Verizon is one of the world's leading providers of technology and communications services, with award-winning networks and platforms.
They're at the forefront of innovation – for example, they were the first carrier in the world to commercially launch next-generation 5G mobile networks. Driving this innovation forward – and meeting ever-evolving consumer and business needs – requires that Verizon find and retain the best talent, armed with the latest and greatest digital skills.
Finding and hiring exceptional people equipped with technical skills can be expensive and time consuming, and constant innovation means that Verizon is continually looking for new ways to hire, upskill, reskill and advance its workforce.
As part of Citizen Verizon, Verizon’s responsible business plan, it had previously expressed an industry-leading goal to prepare 500,000 individuals for the jobs of the future through skills training and mentorship by 2030. So as the company looked to generate new ways of hiring - they were equally committed to reskilling and upskilling individuals with non-traditional backgrounds and working to remove existing barriers that often hold back individuals from high-demand tech roles, like lack of a degree or relevant job experience.
Welcoming more people into digital roles with tech apprenticeships
Verizon joined forces with Multiverse to build a tech apprenticeship program, Verizon Thrive, training high-potential individuals in digital skills needed to succeed in tech roles. In June of 2021, Verizon welcomed an initial 20 software engineering apprentices. The apprentices came from all over the United States and from various backgrounds, many without professional engineering experience. As part of the Verizon Skill Forward workforce development initiative, learners started their journey in Generation USA’s Full Stack Developer Bootcamp and these learners were chosen to join Verizon as full-time employees in their inaugural apprenticeship program.
Apprentices embarked on a 12 month, tuition-free, earn-and-learn program, learning technical skills to contribute across the entire software development life cycle; designing, developing, testing and deploying full-stack software applications. Over the course of the program, apprentices received education and personalized coaching from industry experts.
Unique to the apprenticeship model, apprentices were placed in full-time, paid roles in Verizon’s Global Technology organization and began applying their learnings almost immediately to projects across teams such as Systems and Cloud Engineering, Application Development, and Accessibility.
“The best and brightest minds can come from anywhere. Embracing diversity and personal advancement isn’t just the right thing to do - it's also smart business. The barriers to entry in the technology field can be too high, so we created the Verizon Skill Forward initiative to lower barriers to entry to software jobs while training truly great software developers that we fundamentally believe can propel our business through digital innovation.” - Shankar Arumugavelu, SVP and CDIO of Verizon.
Reskilling to advance corporate initiatives and business outcomes
Thrive Apprentices at Verizon have made a demonstrable impact on the Verizon business, contributing to their teams from day one.
- Accelerated product development: Apprentices accelerated business critical projects, taking on UI development, database connectivity, and debugging work. One apprentice built an alerting engine to enable faster decisions & reduce system errors; a project that led to a 53% decline in system errors.
- Cost savings: Another group worked on Verizon's API-first transformation. The apprentices built a new portal that will help to reduce the number of support tickets and reduce time to deploy new APIs, lowering total cost of deployment significantly.
The Results in Numbers
- 95% of the first cohort of apprentices accepted full-time offers and will be working at Verizon post-apprenticeship
- $5+ million estimated impact to Verizon’s global business from their inaugural cohort
- 100% of apprentices report they feel confident or strongly confident in applying the skills they have acquired/refined during the apprenticeship
Looking Ahead
With the apprenticeship program not only delivering on their Citizen Verizon goals, but also their need to generate steady talent streams, leaders at Verizon decided to go even further.
They’ve now scaled their apprenticeship program to welcome an additional 86 apprentices onto new programs in Verizon’s Data Analytics and Marketing organizations, respectively.
Verizon believes apprenticeships will be a critical way to hire, train and retain tech talent in their organization moving forward.
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Reach out today to learn more about the power of professional apprenticeships.
