains how it built her confidence in what can be a challenging environment

The takeaway…

Apprenticeships can secure the skills your business needs. As an employer, apprenticeships open up career opportunities for your current or future employees

Skills Development Scotland contribute towards the costs of training while you pay their wages like any other employee.

There are more than 100 types of apprenticeship, with subjects ranging from aquaculture to digital media.

Read through the real life examples from employers in this article for inspiration. After that, the best place to find out more is at apprenticeships.scot.