 OK, I think we'll make a start and then people will join us as we go through the webinar. But thank you ever so much for joining us this morning. My name is Howard Codingley and I work for GrowthWorks. I'm the Skills and Business Relationship Manager with GrowthWorks. And today is all about demystifying the nones and the unknowns about apprenticeships. There's so many employers and individuals out there who simply just have no idea about how apprenticeships work. And we're hoping today to try and break down those barriers and make it a bit more easy to understand for employers and for individuals who want to do an apprenticeship. Now, before we go any further, I'd just like to say that the presentation has been recorded and we're quite happy to share the slides after the webinar with anybody that would like more information about the slides as well. Could I ask also if you have your mics on, if you could put your mics to off mode just while the presentation is taking place and at the end of the presentation, when the guests presented during the presentations, then we'll open the floor up to any questions and answers. If there's any questions where we can't find the answers today, hopefully there won't be, but if there is, then we will go away and we'll try and get those answers for you. I will come back to you with the answers that you require. But thank you very much for joining us today. I know you've got busy lives and it's very good of you to give up this hour of your time, but hopefully at the end of this hour, you'll have a bit more knowledge about apprenticeships and how to benefit you and your business. Next slide, please. So who are we? Well, GrowthWorks, we're based in Peterborough, we're contracted to support businesses, individuals, business startups across the whole of the Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority. We're a brokerage service and I like to say to employers and individuals, we are the people who join the dots together and introduce businesses to training providers and individuals to our Inward Investment team who help businesses to apply for grants to get their business off the ground. We like to, we're in a partial service and part of our ethos is that we want to be open to anybody who wants to grow the business or upskill the workforce and we try and work also with local providers who work with people who are looking for employment through the job centres as well. We're trying to reach out to the communities at every level and I was in retail management once and I like to think of this as a single shop window. It's a one stop shop where anybody can drop in onto our website and get all of the information and advice that they require regardless of whether they're an employer, a sole trader or an individual looking for employment because we do have our own free recruitment service as well on the website. Next slide please. So, as I mentioned earlier, we like to link up employers with schools and colleges to showcase our careers and sectors. We have our enterprise coordinators who work for growth works and they work in local schools and colleges where they work with young people who are trying to get on the career ladder, whether it's apprenticeships or go to university. Our enterprise coordinators work with young people and local schools. So we've got a very large footprint across the region and the work that they do is very valuable. Part of our service that they offer is they offer advice and guidance to young people about their important career choices, whether they are studying for next year or they've just left school. And they're not too sure what to do. Our enterprise coordinators will give them advice. And we'll also link up young people with our employer network that we work with because we do try to make sure we're working with employers who are recruiting and we're trying to encourage employers to recruit young people too. So we're just on the first step of the ladder to their career. We have a range of events taking place throughout, throughout Cambridgeshire. We work very closely with Formal Future. We're based in Cambridge and they work with lots of schools across the region and the universities and the colleges. So we have a strong network of links with schools and colleges. And the next slide please. So who are we? Well, we'd like to get more people involved in training and development. So we like to feel that the services that we offer to businesses, to communities will have an impact on individuals and the communities where they live and work. As you can see on there, I won't read every section on there, but you can see the key word there is really that we're trying to help employers to fill their vacancies, to upskill their workforce, and to also recruit young people onto apprenticeships. But apprenticeships are not just for young people. And that's what today's webinar is about today, because we also want to let those employers are on the call to know that we can upskill your existing workforce. I'm going to give you my age. I'm 68. I worked for Cambridge Regional College and in 2014, I did an apprenticeship and that gets to show that you can do an apprenticeship at any age. So if people come to me and say, I'm too old to do an apprenticeship, well, they have a tough argument with myself because I would just say that age isn't a problem. So we're trying to break down the myth about apprenticeships that 16 to 18 year olds or 16 to 24 years of going to college is what an apprenticeship about, but it's not. It's totally different. You can do apprenticeships now up to postgraduate level, to degree level. So as you can see there, we're working with young people who are inspired and work ready. We want to engage with more young people as well, of course, to help them to find a career path, whether it's apprenticeships or going to university. As I said, we're running partial service. Could I have the next slide please? If you're a business and you want to find out more about apprenticeships and skills and general upskilling of your workforce, we have a really fantastic tool. It's called the TDMI, which is a talent development maturity index. Sounds quite grand actually, but we call it as TDMI. It's really good. It's a very good online diagnostic tool that your organisation can use to identify whether a gap is in your training, your people data, HR, resources. And it takes 50 minutes to complete this training needs analysis, but I did it myself and I did it in 10 minutes. So it's quite quick, but it will give you an outcome at the end of the analysis of where your company stands with regard to your HR functions, your training and development, your people data, recruitment, performance management and resilience as well. So if you do log on to our website, I would encourage you to register your business as a business profile and then complete the TDMI. And then we will then reach out to myself or my colleagues, reach out to you then to go through the TDMI in a bit more detail and put together an action plan for you. Where we feel that your business needs some support. Could I have the next slide please? So there it's just really breaking down what I just said really. It's a HR function, what the structure and focus of your HR function is. How strategic or transactional are they in their focus? Training, what purpose does training serve? Is it linked to appraisals, company strategy or just compliance? Performance management, nobody likes poorly performing teams, but is your organization simply addressing poor performance or is it actively promoting excellent performance? Recruitment, do your methods of recruitment vary? Are you stuck using old methods? How do you attract the talent that you need? And the people data, how do you collect and use information about your team? Is this for monitoring or for action? And to what extent does people data influence your longer term company strategy, whether it's the next two, three years or the next 10 years? And resilience, do you have business continuity in place or are you at risk of losing critical skills? Very often, when I speak to employers, they've got very good retention rate. They've got a thriving workforce, the business is doing well. Unfortunately, some employers don't think ahead and they don't think about the next five years or the next 10 years about when the aging workforce starts to retire. They need to be thinking about bringing in new blood to train up and to progress into the roles when your existing workforce retire or change career. So we look at this as part of the TDMI analysis that we do with you. The next slide please. Now apprenticeships, the benefits of apprenticeships, 96% of employers with apprentices have experienced at least one benefit from taking on an apprentice and the most can count at least eight benefits. And there are people on the call today who will probably confirm this as well. Upskill existing employees through apprenticeships equals a highly skilled workforce. If you've got a highly skilled workforce, you've got a competitive workforce and that gives your business a competitive age against your competitors. So it's very important to keep your workforce truly upskilled and looking longer term as part of the learning and development plans. As I just mentioned, apprenticeships can form part of an employer succession planning and apprenticeships not only being essential skills to your business, but training your existing staff through the levy is also brilliant for attention. I look after the levy for Cambridge for any apprenticeships that are taking place under the combined authority. So if employers want to tap into the apprenticeship levy and there's a generous funding available for apprenticeships now, 95% funded, possibly 100% funded in some cases. And we have some employers are willing to share their levy, which they're not using with smaller employers. So we can help to facilitate that and introduce you to employers who are willing to share their levy with any other business. And it's very simple to apply for the levy. It's a very streamlined process and takes a matter of a couple of weeks to do this. And then also very often staff who are doing apprenticeships or doing any of the formal training increases job satisfaction because they like to feel that they are wanted, that their skills are being invested in and it motivates the workforce. And you will then find obviously that you'll have a more productive workforce who are very satisfied in their jobs and the next five days. Some of the key takeaways really is apprenticeships do fill the skill gaps that your business has and our TDMI, which I mentioned earlier would outline where the skill gaps are. And again, that's going to give your business a competitive edge. Improving retention by obscuring your existing work workforce, by also enrolling young people onto apprenticeships as part of your succession planning. We do work with a number of local colleges and local training providers. So we've got a range of expert training providers that can offer a really good range of apprenticeships. There's over 600 apprenticeship standards across the UK that are available to any businesses across every sector. Also creating talent for the future by investing in today's apprenticeship opportunities. That's another benefit of turning to apprenticeships for your business. And grants are available if you employ 16 to 18 year olds onto a recognised apprenticeship. So if you employ a person in this age, 16 to 18, your business will be entitled to a full funding for the apprenticeship. But they'll also attract a £1,000 grant that can be paid in two instalments, which is £500 after the first 90 days. And then they have a £500 once you've completed 365 days on the apprenticeship. And that funding can be used towards the travel costs, uniform, other related costs to help them to complete their apprenticeship. Also employers can get the employer's national insurance contribution waived whilst they have an apprenticeship aged 16 to 24. A lot of employers don't realise this. Very easy to set up. The HMRC have a link where you can go on to there and your finance team or your accountant or your payroll departments should be able to help you to access this. Whilst they're all in the apprenticeship and they're in the age group, the employer's secondary national insurance is waived. That can save you a few hundred pounds each year. And I said to my employers I work with, well, this money you're getting back when you're saving, one offer that to your apprentice as incentives for them to complete their apprenticeship at certain milestones during the course of the year. So you're incentivising your apprentice, but you're also giving them something back as well, and it's helping you to develop a very good apprentice that's going to benefit your business. So longer term, it's a good investment for yourself. And the next slide please. Right, I'm going to test to make sure you're all alive and awake. So I'm going to ask you a question now. And between August 22 and April 23, how many apprenticeship starts were there? Now I'd like you to, has anybody got any idea, would you like to take a guess? You can unmute your mics now and just have a guess or pop it into the chat if you don't want to speak up. And so, was there 140,908, 305,687, 275,630? Oh, so George just said 140. Have we got any more offers? Any more ups or downs? Richard? I would say 275, Howard. 275, and I think Kerry has said 275. Anna Stevens, 305. 275. 275, right. Could we have the next slide please to find, oh, 275 again. Can we have the next slide to find out what the true figure is? Wow. So the other few who got 275, then you're spot on there. So that's really surprising. Has it surprised anybody? Anybody like to comment on that? Excellent. Thank you. I do think it shows we're healing from COVID and apprenticeships are getting back out into industry. I think you're right, Kerry, because during COVID, apprenticeship starts really dropped and it had an effect on businesses across the UK, but apprenticeships as well. And it was slow to return from COVID. And that's a really good point, Kerry, because it shows up. We are recovering from COVID and that the employers... And my diary now is getting busier and busier because employers are realizing the benefits of apprenticeships. And your college, your starts are obviously increasing as well. And it's CRC, Kerry. Yes. So this month alone, we're only 35 off of last year in total. Well, that's not bad then really. That's pretty good. So, right, we've got another question to come up before I hand over to my colleagues. Could we have the next slide please? What percentage of under-19s accounted for those apprenticeship starts? So is it 63% for under-19? 24% or 78%? This is a really good one. Nearly caught me out. George, 63. Okay. Kerry, 63. Okay. I actually got this one right when I was giving this question a couple of weeks ago. I'm not showing off, by the way. So Hannah Stevens, 63. Dennis, 24. Any more offers, folks? Okay. We'll go to the next slide then. I actually got this right. I was quite short really, but I had a feeling it would be that. So what do people feel about this? Do you feel, because some of you said 63, 78. Are you quite surprised? Any comments on that? We've got one hand up. Oh, sorry. I didn't put my hand up. No, you're okay. Don't worry. I think it probably it would suggest that the perhaps the higher level apprenticeships for existing members of staff are quite prevalent within organisations, as well as those more entry level positions. Yeah. That was a good point actually. And Hannah, I think you put your hand up, didn't you? Yeah. Thanks, Howard. I think it also demonstrates that people are starting apprenticeships all through their careers, similar to the last contributor, and that young people, i.e. those under 19, are perhaps looking at all a wide variety of career options available to them. So university apprenticeships and other things as well. Yeah. It's a good point actually. And I think that with, I won't drag on too much because I know time's going now, but that figure, I do think it would be 24% because, like you said, there are other options that younger people are looking at. But I think it's really encouraging that the other 19s, that percentage is growing. And there's a growing number of employed people who are taking up higher apprenticeships level four, five upwards as well. So which isn't a bad thing. That's a good thing. But we need to see more an increase in level three's apprenticeships as well, because I think that's where there's a need to get more people on to level three's. There's a few level two apprenticeships around still, but there tend to be level three's now. But thank you ever so much for that. And I think Dennis, you've got that one right, didn't you? I think you said 24. So if I could give you a prize, I'll give you a prize, but I haven't got anything today, but well done anyway. Could we have the next slide, please? And now this is an interesting one. This is the last question. What is the percentage of time dedicated to offer job training for an apprentice? So every apprentice has to have a certain amount of time devoted to their apprentice apprenticeship. It doesn't mean they actually have to be taken off the job as such, but they have to devote so many hours per week towards their apprenticeship. So what was that 20% Megan? Okay. What was Dennis's? Dennis, you said again. Richard Sittle, 20. Kerry, 20. Hannah Stevens, 20. Dennis, 40. Okay. Gettlin, 20. And in the chat. Oh, yes, we've got that. Excellent. So for those who said 20% your spot on. So 20% of the time an apprentice should spend on their apprenticeship each week. It should be roughly around about six hours. They revised it now, and it's about six hours a week. It doesn't mean they actually have to be taken off the job, but there can be a range of other tasks and duties that can count towards that 20% off the job. But it needs to be shown as evidence to show that they're working through that apprenticeship. But thank you ever so much for that. And it's good to see that most people went for the correct one on that, even though they're the worst training providers, but they should not share the rate. But thank you very much. Can I have the next slide, please? And that's my presentation over. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to introduce you to George, who's the National Recruitment Manager for Paragon Skills and he's going to explain to you about everything from recruitment of apprentices to the onboarding of apprentices and what Paragon skills do. So I'll hand over to Georgina, but thanks everybody for your support so far. Thanks, Howard. Hi, everyone. Yes, Howard mentioned my name's George Marsh. I am the Apprentice Recruitment Manager at Paragon Skills. I'll tell you a bit about myself, first of all, so quite an interesting grounding in apprenticeship. So I previously worked for a different training provider. I was there for around seven years. I actually started as an apprentice at that training provider before the levy came in. I did my sales level two NVQ and then I did my business administration NVQ level three. So I've got it was interesting because I was really able to resonate with the people that I was speaking with. During my time with that training provider, I went from an apprentice to recruitment coordinator to a senior, then up to a team leader, sort of managing the team of recruiters helping to get young people onto the get their first step on the employment ladder. I'm now at Paragon Skills, so they've recently brought their apprentice recruitment service in-house and they've asked me to launch that from their perspective. At Paragon Skills, we have been rated the UK's number one training provider twice by rate my apprenticeship. We support approximately 6,000 learners and around a thousand employers. We do work across a number of different sectors as well that I'll highlight further on as we go in my couple of slides. I've got to show you all. If I could get the next slide, please. Lovely, perfect. So first of all, in terms of the process, so from start to finish, what does the process look like from an employer's perspective if you're recruiting an apprentice through Paragon Skills? So the headline sort of on this is very simple and straightforward from an employer's perspective. Paragon will do all the legwork. We'll speak to the candidates. We'll book the interviews. We'll do all the email confirmations. All the employer really has to do is identify a suitable vacancy, which they can do with help from a colleague here at Paragon Skills. Identifying which role would be suitable for an apprentice to go into, which department, how many hours per week it is, that kind of thing. So they would identify the vacancy. We would then create that spoke vacancy advert and advertise it across various national job boards, including the National Apprenticeship Service, which is the sort of dot gov website for apprenticeships. We use some other job boards as well, such as CareerMap, Get My First Job, not going to uni. Job boards that really target that 16 to 24 sort of NEET demographic. Apprenticeships, having said that, are open to all wages, as Howard alluded to in his presentation. We place candidates of all wage. There is no upper age limit as far as we're concerned. Let me just let Paul in. We will then advertise vacancy across various national job boards. As I've said, the applications are submitted through a simplified and easy to follow application form. So we try to remove as many barriers as possible to application for our candidates that want to apply for the positions. They just need to put in their basic personal details and we'll do the rest. We'll give them a call and confirm all the things that we need to. When we contact the candidates, we will then assess their eligibility for the position, first of all, to make sure that they're able to obtain that funding and then their suitability for the position as well. We don't frame it as a telephone interview. We frame it as a conversation. It's a very consultative process with the candidates that we work with. We want to make sure that they're aware of the commitment around the hours around how are they going to be getting their public transport, etc. Making sure that it's right for them and then digging into their motivations a little bit more for applying for the apprenticeship. We'll then book the interview with both parties and confirm via email so that's where we do the legwork. We take all that work away from the employer. The employer then needs to select the successful candidate from the interview process and then what we'll do is enroll the successful applicant onto their apprenticeship after their employment start date and that tends to be around three weeks after their employment start date. The reason why we do that is we understand that some people that we recruit into apprenticeships they may not have ever had a job before so having to do all of their employer on board and having to do an apprenticeship sign up all at the same time while starting their first ever job can be it could be a little bit overwhelming so we give them three weeks to settle into their role and make sure that they're enjoying it and that they're ready to sign on to the qualification before we ask them to make that commitment. Next slide please. Cool so in terms of the things that we suggest so we've got our vacancy requirements and suggestions there so a vacancy needs to be more than 30 hours per week if it is less than 30 hours per week that means that it essentially elongates the time that is taken for the apprenticeship standard to be completed they need to be working minimum of 30 hours a week and we suggest 30 hours as well because you know put simply the less hours you work the less an apprentice is going to get paid and you know we want to make sure that our vacancies are as competitive as possible in the sort of ever changing candidate market and we get the hiring manager's contact details a bit of a given we make sure that we have full DAS permission so that we can advertise the vacancy to the national apprenticeship service and we also have a service level agreement and vacancy detail form that we ask our employers to fill out before we advertise the vacancy the vacancy detail form for obvious reasons because we want to know the job description and make that advert really bespoke for our employers and the SLA just to confirm that they have everything in place to successfully recruit an apprentice I'm not going to read all the time-bound commitments one by one but the reason we have those time-bound commitments in there is because we understand that the candidate market moves incredibly quickly for example the ONS in spring 2022 announced that for the first time since their records began there were more vacancies than there were job seekers meaning that candidates have more choice than ever when they're applying for apprenticeships and or full-time positions so we really want to make sure that if we do identify suitable candidates we're able to move very quickly in terms of getting them interviewed signed up onboarded and all that in terms of our ways of working we do not require CVs for level 2 and level 3 roles unless it's specifically requested by the employer there isn't much about somebody who's fresh out of education that can't be said over the phone and it also presents a bit of a GDPR risk in terms of using CVs what I've listed there as well are all of the sectors that we currently deliver apprenticeships in and that we're able to offer our apprentice recruitment service in and a lot of these vary across level 2 and level 3 as well so you've got Accountancy Business Admin, Child Care, Customer Service Education and Training Hair and Beauty, Health and Social Care and the automotive industry there as well Next slide please Cool So this is a little bit more sort of about the definition of our process and why we follow each step so vacancy confirmation with the hiring manager is important from our perspective so that we're able to really outline our process as I mentioned previously and sort of manage those expectations as well is a consultative service that we have here for example if an employer is in the national minimum wage for example or if they're perhaps in a more rural area we will manage that expectation that it might be slightly less likely that we're able to get candidates for that position in the immediate short term but there are a lot of steps that we can follow to make sure that we're driving that local engagement for that kind of vacancy candidate attraction so vacancies are advertised across national job boards and local employment centres as well and for those rural vacancies is something that we really find beneficial having those contacts within the department for work and pensions we conduct the applicant screening calls I mentioned to determine eligibility suitability to discuss the apprenticeship and role information we offer the sort of end-to-end experience as well so we really want to make sure that each party in terms of the candidate and the employers are fully engaged in the process and they understand what is happening along every step of the way so no one's ever left in the dark left waiting for feedback or not sure what's going on we want to make sure that the parties within the process know what's going on at all times we do offer outcome support as well so very important part of what we do we will support the successful applicants in preparing for their first day of work and their apprenticeship sign-off we work in childcare so for example DBS checks so making sure that they're given over the relevant details for that DBS check for example we support unsuccessful candidates as well with careers education information advising guidance to really help to support them on their career journey every applicant that we come into contact with we really want to make sure that whatever their outcome we're providing them with their sort of next step and what they can do moving forward is a pre-recruitment service as well Simple As is free, we don't charge for it and we have the integrated and expedited hiring process with adaptable communications and that point refers back to any internal things that the successful candidate will need to do before they start we can sort of aid with that onboarding process because again some of these candidates may have never had a job before so it's simple things like uploading a photo of their passport to a HR system before they start and things like that they're the sort of barriers that can potentially be challenging to some apprentices you've not had a job before so providing that additional level of support is is really important something that we continue to do across all of our vacancies next slide that's about it from me you will have my contact details when we send around the slides as well and I'll pop them in the chat if anyone does have any questions about what we do here at Paragon or if you just want to have a chat in general I'll pop my details in the chat for you now thank you Thanks very much for that George really good service there in Paragon I've known Paragon for a number of years and they're a very successful training provider when George mentioned the DAZ account that's the digital apprenticeship service account that you need to open if you decide to recruit an apprentice or you want to apply to put your existing staff on to apprenticeships but if you contact me I've got all the information to help you to get that set up and the relevant links to advertising vacancies but what I do with most of those who contact me I'll refer them to the colleges or look at training providers such as Paragon Skills Right, so thanks thanks very much for that now I've got Richard Stittle who's a business development manager from North Cambridgeshire Training Centre and a fairly new centre but it's part of a well established college network so I'm going to hand over to Richard who's going to explain about what NCTC offer and the services they provide there so it's over to you Richard Thanks Howard. Yes, NCTC exciting new training facility we have open in Chatteris in the Cambridgeshire area part of the Eastern Colleges Group, same as West Hufford College and so we're able to now offer engineering, science management courses in NCTC which is really nice for us to have this shiny new facility open and we've got an awful lot of inquiries coming which is great but coming along today Howard's asked me to come along for is as the title of the webinar demystifying apprenticeships the same as a lot of other providers I'm sure would agree with me, one of the biggest challenges we still face is getting the information out the 275,000 apprentices being onboarded last year I think if more people knew about the scheme, employers knew how easy it was to set up and employees knew what they could enroll on that number would be double every event that I seem to attend whether it's a post 16 school event and the parents are then asking about apprenticeship not realizing they could come on to one or employers not realizing that they can really use their local training providers to do as George said all of the legwork of being there to guide people for setting up their digital accounts for doing the recruitment for helping with the interview process etc so I'm here today just in case there are any questions that come up from employers who may be on the webinar that we can help to answer That's brilliant thanks very much for that Richard so the other question I was going to say well not a question really I was going to say to the employers who are on the call today is that we have others Paragon skills and NCTC we also have the training providers who have joined us this morning as guests as well and at the end of today's webinar we will be making contact details available to anybody really who wants to reach out to the local colleges or the local training providers so just feel free to drop me a line and we'll try and introduce you to other training providers as well but what I'd like to do now is really to ask the guests now if you have any questions for any of the guest speakers today if you've got any questions or questions you'd like to ask about apprenticeships generally and we'll try and answer those questions for you as well so it's an open floor now to those people who want to ask any questions if you're not available I'll just join Shaz in this one, hello everybody so we're based in ELE we've contacted CRC we've contacted Westerford College it's a chocolate company so we were looking for somebody from the catering department a young pastry chef who we could come and train here and then we could employ and we put nothing back or saying that you should have contacted us for some other month and we don't have anybody right now so it wasn't very encouraging but what my question is when's the best time to approach and how long does the process take from a college point of view thank you very much that was a very good question and coming from a college background myself I know that with lots of the college courses they do have intakes normally in September and I've got a feeling but I'll ask one of the providers a particular course will probably come under their catering and food production courses which probably start in September but would any of the training providers like to answer Shaz's question about when the best time is to register for an apprenticeship I can Excellent, thanks George Yeah so I think probably why you've been advised that if you went to them quite recently is because during the school leaver period around sort of June, July, August that's when you have people leaving secondary school you have people leaving college it's basically the end of the academic year and what that means is that that is when training providers, colleges see their biggest influx of applications for the vacancies that they advertise as well as the courses as well so that would perhaps be a reason why they would have suggested that you recruited a little bit earlier probably than have you have done at the moment But as Kerry is here from CRC Kerry do you ever take on intakes like in January for example if you do get any students drop out and then you do a secondary intake of students I was going to say with hospitality in catering we tend to be roll on roll off so they can join at certain points of the year but because you said the word pastry I'm wondering if it's because that pathway might not be as popular and therefore that might be running but I'm more than happy for us to communicate afterwards so I can look into it for you but I do think that we are building up the bakery and the pastry but I'm not 100% sure to answer that question because I know it's not on the portfolio that we have at the moment but happily support you after but yes Howard that and also Sheldon I just realised I'm working with a bakery in Cottenham and they arrange an apprenticeship for them for their trainee bakers so they have links with a national food and drinks training provider so I might actually introduce you to the lady from the national training provider that works with the food and drinks so they may there may be something that they can offer but I'll introduce you obviously to Kerry as well because there is help out there for you but sometimes it's a fortunate sometimes it can be the timing as well because I've got another employer looking for plumbing but they've just timed it wrongly really because the plumbing Richard probably back up on this start recruiting for plumbing apprentices early part of the year don't you really for those types yeah absolutely from sometimes from April onwards so by the time we get to start a new academic year the groups are already already full and we still have people approaching now looking to bring construction apprentices on now but unfortunately a lot of our groups are are full so we're working on a waiting list or looking at January starts for new groups but we'll there's some support there for you Sheldon so we'll reach out afterwards and Paul nice to see you here Paul we're from Anglia Rusking University so did you have a question Paul or in a way it was a comment on that as well I know it's not we don't offer any of that sort of particular range of courses but a number of the providers will look at September January and with us we also have a few programs that start in May what I would say to all employers is there's no harm and we would say this to employers who come a little bit late for some of our start dates there's no harm in calling so on early because they get experience of you as an employer you get an experience of them as an apprentice and whether you want to take them forward on the training program so for example we've had employers have hired people six months in advance because it just gives them that period to understand whether it's a good relationship that they've got and they want to take them on the training program so it's just a I guess additional advice that don't worry if you've missed depending on the opportunity it can be very useful for that individual to get experience with you as an employer ahead of starting their apprenticeship training Thanks, thanks for that Paul I think Al Currie's got a hand up Hi Currie Hi Paul I think that's really really good advice and what I would say to employers if you did do that just check on your minimum wage because the apprenticeship wage is different to the minimum wage and you would have to start them on that and then move them to the apprenticeship wage but I do think that is a very good idea Definitely and it's making sure that the young person you've employed is ideal for your company and vice versa to make sure they've chosen the right career path because very often I think George you mentioned you've got to start your apprenticeships for about three weeks until the apprentice has started it gives them that settling in time don't it So really good advice Paul, thank you for that Hopefully that's helped you Shaz unless you've got another colleague Yeah he's got another one Sorry So wage is wise I think it's very clear how does young people out of college straight out of college but what about people who are just like how would explain that it could be for any age so anybody who is like five years experience and we want to put them on an apprenticeship scheme how does the wages work in that scenario If you're employing anybody outside of the apprenticeship page first of all the apprenticeship minimum wage is just a minimum wage you can pay an apprentice but I also advise employers to pay above the minimum wage for apprenticeships because I do think you've got a better chance of retaining that young person young people today are quite savvy they know what their friends are running at Amazon or they know what the friends are running at another warehouse or in a store so I say pay a good a good starting wage for your apprentice but if you want to put people on an apprenticeship who are an adult for example like you said then it would be whatever the legal minimum wages for that person but again I always recommend if you want to keep keep your staff investing yourself just pay pay above the average or pay the average or well above the minimum wage because that's the only way I think it's very short sighted when employers employ people on a lowest wage account because that employee won't stay long term and you're wasting time training and developing that person only for them to move on to a better job with more money but you can take on people like I said earlier of any age 4 apprenticeship but that wage will apply to whichever age group they are in as well so would you say I'll do the sitters with you afterwards so you know if that helps you thank you thank you I've got Kerry hi Kerry thank you I was just going to say in regards to experience all of us providers we would give you an initial assessment and then that would allow that candidate applicant to put down on paper what they've known and learned before they want to come work for you and then all of us would come back to either a funding adjustment or advice okay for any chance yep thank you excellent thank you oh Paul I was just going to add as well that all of the training providers can offer advice on salaries as well because we understand from the recruitment process what works what doesn't whether you'll struggle at certain salary levels or not so we're all more than happy to offer advice on where you should be pitching your the sort of salary levels for different roles and also in the chat box for the employers George has popped his mobile number in there so feel free to reach out to him if you've got any questions any more employers would like to ask a question no matter how silly it might sound or we're here today to try and help you answer some of your questions but Caitlin how have you found the event today oh you're on mute if you'd like to speak or that's okay anybody else would like to ask any questions oh yes Anna Stevens hi Anna nice to see you hi Howard yes I have a question so are you able at GrowthWorks to help employers to what's the word to grow the awareness of apprenticeships and the routes that are available internally so this webinar is brilliant but I'm wondering how I translate that to conversations with managers and leadership team and individuals in their council that I work for yes we can do that because we have I'm one of a team of four skills and business relationship managers what we tend to do we'll go out to employers and we'll do face-to-face visits if it's a small organisation we're happy to do one-to-ones and talk to them about everything we talked about today really but if it's a large organisation such as yourselves we'll go in and we'll talk to we're quite happy to do a team meeting attend any I'm attending a meeting next week with an employer and there's a group of six managers who attend in the meeting and it's really just to explain to them about apprenticeships and how they work because one of the key things I think with a larger organisation is in order for the shop floor staff to be given an opportunity to undertake apprenticeships it's really key for the senior managers and supervisors to be on board as well to understand our apprenticeships work and without their buying without their support it could be a failed proposition really because we do need a backing of the senior managers and we always start I always advise employers too apprenticeships to look at their current team leadership and look at where the skill gaps are there first and to then take on put them onto a relevant management qualification and then if it becomes they can undertake that qualification we can also then take on some staff in the who report to them and they can use those apprentices as part of their training and development so it's really much about communication and just spreading the word about apprenticeships and often I think Anne Ward was on the call actually from Fenneland District Council and I was speaking to Anne a few weeks ago and we said if we go out to see employers we're quite happy to go out together so that Anne can talk about the local district council and what their plans are I'll be quite happy to talk about skills and apprenticeships so it's all about communicating really and it's a good question thanks very much for that thanks Howard thank you anybody got any more questions at all oh yes yeah Kerry yes I was going to say to the employers there's lots of providers all around you who have full-time learners who've had time built into their study programs to come and work for you so they can do industry placement so many hours a week we look after their us providers would look after their travel in most cases but it's an opportunity for you to work with somebody them to work with you and then we're finding that that's the best tool for the right person in the right apprenticeship that's a good point actually and also with growth work we're also looking for employers who are willing to act as ambassadors or mentors for employees and apprentices as well so there's a whole range of services that we offer as well as apprenticeships and business coaching skills and again if you want to advertise the services register on the growth works website we offer a free talent recruitment tool where you can advertise your charge and again you can go on to that just like George said you can see through the applications shortlist those that are suitable and then start recruiting and then the best thing then is the councils on the cake if you like we can then go in and then advise you about what apprenticeship is the most suitable and then we can refer you to I don't know Paragon or CRC or one of our NCTC so we've got loads of training providers out there who are experts in their old field so there's lots of support there available for you and any more questions from anybody so just before I go I've got to mention Anglia Risking degree level apprenticeships they've got a new centre now a new campus in Peterborough that's doing very well with again apprenticeships of Sedalia you can do apprenticeships up to postgraduate level and Paul will be happy to speak to any employers looking for that type of apprenticeship level as well excellent excellent so thank you very much we've finished more or less on time haven't we which is unusual for me so I do a lot of talking about being quite good today I want to thank everybody I'd like to thank George I'd like to thank Richard I'd like to thank all those employers and the other training providers who have attended today big special thanks to Paul from South Cambridge who's put on this event he's working behind the scenes doing the clicking away but thank you very much Paul for your support today as well oh there he is thank you very much have a good day everybody and in church bye bye thank you