Three Ways in Which Apprenticeships Help Create a Future-Ready Workforce

The Office of Future of Work (OFOW) is proud to lead the implementation of HB21-1007, a bill signed in June 2021 to establish a Colorado State Apprenticeship Agency. The agency is tasked with accelerating the adoption, promotion, and development of apprenticeship programs; providing support; and ensuring program compliance with state and federal laws and standards.?

Each November, Colorado celebrates Apprenticeship Month, and last week we celebrated National Apprenticeship Week by highlighting the impact of apprenticeships in national, state, and local communities. As we enter the fourth week of Apprenticeship Month, we wanted to share three reasons why apprenticeships are such a powerful model to create a future-ready workforce.?

Apprenticeships expand access to growing industries

Many, many workers are stuck in low-wage jobs that provide little to no advancement opportunities. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, research from the Brookings Institution found that 44 percent of all workers ages 18 to 64 in the United States, earn low hourly wages. In Colorado, as of August 10 2021, employment rates among workers in the bottom wage quartile decreased by 30.5% compared to January 2020.??

Low-wage workers often find themselves in a precarious position. The skills they have are undervalued by employers and advancement opportunities are rare; when these opportunities exist, they may require costly credentials and/or training. Many people cannot afford to quit their job in order to pursue further education, trapping them in a career with few opportunities to advance.

As the Colorado Workforce Development Council (CWDC) notes, “having a full-time job no longer provides the economic security it once did. The average Coloradan earning a minimum wage would need to work a minimum of 71 hours per week to afford a modest one bedroom apartment at fair market rate.”

The rising costs of healthcare, childcare, and housing means that an increasing number of workers who do not live in poverty also struggle to upskill and reskill.?

Despite the proliferation of low wage work, Colorado also boasts growing in-demand industries that can provide opportunities for workers to advance their careers in meaningful ways. Apprenticeships allow these employers to build their talent pipeline and create pathways for individuals, including low-wage workers, looking to transition into a new field. In recent years, Colorado has seen a significant increase in the number of apprenticeships in fields as diverse as cybersecurity, clean energy, and healthcare. As these industries grow, apprenticeships will too, creating access for more workers.

Apprenticeships lead to quality jobs

Joining a growing industry is a significant step forward in one’s career. But if a worker doesn’t have a quality job within that industry, they risk finding themselves in circumstances similar to those they left. Employers also suffer when they don’t provide quality jobs that meet the basic needs of employees, which leads to increased turnover, lower productivity, and exacerbated skills gaps. In contrast, employers who provide quality jobs have been shown to better attract talented workers, reduce turnover costs, and increase employee engagement and productivity while improving a company's operations and profitability.?

But what is a quality job? While the term seems self-explanatory, it often means different things to different people. That’s why an increasing number of policy makers, think tanks, and others have turned their attention to better defining the term — if we are to keep up with the constantly changing demands of today and tomorrow’s economy, we need to have a shared understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish.?

The TalentFOUND network collaborated to produce the Colorado Job Quality Framework to outline features of a quality job and lay out practical steps local communities, employers, and leaders can take to improve job quality. Below we’ll share the framework for job quality, and how apprenticeships can help address them:

• Wages that provide predictable income that covers basic living expenses and allows for wealth building. During an apprenticeship, wages increase as the apprentices’ skills and knowledge increase, creating more wealth as apprentices continue. Apprenticeships allow individuals to earn while they learn whereas traditional employment often requires workers to attend educational opportunities on their own time.
• Benefits that facilitate a healthy, stable life.?
• A schedule that enables workers to balance the other demands of life.
• Working conditions offer an environment that promotes physical, emotional, and psychological safety and wellness.?
• Employers establish transparent growth opportunities to advance along a career pathway and increase pay. Apprentices learn skills on the job and through related instruction, resulting in wage progressions and a nationally-recognized credential that ensures that they are qualified for a job.?
• A sense of belonging in an inclusive environment where individuals are accepted and connected to one another. Mentorship is a required, critical part of every apprenticeship program. Mentors are individuals that have a formal role in guiding an apprentice in their on-the-job learning component of their apprenticeship. Mentors are critical components of apprenticeship programs and help ensure positive, successful experiences for apprentices on the job.

The framework notes that job quality occurs on a continuum and that there are rarely jobs that are all good or all bad. Rather, there are continuous opportunities to improve job quality features in a way that results in improved quality of life and satisfaction for workers and stronger and more competitive businesses. The model for apprenticeship programs embeds numerous components of job quality from the beginning.?

Apprenticeships create a culture of lifelong learning

While many components of the future of work remain unclear, one thing we do know is that change will be constant. Whether it is through global market changes, economic transition, and/or technological transformation, every worker will face disruption in their work. These disruptions require all workers to build a lifelong learning and growth mindset that will ensure they remain competitive as work changes.?

According to a recent study of eight major economies, over 100 million workers—about one in 16 workers—will need to find a different occupation by 2030 post-COVID-19. In order to weather current and future transitions, workers must strategically build specific skills and mindsets. In their study of workers in the post-COVID economy, Emsi found that resilient workers are “T-shaped”. “T-shaped” workers are both generalists and specialists with a combination of broad experience and some specialization. Specifically, these workers will have a combination of human skills, technology skills, core business skills, and hard-to-find skills.?

Apprenticeship programs have two types of learning embedded into the model. On the Job Learning (OJL) and Related Instruction (RI). OJL is supervised training in the public or private sector that is given to paid employees while they are engaged in productive work that provides the skills and knowledge essential to be fully proficient at a job. RI is the classroom (or online) learning component of a registered apprenticeship which may be obtained through a college, union, online, private training provider, or internally at a company. Through this design, learning becomes integral to the culture of the organization. Apprentices are learning from mentors, journeyworkers, and others as they build their skills and earn a credential. As we look to a future of work where all workers will need to upskill and reskill, apprenticeships are well ahead of the game.?

I encourage you to contact one of our Apprenticeship Consultants, at no cost to you, to learn whether an apprenticeship program is right for your organization.?