Australian employers' strategies to improve the ...

Education + Training Australian employers' strategies to improve the quality of apprentices Erica Smith

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To cite this document: Erica Smith, (2007),"Australian employers' strategies to improve the quality of apprentices", Education + Training, Vol. 49 Iss 6 pp. 459 - 473 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00400910710819118 Downloaded on: 16 February 2016, At: 17:47 (PT) References: this document contains references to 21 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1095 times since 2007*

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Australian employers’ strategies to improve the quality of apprentices Erica Smith

Australian employers’ strategies 459

Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia


Abstract Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the ways in which Australian companies can achieve high quality apprenticeship and traineeship systems in a time of labour shortage through close attention to the recruitment and development of apprentices and trainees. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on six qualitative case studies in a range of industries and occupational areas, carried out as part of an international project on apprenticeship. Findings – The paper finds that there are significant differences among companies in the skills and experience that they bring to the processes of recruiting and developing apprentice and trainees. Poor skills appear to lead to poor outcomes in terms of quality of apprentices and trainees while investment of skills and time leads to high quality outcomes that may significantly add value to the company. The effects of shortcomings in this area may be exacerbated in a tight labour market. Research limitations – The research in this paper is limited by the depth of the case studies which primarily rest on in-depth interviews with senior managers. The research could be extended by further case studies that include interviews with apprentices and trainees. Practical implications – The paper shows that companies employing apprentices and trainees need to be very clear about why they are employing them and the development strategies that will be put in place. The inclusion of off-the-job training at a training provider adds a safety net that is particularly important for inexperienced companies. Originality/value – The value of the paper lies in its use of detailed empirical examples to illustrate successful and less successful ways of managing apprentices and trainees. Keywords Apprenticeships, Workplace learning, Recruitment, Australia, Labour market Paper type Research paper

Introduction In Australia the apprenticeship system involving long contracts of training (now typically three or four years) in the traditional trades has existed since first settlement by Europeans. In 1985, shorter one and two year traineeships (Kirby, 1985) were introduced in occupations that had not previously had contracted training available. The author would like to acknowledge the managers of the international project, International Perspectives on Innovative Apprenticeship: Professor Felix Rauner, Dr Philipp Grollmann and Ms Ines Hermann from the University of Bremen. Field research in ten countries was carried out during 2005-2006. Portions of this paper were delivered at the following conferences: Berufliche Bildung, Innovation und Soziale Integration – 14. Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung, Bremen, Germany. 15-17 March 2006; 9th Annual Conference of the Australian Vocational Education Training Research Association, Wollongong, Australia, April 2006; Socially Responsive, Socially Responsible Approaches to Employment and Work Conference, Australian Centre for Research in Employment and Work, Monash University, Prato Centre, Tuscany, Italy, 1-4 July 2006.

Education þ Training Vol. 49 No. 6, 2007 pp. 459-473 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0040-0912 DOI 10.1108/00400910710819118

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They are often in service industries such as retail or newer industries such as information technology (Robinson, 2001). Numbers in traineeships rose rapidly from the mid-1990s. Apprenticeships and traineeships are not just about training; they are employment contracts as well as contracts of training. An enterprise that takes on an apprentice or trainee is normally undertaking a recruitment decision as well as a skill formation decision. Some economists (e.g. Pitman, 1984) argue that apprenticeships are a cost rather than a benefit to employers. But most empirical research with employers shows clearly that employers have specific work activities that they require apprentices and trainees to undertake that takes into account their relative wage costs (e.g. Smith, 1998). Hence employers seem to have a reasonable idea about the sort of work that apprentices will undertake during the course of their apprenticeship. There has been less research, however, into employers’ decisions on recruitment of apprentices and trainees for future skill needs and particularly into areas of future skill shortage. This is despite the current Australian skills shortage “crisis” which is related to near-full employment. Both short-term and long-term skill needs may be expected to affect employers’ recruitment strategies and also the ways in which they develop their apprentices and trainees during the term of training. This paper uses some findings from the Australian component of an international project on apprenticeships to examine ways in which employers attempt to recruit a high quality workforce through the use of apprentices and trainees, and the ways in which they develop those recruits to achieve a high quality workforce. Details of the international project are given in the Acknowledgements section. Literature review The apprenticeship and traineeship system is important in the Australian labour market, which has around 12 million participants. In 1997 traditional apprenticeship and the newer traineeships were brought together under the umbrella of the “New Apprenticeship” (now called “Australian Apprenticeship”) system. Numbers of Australian Apprenticeships escalated dramatically from about 120,000 in 1995 to over 400,000 by 2003, fuelled mainly by traineeship growth. The proportion of the working population in apprenticeships and traineeships is one of the highest in the developed world (Walters, 2003). Around 35 percent of the total were three- or four-year apprentices in traditional trade areas whilst the remainder were trainees (NCVER, 2004). The rapid growth in traineeships is party because they tend to be located in industries and occupations where employment growth is rapid and partly because the recent development of Training Packages – national sets of competency standards and qualifications – for these occupational areas has made contracts of training possible. The rise in numbers of apprentices and trainees alike has been facilitated by the work of group training companies which act as employers of Australian Apprentices, “leasing them out” to companies and thereby relieving companies both of the risk of taking on an apprentices for a lengthy period and of the paperwork associated with employing an apprentice or trainee (Bush and Smith, 2007). About 13 percent of apprentices and trainees are employed in this manner (Group Training Australia, 2006). There are a number of regulatory arrangements for Australian Apprenticeships. Contracts of training must be signed by employers, by employees (and by parents where the employees are aged under 18) and by the training provider. The contracts


are registered with the State or Territory Training Authority, of which there are eight in Australia. Employment incentives are supplied to employers by the Federal government on commencement and completion, and off-the-job training is funded by the State or Territory Training Authority. The latter funding is dependent on a number of conditions (Smith et al., 2005) and in some jurisdictions is only available where a certain proportion of training is provided off the job, or at least in a structured manner. Usually, apprentices attend a TAFE college (Technical and Further Education – the public provider) or a private training provider for one day a week or in block periods, for two or three years. Trainees may also attend a training provider in this way, but it is becoming increasingly common for trainees to be trained 100 percent on the job. However, in the latter case a training provider (known as a Registered Training Organisation or RTO) must oversee the training and is responsible for the assessment and the award of the qualification. The curriculum for qualifications consists of units of competency taken from national Training Packages (Smith and Keating, 2003). There is not usually any regulation associated with the on the job training provided by the employer. Completion rates remain high for traditional apprenticeships at about 75 per cent whilst traineeship completion rates are lower at about 55 per cent (Robinson, 2001; Ball and John, 2005). There has been some quality problems associated with the rapid growth of the apprenticeship and traineeship system in Australia (Schofield, 1999). These include examples of companies that have not provided any training to their trainees, evidence that some companies have been interested only in the employment subsidies, and that some RTOs have not provided appropriate or rigorous training. These have been partially addressed by new policies such as the introduction of the Australian Quality Training Framework which aims to ensure good quality training in TAFE and private providers (Smith and Keating, 2003) and tighter supervision by State Training Authorities of on the job trainees (Smith et al., 2005), but concerns about the quality particularly of traineeship training are still strong among some commentators and interest groups (e.g. Hampson, 2002). There are two contextual issues of importance to the Australian apprenticeship system and to this paper. These are the tight labour market of the early twenty-first century, and the continuing need to attract more small businesses to the system. Like many Western countries, Australia now has a low unemployment rate. The March 2007 unemployment rate was only 4.5 per cent (Australian Bureau of Statistics 6202.0 Labour Force, Australia) with a high labour force participation rate of 64.8 per cent, meaning that there are not large numbers of people outside the labour force that can be drawn in to meet shortages. In such a situation companies find it difficult to attract good quality applicants for any position, and these difficulties increase with factors such as rurality, perceived attractiveness of the work and so on. The award of qualifications through work using the traineeship system has been used for several years as a way of attracting good quality and motivated applicants to “unattractive” work such as that in abattoirs or call centres (Smith et al., 2004). Small businesses have long been involved in apprenticeships, particularly in the construction and hospitality industries, but many are new to the business of taking on people in traineeships, although traineeships are reasonably well-established in small businesses in some industry areas, such as retail. Rowlands (2000) examined small businesses’ engagement with traineeships and found that three clusters of processes were



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involved: psychological commitment, financial justification, and operational issues related to the actual process of recruiting the trainee and interacting with the training provider. It might be expected that companies “feeling their way” in this manner might be less certain about what they want out of traineeships than those familiar with the apprenticeship system.

462

Research method Six visits were carried out to Australian companies as part of an international project on companies’ use of apprenticeships. The Australian research was in two States, New South Wales and Victoria (the two most populous States), and covered a range of industry areas, which was prescribed by the international project managers. For reasons of international comparability, only apprenticeships/traineeships that included some off the job training were researched; there were no fully on-the-job trainees. Four were in a regional city and two were in a metropolitan area. Suitable sites were located through the researcher’s contacts in Skills Councils, Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) and other intermediary bodies. In each case study, an in-depth interview of 40-90 minutes was carried out on-site with the most senior manager with direct responsibility for apprentice recruitment and training. In some cases, this was a first-line manager; in other cases a more senior manager. The interviews were structured around a detailed questionnaire prepared by the international project managers and adapted for the Australian context. In two cases, additional staff were interviewed at the request of the company. In three cases, literature on the company was also provided and in all cases observations were made of the working environment. The Australian case studies are listed in Table I (all company names are pseudonyms). Case studies were undertaken between August and November 2005. This paper reports on those findings, which relate to the recruitment of quality apprentices and trainees to meet current and future skill needs and the development of the apprentices and trainees. The interviewees were also asked about cost-benefits but these findings are not reported here. It is recognised that the research method has limitations because in most cases only one manager was interviewed. Findings and discussion Recruitment for quality It is commonplace to assert that Australia is experiencing skills shortages. Recently, changes have been proposed to the apprenticeship system to alleviate these perceived problems including fast-tracking apprentices through the system (e.g. Western Australia (WA) Dept of Education and Training (DET), 2005), different programs for mature-aged workers (Australian Industry Group (AIG), 2005) and competency-based progression (Australian Industry Group (AIG), 2005). This paper does not address the skill shortage debates at a national level, but rather examines how the companies used the apprenticeship and traineeship system as one way to deal with their individual skill needs. It is worth mentioning, however, that several of the occupations covered by the case studies are listed by the Australian Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) (2006) as experiencing State-wide skills shortages for both Victoria and New South Wales: motor mechanic, carpenter and joiner, chef, and aged care nurse (which is the promotion path for the aged care workers at Retirement Home).

200 50 130 31 6

Aged care Retail Medical reception

Regional Regional Regional

Metro Regional

Metro

Traineeship Traineeship Traineeship

Apprenticeship Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship

General manager Business and marketing manager Practice principal

Technical training and development co-ordinator General foreman Executive chef

Metro/regional Apprenticeship/traineeship Major interviewee

Notes: Truck Repairs interview also attended by a teacher from the partnering training provider; Part of Motel Inc. interview attended by the current apprentice chef

Big Builders Motel Inc. (catering) Retirement Home Farming Supplies Physio Firm

Automotive-heavy vehicle Construction Hospitality

Truck Repairs

600

Industry sector

Company

No. of staff



Table I. Details of case study sites

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The nature of the labour shortages in the case study companies All of the enterprises mentioned tight labour markets; in some cases these were described as absolute difficulties in attracting labour and in other cases they were described as difficulties in attracting good quality people. Truck Repairs was typical of the former. About half of the company’s workforce was undertaking actual hands-on vehicle repair work, and it was for this work that apprentices were recruited. The technical training and development co-ordinator said: “It is a big fight, to try and get people”. He went on to explain: The schools system is viewed to (sic) getting people through the school system, through their VCE (Victorian higher school certificate), and onto university . . . we attend quite a few of those (careers expos) to try and lift our profile, lift the profile of mechanics, because, it was known as a dirty trade, we’re lifting that and saying there is a career path . . . But it’s far easier to recruit light vehicle mechanics, because basically the young kids can understand . . . they all go out and do cars and all the rest of it and motorbikes, they’re playing with dirt bikes at home, on the farms or wherever they live, and that’s a big difference (with heavy vehicles), except for the country kids who have been around diesel equipment, unless their father’s been in the road transport game for years and years, and they’ve seen Dad working on his truck.

Big Builders had a different form of labour shortage. As a major construction firm it had a need for general foremen who would manage teams of sub-contractors working closely with site project managers who would typically be university graduates. They found it difficult to recruit suitable general foremen and so had decided to grow their own through the apprenticeship system. To ensure high quality motivated apprentices, Big Builders apprentices were recruited through a group training company which approached TAFE colleges to nominate the best students that had completed carpentry pre-apprenticeships. Pre-apprenticeships are full-time six-month off-the-job courses that cover a portion of the first year apprenticeship curriculum (Dumbrell, 2003). The group training company then provided a shortlist of candidates for Big Builders to interview. Each of the other companies had some labour force challenges. The catering side of Motel Inc operated in an industry where there was generally a high turnover of staff and an identified national skills shortage. This particular site which was in a regional city faced an additional challenge because it proved difficult to retain “outsiders” in a rural location. Thus, recruiting a young local apprentice was much more likely to result in an employee who remained at the site after completion of the apprenticeship. Retirement Home did not find general difficulty in attracting staff because it was a modern facility with high quality premises and equipment, apparently an important consideration among aged care staff, but the company was anxious to improve the quality of care in a very competitive industry, and this could best be done through improving the calibre of staff. Managers were keen to use the traineeship system to encourage staff to proceed to aged care nurse training after completing the Certificate III qualification; their nurse workforce had an average age of 54 so they knew there would soon be a shortage of nurses. The remaining two companies had labour shortages because of current and planned expansion; both had turned to traineeships to meet this need for expansion. Criteria for apprentice/trainee recruitment Because of the ways in which they intended to use their apprentices and trainees, the companies varied in the criteria they used to select apprentices. Responses of the

companies to a standard question on selection criteria are given in Table II. Managers were asked to rate the criteria and were given the opportunity to add additional criteria. The following analysis of Table II also incorporates qualitative comments that respondents made on the reasons for their responses. While some of the criteria were industry-related, such the Motel Inc.’s emphasis on punctuality and appearance, it is also possible to discern the labour-shortage related criteria. Thus Big Builders foregrounded management suitability and existing qualifications (as they insisted on


Truck repairs School marks Occupational aptitude and previous knowledge Existing vocational qualifications “the apprentice has to suit the company” (response missing) Soft skills Big builders School marks Occupational aptitude and previous knowledge Existing vocational qualifications “the apprentice has to suit the company” (response missing) Soft skills Other: management suitability Motel Inc. School marks Occupational aptitude and previous knowledge Existing vocational qualifications “The apprentice has to suit the company” Soft skills Other: punctuality, appearance, reliability Retirement home School marks Occupational aptitude and previous knowledge Existing vocational qualifications “The apprentice has to suit the company” Soft skills Farming supplies School marks Occupational aptitude and previous knowledge Existing vocational qualifications “The apprentice has to suit the company” Soft skills Other: willingness to learn Physiotherapy firm School marks Occupational aptitude and previous knowledge Existing vocational qualifications “the apprentice has to suit the company” Soft skills Note: 1 ¼ not important; 5 ¼ very important

1

2

3

4


5

X X X A

A

A

A

A

X X X A

A

A

A

X A

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Table II. Responses to the question “How important are the following criteria for choosing apprentices” (by case study site)

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apprentices who had completed pre-apprentice courses because they wanted to ensure their “stickability”). Occupational aptitude and previous knowledge was rated most highly by truck repairs because of the specialised nature of the work and the need to be sure that apprentices would stay in what was not an attractive occupation for all. At retirement homes: “suiting the company” was very important because of the need to attract and retain people with a commitment to quality. Motel Inc. needed people who “suited the company” partly because the motel was part of a national chain and the company was always looking for promising staff to promote. Farming Supplies wanted trainees who were willing to learn, because in an expanding situation it needed people to be flexible and able to take on as yet unforeseen responsibilities. The Physiotherapy firm seemed to be the least certain about what it was looking for. This section has indicated that the quality of apprentices and trainees was important to all of the companies but that some companies had a more strategic approach to others in deciding the criteria for selection of recruits. Underlying all of the companies’ thinking, however, was the difficulty of attracting quality staff in a tight labour market. Development for quality In the apprentice case study sites the use of apprenticeships was well-established as a form of recruitment of labour, and the psychological commitment mentioned by Rowlands (2000) and other commentators was strongly present. All of these sites mentioned systematic training and job rotation strategies that they used to develop the apprentices in their on-the-job training. At Big Builders, for example, there was a committee that monitored all of the Heavy Builders apprentices in Victoria. This had been fairly recently established due to concerns about retention of apprentices. The general foreman said: There are three of us that are on the apprentice committee and we’re all ex-apprentices and we’ve all worked our way up to be general foreman or foreman, so we sit down and we monitor what the apprentices have last done, what they’re about to do. So one might be doing structure for six months so he might be working with a form worker . . . and then we think oh well he needs a bit more time on finishes and hanging doors and whatever, so then we move him off that and put him on to hanging doors with the fixing guy. Then he might move on, and we say that he hasn’t had much time in surveying so we then put him with a surveyor on a project that’s just starting. So in their three years or usually three and a half years they’ve had a broad range or they’ve had every aspect of the job.

The experience of the traineeship case study sites was somewhat different. At Retirement Home, trainees had not been used before; the general manager had been recently appointed and was bringing the idea of traineeships from a previous place of employment. The interview indicated that the company did not have very clear ideas yet for managing trainees’ work to allow for progressive skilling. Farming Supplies had used trainees for several years in the mid-1990s but the practice had fallen off for a few years; the interviewee (who had been the first retail trainee recruited by the company) had been working elsewhere for several years, but now he had returned he was reviving the practice. His commitment seemed to stem partly from his own early experience as a trainee but he was also able to articulate why they preferred trainees to other forms of labour: It works well in the respect that you can hire someone from out of school or whichever else and you work on their personality. You don’t look at their school stats or anything else you work solely on who they are and how they operate and everything else and then you can


build. I mean you give them the skill sets that they want, and that you need, so it’s a two-way street in that respect and it’s not about moulding as such, I think it’s more if you can get the better fit to your business with the traineeships.

In all of these five cases the employers said either explicitly or implicitly that in recruiting people as apprentices or trainees they expected a higher level of commitment to the company. Physiotherapy Firm was the exception. Its reasons for recruiting a trainee were, like Farming Supplies, the expected ability to be able to develop the recruit in a particular way – i.e. starting with a “clean slate” – and also the cost advantage as trainees are paid less than non-trainees. But the firm had not been very happy with its experience with trainees; the reality had not lived up to its plans. Management seemed somewhat dissatisfied with the training provider they used but also with the company’s own performance in training the trainees on the job; some trainees had not “worked out well.” This is discussed more fully later in the paper. It is clear therefore that the reasons for recruiting apprentices or trainees and the companies’ expertise in handling them affected the nature of the development experiences offered to the apprentices and trainees. To examine the development strategies further, three cases are now addressed in detail: one apprentice site and two trainee sites. The apprentice site is selected because it shows a strategic and long-term use of apprentices; and the two traineeship sites are selected because they illustrate more and less successful uses of trainees in small businesses. An apprentice site “Big Builders” was one of the largest construction companies in Australia and was structured so that there was a regional management structure in each State. The company managed many large commercial projects, and the site visited was an apartment and leisure complex in a redeveloped area in Melbourne’s Docklands. Melbourne is the capital of the State of Victoria and has a population of approximately 4 million. Big Builders’ sites in Victoria varied greatly, with some sites only having four or five workers at any time but some major projects having up to 600 people on site. Big Builders overall employed about 200 people in Victoria of whom around 60 were construction workers, either skilled tradespeople or sometimes semiskilled people driving forklifts and so on. The Docklands site that was visited had employed 370 people at its peak, and was now in its “fit out and finish” stage. In the construction industry in Australia there is a large amount of sub-contracting. The way this was manifested was that the Big Builders project manager (generally a university engineering graduate) was in overall charge of the project including the finances, with a general foreman managing all the sub-contractors who carried out work such as plastering, electrical work and plumbing. The current apprenticeship system had been instituted fairly recently as a result of problems with finding good staff to become foremen. This followed the change in operational structure from being a large direct employer to using a lot of sub-contractors. The general foreman said: Years ago the company when they had their own employees in formwork and electricians and so on, we probably had anywhere up to 30 or 40 apprentices working for the company then, and (at that time) they valued it as in this is where our future leaders of the company are going to come from, come from the work floor and lead that company into the next generation . . . so that did drop off and there was a gap where we had no foremen and they didn’t


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understand the company, we were getting people in off the street but they just didn’t understand the company and how it operates so that’s how we decided and we went to senior management and said we need to start putting on apprentices again.

On the Docklands project site there were 20 Big Builders staff only; the remainder were sub-contractors and their staff. Big Builders was very clear about what the company wanted from its apprentices. Because Big Builders no longer employed large numbers of workers directly, their main need was for people who would be able to work with and manage sub-contractors. They took on only carpentry apprentices as carpentry was the broadest construction trade and the one most needed by those employed directly by Big Builders (as opposed to sub-contractors). Apprentices were expected to complete their off the job Certificate III level training at TAFE in two years; this was possible as they had already completed part of the curriculum through their pre-apprenticeships. They were then expected to go on and complete a Diploma of Building during the remainder of their apprenticeship term. The general foreman who was interviewed explained how the sub-contractors were expected to play a role in training the apprentices. People in my role, and the foremen that are under me who work their way up, they’ve all started as apprentices; so at the very outset when we’re looking for apprentices through XXX (group training company) we tell them that we’re looking for managers or foremen to work their way up through the ranks. So what ends up happening is they come and do their four year apprenticeship; and probably towards the end of their last year we start breaking them up and start giving them areas to look after, and currently because it’s such a broad role, you get to see everything, and they usually make the best supervisors. So during their apprenticeship . . . we give them out to sub-contractors and they get the whole aspect of building and so at the end of their time they become leading hands and moving on to supervisors.

Initially on joining Big Builders the apprentices were placed with subcontractors in the simpler trades such as plastering or form work and then they were progressively rotated onto more complex tasks. At the end of three or three and half years of their four year apprenticeship they had been “lent” to subcontractors in every trade so that they were intimately familiar with all jobs that might be done in a project. The subcontractors got the labour of the apprentice free, which was a huge investment on the part of Big Builders. While handing over some of the training to sub-contractors represented a risk to the quality of training, in fact the nature of the large construction sites where sub-contractors were closely supervised by Big Builders managers reduced this risk. In addition, many of the sub-contractors were people who had completed apprenticeships with Big Builders themselves. Training quality was further assured by monitoring processes. Each apprentice had a regular monthly meeting with his[1] supervisor and the committee met every three months to review the progress of all of the apprentices. For this meeting, the current supervisor of the apprentice had to fill out a one-page report on the apprentice’s work attitude, his trade skills and how his TAFE off-the-job study was proceeding. The apprentice had to keep a daily “diary” of what they had done for the day in which they might record drawings or anything they had built and general observations. This was described as being a preparation for the daily diary that a foreman had to fill in on his worksite. The general foreman described it as being rather like a “ship’s log”. The apprentice had to show his diary to his supervisor for the supervisor to note on the


report. While with the company the apprentices also attended a number of in-company training courses including an induction program, a First Aid Certificate Level II, an explosive power tools course, scaffold and harnesses training, industrial relations programs and on-site training in specific skills associated with equipment at that particular site, such as scissor lifts. In addition, Big Builders had an internal “licence to practice” which required all staff to undertake 16 hours each year of continuing formal training within the company. The apprentices received an all-round picture of how a building was put together, which was essential if they were to move up to become foremen and managers: I suppose it’s given them training in the whole aspect of building. One of the things we encourage them to do if they’re on the floor and they see the electrician doing something we say go and ask and find out or the mechanical contractor who’s running the air conditioning go and ask him what that unit is. (We say) “Don’t be shy!”, because it’s all part of their learning and they’re getting . . . the whole aspect of building. One of my jobs when I was an apprentice was to come down at the end of each day and fill out the foreman’s diary and part of that task is writing down all the activities that the electrician did and the mechanical did so then I knew that at the end of each day I had to write that, so I’d go and ask questions and find out. I’d be looking at, oh yeah, that guy’s putting in that, what’s he doing that for? And then at the end of each day I’d go back and write “The electrical contractor was running skirting duct to level 15 for the workstation”, or whatever, like that.

It was interesting to note, from this statement, that although the system that Big Builders used for apprentice training was new, the general foreman had evidently called on something he had experienced as an apprentice himself (completing the diary) in setting up the new system. Since the new system had been implemented at Big Builders, which was in 1999 or 2000, five apprentices had become foremen with the company. So the scheme appeared to be successful. Not all apprentices stayed with the company; some went to travel overseas, as is common among young Australians, and some decided they preferred to be “on the tools” and went to work for sub-contractors, and thus remained connected with Big Builders in that way. The apprentice system was highly valued and the company had an ”apprentice of the year” award. While regarding apprentice training as of the utmost importance, the company recognised it was not performing as well as it might with its apprentices. Explicit recognition of the problems by the general foreman suggested that they would be addressed. It was certainly the case that compared with the other five case studies, Big Builders showed more capacity for critical self-reflection on its apprentice training. It should be noted however that there was an inherent risk in delegating much of the on-the-job training to contractors, in that day-to-day quality control of the standard of training could not be assured, although the regular meetings could be expected to identify serious problems. Two trainee sites Farm Shop was a co-operative retail company that had grown rapidly servicing a large clientele composed mainly of farmers. The majority of the staff were male and included several with degrees in agronomy because of the specialised nature of some of the products. Expansion into new purpose-built premises provided an attractive working environment. The Business and Marketing Manager had been the first retail trainee


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employed by the company, in 1992, and during a period of his absence interstate the retail traineeship program had lapsed for several years; however there were plans to recruit two per year for the following few years. The company liked to recruit trainees because they preferred the employee to come with no unfavourable work habits and because the staff enjoyed training new staff. Trainees attended TAFE two days a week for their year of employment, and also attended in-company training, and training sessions mounted by suppliers. The company supported attendance at TAFE rather than opting for on-the-job traineeships because it wanted the trainees to learn underlying principles of retailing and to be able to relate what happened at Farm Shop to other retail businesses. The Business and Marketing manager expected trainees to be very interested in learning: I mean if you’re put on as a trainee you really do want to learn everything, you (quickly) know how to housekeep and you want to actually get into the guts of it and see what it’s like.

Farm Shop was not overly motivated by the employment subsidies that were available. Obviously we’re on the scale now that if we wanted someone we’d do it (i.e. employ a trainee without the subsidy), but for a lot of the smaller businesses where trainees can be a more integral part of their business plan then subsidies are very worthwhile . . . but it (the subsidy)’s still taken into account.

Physio Firm was a small practice that had been in operation for five years. There were three physiotherapists, two of whom were the partners, and a small number of clerical staff. It was their first business for the two partners and they had been attracted to using their first clerical trainee because they wanted “somebody that we could mould”. The discussion further indicated that Physio Firm had been encouraged to recruit trainees by the training provider, and that managers had been partly swayed in their decision by the availability of employment subsidies, which had been explained to them as part of the training provider’s marketing “pitch”. The firm also felt that employing young people might attract young people to the practice as patients. They had employed five clerical trainees over the years, although one had not completed. Normally one per year was employed, although in 2005 two were recruited, as the company was short-staffed. The trainees attended TAFE one day per week for their twelve months of employment. As the staff was so small, the trainees were an integral part of the business and the outgoing trainee was expected to play a part in training the incoming trainee. The firm was trying to move towards having a full-time clerical person to prevent this happening. There were no formal training materials; in fact there were few formal procedures of any sort. The trainees had over the years helped to develop a rudimentary procedures manual: We were developing a manual with our initial trainee . . . she’s written that (what we taught her) all down for subsequent people to try and get a bit of a smooth changeover on processes.

As an expanding business, time was short for the senior people. Teachers from the training provider, the local TAFE college, were supposed to visit trainees in the workplace but these visits were in fact very rare. Physio Firm did not feel it was doing a very good job with its trainees but the managers knew they could not afford to pay non-trainee staff to do the work.


I don’t think we are doing as well as we hoped . . . the professional commitment (of the trainees) has been variable and again depends on the person, but we would like to develop that.

Although all four staff that had completed their traineeships would have been offered permanent work, in fact none chose to stay, which could possibly (but not necessarily) be an indication of dissatisfaction with the company. Interestingly the partner stated that as a result of the research he was beginning to wonder whether they evaluated sufficiently their use of trainees and that perhaps they should discontinue employing them. These three case studies indicate wide variations in the quality of apprentice and trainee development processes. These variations include the amount of time that permanent staff were expected and prepared to allocate to the development of the apprentice and trainee, the training skills of permanent staff, the existence of procedural and training materials and the decisions to include or not include off the job training in the development experiences. These features are similar, although not identical, to those identified by Unwin and Fuller (2003) as typical of workplaces offering expansive approaches to workplace learning. Conclusion The Big Builders case study shows that a high quality apprenticeship system can be built up by companies considering carefully how the apprentices can best suit the strategic needs of their companies. While Big Builders could have continued to recruit apprentices only to meet its limited need for tradespeople, it chose to use the system to develop future senior managers. Several features of the Big Builders case study have potential for wider applicability: . The consistent use only of apprentices that have completed pre-apprenticeship programs and that therefore have initial skills as well as a good understanding of the nature of the industry. . The addition of an extra, higher-level, qualification during the apprenticeship period to improve skills as well as increase motivation. . The use of sub-contractors to provide wider working experiences that the company itself could not provide. . The State apprenticeship committee which monitors progress and considers apprentices as a cohort. . The lack of concern about the immediate cost for apprentice training in the full realisation of the eventual benefits. The contrast between the two traineeship sites that are discussed in detail above indicates that apprentice-like systems for trainees only work when a great deal of planning and effort is put into them by the company. Physio Firm had failed to provide this initial investment in up-front planning and therefore the quality of their traineeships appears to have been poor. Farm Shop, in contrast, appeared to have implemented a more structured approach to the recruitment and training of trainees. In Farm Shop’s case, the current driver of the system was an ex-trainee and this personal experience appears to be of benefit in imagining and planning good quality development strategies for apprentices and trainees.


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While this study was on a small scale it provided some useful insights into what makes for a high quality apprenticeship or traineeship. Some companies were clearly more confident than others that their use of apprentices and trainees was successful and would continue to be so. It seemed that a number of factors affected the success of the strategy of using apprentices and trainees. One was extremely careful attention to attraction and selection of recruits. In turn this depended on companies being very clear about exactly what type of recruit they were looking for. Another was a clear view about career paths for the apprentices/trainees that enabled them both to attract recruits and to retain their commitment and motivation. Linked to both of these was familiarity and experience with the Australian Apprenticeship system, both in terms of using training providers and other intermediary bodies to assist in various ways, and in terms of having in-company strategies that were based on previous experience. Thus the use of apprentices and trainees was helpful in meeting the companies’ needs but only if they had the skills and commitment to attract the right people and manage their experience within the company. Rowlands (2000) two clusters of recruitment processes and interacting with the training provider are areas that clearly need attention. These skills, which might be described as “traineeship management skills”, might be expected to be more widely distributed as the traineeship system slowly puts down deep roots in the Australian labour market to join those of the apprenticeship system. As the literature review indicates, traineeships now provide a larger share of the New Apprenticeship system than apprenticeships and it is important therefore that traineeships develop a similar standing and similar commitment from enterprises. While larger businesses might be expected to have well-developed training systems, smaller businesses do not necessarily have this attribute (Hill and Stewart, 2000) and therefore the responsibility of caring for trainees may not come naturally to small business owners. If a traineeship is 100 per cent on the job, then the shortcomings of the in-company experience become more significant and so the study indicates that off the job training should be available particularly where companies do not possess significant experience and skills in training. The presence of a tight labour market appears to have highlighted all the challenges associated with recruiting and training Australian Apprentices as the effects of faulty recruitment or of staff turnover due to dissatisfaction have major impacts because of the difficulty of replacing staff. Note 1. Please note that the terms “he” and “his” and “foreman” are used in this case study to refer to the apprentices and supervisors as they were almost all male. There had however been occasional female apprentices and the general foreman remarked that they tended to be very successful. References Australian Industry Group (AIG) (2005), Contemporary Apprenticeships for the Twenty-first Century, AIG, Melbourne. Ball, K. and John, D. (2005), Apprentice and Trainee Completion Rates, National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), Adelaide.


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1. Alison Fuller, Lorna Unwin. 2009. Change and continuity in apprenticeship: the resilience of a model of learning. Journal of Education and Work 22, 405-416. [CrossRef]