What’s an Apprenticeship?

An apprenticeship is a training program nationally recognised by the Australian Government. The training program enables apprentices to undergo on-the-job, real work experience in combination with class-based training through a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) such as TAFE. Apprenticeship training tends to take between three to four years when done full time. The outcome of a successfully completed apprenticeship is a nationally recognied qualification that improves a worker’s future employment opportunities significantly.

The Benefits

Hiring an apprentice brings a lot of benefits to your business. The following are just a few of the many advantages that you enjoy when you take an apprentice under your wing.

Low Labour Costs

Employing apprentices can help cut down on your labour costs. When hiring an apprentice to work for you, whether full-time or part-time, you will only be paying them apprentice wage rates, as per the relevant Industry Award. Since you, as an employer, are contributing to their training, apprentice wages are considerably lower than regular wages for qualified tradesmen.

Enthusiastic Employee

Apprentices will generally be eager to learn, enthusiastic to learn the ropes as quickly as possible. They want to learn everything that ou have to teach them about their chosen career. The enthusiasm a new face with a good attitude can bring your workforce is invaluable.

Incentives for Employers

There is a range of incentives that you may be qualified for once you hire an apprentice. There are standard incentives such as Commencement and Completion incentives; additional incentives (including Mature Aged Worker Incentive); and Special Incentives (including Support for Adult Australian Apprentices; Assistance for Australian Apprentices with Disability; and Australian School-based Apprenticeships Incentive).

Possible Future Employee

Train well, and that budding apprentice can easily turn into a possible addition to your permanent workforce. In fact, a lot of companies have said that in-house trained employees perform much better than tradesmen who were trained elsewhere.

Increased Productivity

Having the extra hands working in your establishment can easily translate to increased productivity. You are getting more value for money with an apprentice, which can also lead to increased profits.

Other Things You Should Know

Once you’re decided on hiring an apprentice you should familiarise yourself with the different grants and incentives that you may be eligible for; the award wages for your particular apprentice; as well as other forms and paperwork that you will need to complete and sign.

Need Help?

If you think you need a little more help hiring an apprentice, you can always take advantage of the services that Group Training Organisations provide. They will event take care of all of the paperwork and organise the registration of the training contract.
With all of the great benefits and with the ease of hiring an apprentice, you should consider improving your businesses profitability through apprenticeships.

Real People with Real Skills

Apprentices undergo education for nationally recognised qualifications and competencies through Registered Training Organisations. They bring this knowledge and skill set into your workplace. You can be confident that they are abreast of the latest information, techniques and skills of your industry. They might even teach you a thing or two.

Trained Future Employee

If you train your apprentice well, when they have completed their training, you will have a long-term employee who has been trained in the operations of your business. Many employers before you have experienced the benefits of hiring the apprentice that they have trained in-house and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t experience it too.

Tailored to Fit Your Business

Whether you need some part-time assistance or a full-time employee you, you can hire an apprentice that is suited to your organisation’s current business needs. With school based, part time and full time apprenticeships, there’s a solution for you. If you hire apprentice workers through a Group Training Organisation, you can specify how long you want them to work for your business. Whether it be for a few months or a few years, a GTO can help you out.

There’s One For Your Industry

Whatever industry your business might be in, there is an apprentice for you just waiting to be hired. If you need an extra pair of hands to help your business, they will be ready.

Reduce Overheads

One of the best business benefits of hiring an apprentice is that you save on wages. When you hire an apprentice, you will be paying them apprentice rates, which are lower than the standard wages for fully qualified tradesmen. Moreover, you may be eligible for financial assistance from the Australian Government.

You Get Rewarded

The Australian Government has demonstrated its commitment to building the skills wealth in Australia with a range of incentives offered to both employers and apprentices. For the successful training of an apprentice, the employer may be eligible to claim government incentives for commencement and completion, which can up to $4,000.

Better Business Output

When you hire that extra pair of hands, you will be getting much more work done. You get more for your money when you hire apprentice workers. Your new busy hands are also giving you a greater return on investment.

Minimal Paperwork

When you just don’t have the time or the patience to take care of all of the apprentice’s administration requirements and paperwork, you can always take advantage of the services of Group Training Organisations. They’ll handle much, if not all, of the paperwork.

From doing it yourself to seeking the assistance of a Group Training Organisation, you are sure to discover the right way for your business to find apprentice workers.

Do It Yourself

You can hire an apprentice yourself. This will take some work and attention to detail on your part. If you want to find an apprentice that can and will really help out in your business, you need to allow time for the responsibilities that come with hiring an apprentice.

First off, you’re going to need to place a job opening. Make a point to you screen all the applicants in order to find an apprentice that suits you. To enjoy the benefits, you want to ensure you hire the right apprentice.
Once you find your match, there is important paperwork that needs to be completed to register the apprenticeship. You will also receive various other forms that need to be attended to throughout the apprenticeship. Your Australian Apprenticeship Centre can help do all of this.

Australian Apprenticeship Centres (AACs)

The government-funded Australian Apprenticeship Centres (AACs) provide employers with important information regarding employer options and incentives. The AAC will send a representative to assist in registering the apprentice, and you will be assisted by the AAC for the duration of the apprenticeship. They will ensure you receive the employer incentives forms for which you are eligible when they fall due.

When going directly to an Australian Apprenticeship Centre, you will need to find an apprentice you wish to hire yourself. If you’re looking to find apprentice employment tips and assistance, an AAC should be able to help you.
If you want a simpler way to find apprentice workers, discover what Group Training Organisations can do to help.

Group Training Organisations (GTOs)

If you really want an easy, hassle free approach to apprentice employment, go to a Group Training Organisation. GTOs make it their business to employ apprentices for the length of their apprenticeship and then hire them out to ‘host employers’. The host can enjoy the benefits of an apprentice for as long as they are needed. Since the duration of the employment can be agreed upon, hiring apprentices through GTOs is very handy for small to medium enterprises. This flexibility is enjoyed by many business who may not need to hire an apprentice for the entire length of their apprenticeship.

GTOs find apprentice host employers the best applicants for their businesses. All the work of placing a job advertisement, screening the applicants and intial interviews are taken care of by the GTO. They will also handle the administration involved in hiring an apprentice such as sick leave, annual leave, payroll, and other paperwork. This will let you concentrate on running your business and putting your new apprentice to good work.

What is Group Training?

This is when an organisation (GTO) employs apprentices and trainees and on-hires them to businesses (hosts). Group Training Organisation’s are responsible for managing all employment related matters, including; administration of training, Human Resources, wages, superannuation, worker’s compensation and employee benefits.

Role of Group Training Organisations

To the Host

Group Training Organisations provide hosts (on-hire clients) with services that develop the skills and qualifications apprentices require to become qualified trades people, these services minimise the time consuming employer related administration that comes with employing an apprentice. This makes it much easier for small and medium sized businesses to take advantage of the benefits of engaging an apprentice.

To the Apprentice

A Group Training Organisation provides employer support and mentoring for the apprentice. The benefit of employment through a group training arrangement include, an employer that is focused on your learning outcomes and supports you to achieve your trade qualification, you have the advantage of experiencing a variety of workplaces (hosts), you are employed by an organisation whose primary business is to develop skills in their workforce. Working as an apprentice under a direct employment arrangement, the employer is focused on their primary business outputs not your training & development.

Benefits of GTOs

1. Quick and Easy Apprentice Employment

When you go to a Group Training Organisation you don’t have to worry about the endless piles of paperwork it takes to employ an apprentice. Simply tell the GTO what you need, sign the necessary papers, and soon enough you’ll have an apprentice working in your business.

2. What You Need, When You Need it

For small and medium sized businesses, sometimes employing an apprentice for the duration of their apprenticeship may not be suitable, depending on the breadth of skills available within your business to support the apprentice’s trade qualification or your business may not have a continuing business level to warrant keeping an apprentice on indefinitely. Generally group training organisation require a minimum commitment of three month with on-hire placement of an apprentice, however this is subject to negotiations with the GTO. It is a great way to give back to your industry by providing work placement for the development of your industry’s skills base.

3. Great for SMEs

The flexibility provided by Group Training Organisations when engaging (on-hiring) an apprentice has long been a selling point for employers. GTOs have made themselves effective partners with SMEs by providing affordable rates and quality support service to hosts for more than three decades. These partnerships afford the SME’s the capacity to engage an apprentice even though their workplace or work systems don’t incorporate the full spectrum of the trade qualification being undertaken by the apprentice. Apprentices contribute to the skills wealth of your business and your industry.

What Does a GTO Do?

A Group Training Organisation hires apprentices for the entirety of their apprenticeship, sending them out to businesses that need the extra help. They look after the apprenticeship registration and all of the administration involved when you employ an apprentice. The GTO will monitor the progress of the apprentice and provide assistance where necessary.

Benefits of GTOs

Hassle-Free Apprentice Employment

When you want to employ an apprentice but don’t have the time, experience or patience necessary to handle all the details, contact a Group Training Organisation. They look after wages, payroll tax, superannuation, workers compensation, annual leave and sick leave. You don’t have to worry about the masses of paperwork that usually come with hiring an apprentice. It is all done for you.

Get the Skills You Need

Need a particular set of skills or experience for your business? Group Training Organisations locate a suitable candidate for your specific job opening. GTOs provide you with qualified candidates that have passed through screening, recruitment testing and interviews.

The apprenticeship is tailored to meet your needs, meaning the newest addition to your team learns the tasks that are relevant to your business.

Low Risk Predictable Employment Costs

Group Training Organisations offer businesses the benefits of having apprentices without the risk associated with locking yourself into the entire lifespan of their apprenticeship. GTOs are handy for SMEs who need to employ an apprentice as they hire out apprentices for set durations of time. If you only have two months of work that needs to be done, you can get an apprentice for exactly two months.

No risk. No liability. No worries.

Apprentice employment is made easy with Group Training Organisations.

We will update you on changes in incentive payments, OH&S, industrial law and other IR changes. Read all about the key events apprenticepower are involved in. Read More

Here is just a taste of the news you have missed so far this year:

• We are recruiting a mechanic who will work with the Ford Racing Team in the V8 Supercars Championship.
• We were the major sponsor of the 2011 Western Sydney Apprenticeship & Traineeship Expo which was recentl held at the Penrith Panthers Exhibition Marquee and we’re involved in countless other expo’s.
• We have been heavily involved in school visits and careers talks.
• We have run pre-vocational courses to get early school leavers interested in apprenticeships or traineeships.

Job seekers can stay in touch with all the latest apprenticeship and traineeship jobs relevant to you. You can view all the current and new positions by clicking on the ‘Latest Apprenticeship Jobs’ link below.

Plus, we are linked to all the social media. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest news. Pass on apprenticepower info to your friends with the click of a button. Stay tuned…

One of the ways that Australia has been handling its skills shortage is through apprenticeship and traineeship training. Apprenticeship and traineeship training are opportunities for individuals to learn the necessary skills and knowledge for a particular trade or career. These types of training can last from six months to three years, depending on the trade and the type of training.

Apprenticeship and traineeship training such as these welcome young adults, mature age individuals, school leavers and university students alike. Even those who want to change their careers can easily find themselves in an apprenticeship or traineeship. This is because, as much as possible, the government wants everyone to be able to train and receive skilled employment.

To further help those who want to become an apprentice or trainee, the Australian government provides different incentives. One of the best incentives that apprentices and trainees enjoy is that they are paid while they learn. From the very first day of their training, even without the proper qualifications and no experience at all, they are awarded with wages. This helps alleviate the skills shortage since it makes it easier for people to go into a trade without having to worry about money.

Even employers who will employ and train apprentices are awarded certain incentives by the Australian government. Getting employers to hire apprentices and trainees is important since the training that the apprentices will receive will help combat the skills shortage that the country faces.

Employers don’t need to worry when they hire apprentices either because as their training progresses, these trainees and apprentices only become better and more skilled. In fact, experience shows that halfway through the apprentice’s training, the return of investment that the company enjoys is more than the cost of hiring and training the apprentice.

In a way, as the government and the employers invest in the apprentices, they are rewarded with qualified tradesmen who will soon be capable of skilled employment. It is a cycle that helps the employers, the apprentices and the economy as well.

The task of eliminating the skills shortage in the country is an arduous one indeed. But with the different incentives and support programs that the government has put in place to help both the apprentices and the employers to gain skills and skilled employment, the task isn’t impossible.

The National Skills Needs List therefore helps to identify trades that have a skills shortage and this is done through research. This skills shortage list is thus used to establish whether you are eligible for various Australian Government initiatives such as:

• Tools for Your Trade Payment
• Support for Adult Australian Apprentices
• Rural and Regional Skills Shortage Incentive

If the government considers a given trade as persistently experiencing skills shortage, then such a trade is included in the skilled occupation list. However, for this to happen, the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations is tasked with the duty of carrying out research so that this shortage can be established.

Some of the trades that you are likely to find on the skilled occupation list include:

• Carpenter and joiner
• Landscape gardener
• Stonemason
• Boat builder and repair
• Aircraft maintenance engineer
• Metal machinist
• Electronic equipment tradesperson
• Butcher
• Baker
• Fitter
• Pastry cook
• Optical mechanic

As you apply for apprenticeship opportunities, it may help to find out whether the trade you are interested in is on the skills shortage list. With this knowledge, you will be able to establish whether you are eligible for government grants of any type as well as what you need to do in order to benefit from such grants.

You will also notice that the skills shortage list keeps changing. This basically means that you should look out for the most updated skilled occupation list if it is to be helpful to you. You do not want to find out that you are not eligible for a given grant because a trade you have chosen is no longer in the skills shortage list.

Work

Now that you’ve hired the apprentice, it is your duty as the employer to provide the apprentice with at least three months worth of training and up to the full duration of the training.

Supervision

Apprentices should be supervised at all times. Employers should provide their apprentices with direct supervision in the form of an experienced coach, who will train and discipline the apprentice.

Safety

Employers must also keep their apprentices safe. It is their duty to keep the apprentices safe from harm, whenever they are in the employers’ jurisdiction and care. After hiring an apprentice, employers should provide direct supervision and safety equipment during on-the-job training.

Time to Study

When you hire an apprentice, you should provide them time off from their duties at work so that they can attend training courses associated with the apprentice’s training. You should also allow them time to complete their workplace-based assessment, which is conducted by the Registered Training Organisation.

Compensation

Every week, compensation should be given to the apprentice. Hiring an apprentice means that you will be paying an apprentice as well, based on the award wages for that apprenticeship.

Quality Control

When you hire an apprentice, the trainee becomes your responsibility. This means that how the apprentice fares in their training should be of major concern for you. After hiring an apprentice, you should constantly communicate with the RTO regarding the apprentice’s strengths and weaknesses.

An employer-apprentice relationship is a connection which is beneficial in many ways for both parties. As an employer hiring an apprentice, the best way to protect your interest and that of your business is to take care of any apprentices that you may have employed.   When you do that, both your business and your apprentice will succeed.

An apprenticeship is a hands-on experience in a technical trade or vocation that helps guide you through that career path and end with a nationally recognise qualification. An apprenticeship combines formal training from a registered training organisation (such as TAFE) with a structured, workplace-based training. Apprentices are paid for their work, in addition to being paid for training at TAFE. Full time apprenticeship programs typically take three to four years to complete, although part- time apprenticeships are also offered. Notably, as apprenticeships are competency based, apprentices have the opportunity to complete their training faster if they have reached the required skills level for their trade.

Apprenticeship programs give you a boost in the market, leaving you with practical experience, job- specific training and internationally recognised qualification. There are over 500 occupations offered for apprentices, including work as a landscaper, mechanic, hairdresser, plumber, painter, chef, carpenter and brick layer.

The next thing on your “What is an Apprenticeship?” Checklist should be how to get an apprenticeship job. You will need to get in contact an employer seeking an apprentice, or a Group Training Organisation. The employer will provide you with a Contract of Training which will outline specifications regarding payment, allowance, overtime work payment, and training fees. Register your apprenticeship with the Department of Education and Training.

Apprentices are hired on a three month- probation period before committing to a three to four year training period. As an apprentice, you are expected to work respectfully with fellow workers, clients, customers and staff you encounter. Your experience will provide you with a strong skills set gained through observation, inquiry, practice and study in the trade of your choosing. Apprentices receive a trade certificate upon completion of their apprenticeship programs. The certificate qualifies apprentices as an official tradesperson.

What is an apprenticeship age requirement? You must be at least 16 years or older to apply for the majority of apprenticeships. (Apprentices under 18 years old must have a parent or guardian signature on the required documentation.) The more difficult jobs, however, are typically reserved for those 18 and older. Applicants are required to present credentials or documentation of a school transcript, proof of age, high school diploma or GED and, if applicable, honourable military discharge.

The three to four years of a hands-on, practical experience sets you up for success, leaving you with the necessary set of qualifications and skills in the trade of your choice and the career of your future.

So now if someone asks you: “What is an apprenticeship?” you’ll be able to tell them all about it!