Are professional apprenticeships the missing link in your people strategy?

According to EY, nearly two-thirds of senior leaders(opens new window) have experienced at least one underperforming transformation in the past five years.

For HR leaders, the challenge is creating talent processes that can keep up with the pace of change. In our latest HR guide, we explore how professional apprenticeships help put people back at the center of your transformation strategy.

Research has shown that the more actions an organisation takes, the more successful(opens new window) it will be with its transformation strategy. To improve their odds, leadership teams will need to bring business and L&D strategies into alignment, and this may require a break from the traditional.

Standard training routes such as corporate workshops and formal education have a key role to play in closing critical skills gaps. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that applied learning through apprenticeships may be a more effective alternative when looking to scale skills transformation across the business.

While online courses and bootcamps can be effective for delivering specialised training quickly, the short-term nature of these programmes doesn’t guarantee skills retention. Additionally, classroom learning is not for everyone. The Hermann Ebbinghaus forgetting curve(opens new window) suggests that without immediate application, people tend to forget approximately 75% of what they learned after a couple of days and 90% of what they learned after a month.

With applied learning at the entry-level, professional apprenticeships combine certified skills training with on-the-job application, building a strong pipeline of future talent without the need for expensive third parties — and the benefits don’t stop there.

Professional apprenticeships that are designed to reskill or upskill your current employees are two additional effective development routes that can help increase employee retention while positioning your people at the center of your transformation strategy.

By providing training in high-demand skills like data analytics and software engineering, HR leaders can harness the power of professional apprenticeships to offer employees new routes toward long and rewarding careers. This also improves DEI by integrating fair career opportunities into your business structure.

In the full whitepaper, you’ll learn how the right training programs can deliver a scalable approach to skill building, putting people back at the center of your people transformation strategy where they belong.