We’re seeing a change in how apprenticeships are being perceived. The Department of Education launched its groundbreaking ‘Fire It Up’ campaign in January. April marks the 24 months since the levy was introduced. And we can see that employers are increasingly embracing apprenticeships, incorporating them as a key part of their recruitment, diversity and inclusion strategies.
But there is still a lot to be done. Many employers are still uncertain of how and why they should consider apprenticeships. Many school leavers are still not considering apprenticeships as an outstanding alternative to university, and a way into top companies. Many schools and colleges do not have access to the right statistics and information they need to encourage school leavers to follow the path less taken.
We’re trying to change the stigma surrounding apprenticeships.
We want to create a diverse group of future leaders and we are doing this by matching non-graduate talent with apprenticeship opportunities at some of the UK's most exciting companies.
Here are 10 reasons why we are different to other providers:
- We position ourselves differently. Apprenticeships are the mechanism to create an outstanding alternative to university but we’re providing programmes and resources that provide better, more rounded people, and we’re competing with the best university experiences, not apprenticeship training providers.
- We are a tech startup. Our platform, designed in-house, helps match apprentices to the right opportunity meaning more apprentices are completing apprenticeships. Candidates create a digital profile, including personality/video profiles, that identifies hidden talent and provides employers with a framework for measuring potential outside of work and education.
- We partner with top content providers. WhiteHat has partnership agreements with some of the world’s best commercial training and content organisations, ranging from General Assembly and Flatiron School, to Mind Gym and Grant Thornton.
- We are building an apprentices community. We provide networking opportunities, professional development opportunities, and access to mentors for all of our apprentices.
- We focus on developing apprentices outside of the qualification. All of our apprenticeships include our Future Leaders Foundation, covering subjects ranging from negotiation to financial planning. We provide lots of content not just focused on helping apprentices pass their EPA but to become broader professionals.
- We support line managers. We run sessions for line managers where they raise challenges around apprenticeships and we support them to come up with solutions via a workshop and design a toolkit.
- We don’t use assessors or former assessors to do our delivery. We employ coaches without a background in apprenticeships who are experts at what they’re teaching. Our approach is not to simply rework what has been done before in apprenticeships, it is to build something radically different, that delights and develops our apprentices.
- We encourage transparency. We have designed our own online platform Appli.ed to meet the key elements of an apprenticeship, 20% off the job training (all logged and visible via the platform), progress reviews, exit tickets. It has a dashboard for line managers as well as apprentices and their coaches so there is transparency around progress.
- We have a higher success rate. Our apprenticeship success rate is currently 91% (how many apprentices who start an apprenticeship with us will complete it). This compares to the national average across apprenticeship provision of 68%.
- We are Ofsted approved. WhiteHat received an Ofsted Monitoring Visit in July 2018 that saw us achieve top marks in every single category. We are one of only two providers visited as part of the RoATP process in the entire country to achieve top marks across the board.
Businesses looking to find out more about WhiteHat or how to launch an apprenticeship programme can call 020 3884 1067 to speak to the sales team, or fill out the form below.
