It is National Apprenticeship Week currently, an annual event that aims to shine a light on the importance of apprenticeships across all sectors - with this year's theme being 'Skills For Life'.

The endeavour appears to have gained some decent traction across both the traditional media and social media channels. I know some dealers from our sector have taken the opportunity to promote to the wider public how apprentices are benefiting their companies.

This post below, from Anthony Deacon at MKM Agri on LinkedIn for instance, is a great example:

It doesn't feel like a controversial statement to assert that apprentices are vital to the on-going health of the dealer sector. They quite literally are the future of the industry.

But we are also well aware of the frustrations surrounding apprenticeships that dealers can experience. These can be both difficulties in the initial finding of candidates and, especially, in continuing to retain them within the business. We've heard disappointing accounts from various dealerships who invest so much quality time and effort - not to mention expense - in training up apprentices, only at the end of the process for them to have their heads turned and move on elsewhere.

However galling experiences like this are though, one hopes they do not discourage business owners from sticking with the principal of apprenticeships. So many dealers who have successfully brought someone on, tell us how much more productive it has been for their dealership to have created their own valuable, skilled team member - rather than have waited, with fingers crossed, that someone with a fully formed skill set, just walks in through their doors looking for a job.

This belief was confirmed to us again last week from a dealer who responded to our survey asking for your comments on how busy or otherwise your workshops have been this winter season. They told us:

"Staffing as ever remains a challenge with the industry needing to encourage more youngsters to enter the industry. My business employs 5 mechanics of whom 2 have come through the apprenticeship route in the last 6 years. If business holds up and we have a good year, another apprentice is planned for next autumn."

That certainly sounds like decent apprentice hit-rate for that business and a clear intention for them to do more in the future. We wish them well.

Skills gap increasing

In relation to the National Apprenticeship Week, I read an interesting press release from an engineering firm called the adi Group, who were promoting all that they do to encourage apprenticeships. Their CEO, a chap called Alan Lusty, was clearly a huge advocate for firms involved in any type of mechanics or engineering, to head down the apprenticeship route.

He said, "Not enough businesses have recognised the sheer potential of apprenticeships in today’s engineering world, and just how much these can benefit their company, as well as make a positive impact on the industry.

"We want to motivate other businesses within the industry to take proactive measures to change the engineering sector for the better, and a crucial aspect of this transformation is recognising and championing the indispensable role of apprenticeships."

The release went to present some starkly worrying statistics showing that apprenticeship starts in 2022/23 were down 3% compared to the previous year. It also stated that the predictions are that the labour demand gap in engineering will widen, with a quite shocking estimated shortfall of 40,000 workers by 2028.

Alan Lusty summed up his hopes for the future of apprenticeships in engineering by saying, "It’s about helping budding engineers gain the hands-on core skills and knowledge they need to progress and succeed in an engineering career, in the right ways. . . .We have a collective responsibility to protect the future of our industry."

Wise words that are indeed hard to argue with. But what have been your recent, practical experiences with finding people - both young and mature - to start an apprenticeship with your firm? And indeed once they are trained, have you been successful with retaining them within the dealership? 

We'd be fascinated to hear any experiences our dealer readers would like to share. My colleague Keith Christian, who has years of experience working alongside the dealer network in this field, is preparing an article for Service Dealer magazine to cover this topic, which will be published later this year. So the more first-hand accounts from our dealer readers that we can hear, the better.

Please feel free to leave your take on the apprenticeship situation for our sector below this article or drop me a line. Thanks for your help.