Aligning your people objectives and leveraging the potential of the Apprenticeship Levy

All roads lead to people, everything we do, design or manufacture is ultimately for the benefit of people, and it is people that we need to look after and support.

The people agenda must be a priority for 2023, whether focused on individuals striving to overcome recent challenges and bring their whole selves to the business, as managers looking beyond the havoc of hybrid working towards team productivity, or as organisations looking to attract and retain talented people.

2023 is the year that we must circle the wagons, reflect on our people agenda, and our strategies for building and improving our people stance. People are at the heart of your operations, they keep your business running smoothly and, without the right people who are engaged and resilient, provide limited value to your business.

Two questions we pose at this point:

1. How do you view the people in your organisation? Are they a requirement to operate (e.g., manual labour to support demand) or maybe talented people that cost less to retain (through investment in development) than replace, or at the aspirational end of the scale, the differentiator within your business, or in other words the reason customers come to you?
2. Whether you call it Human Resources, Human Capital or even People & Culture, how does your organisation view your People Management function? Again, an operational function to process joiners and leavers, a mainstay for reporting and balancing the workforce, or a strategic function that drives your people engagement and positions them as pivotal to achieving your strategic ambitions?

Your answer to these two questions lends itself to a third question, have you positioned your people and People Management functions appropriately to support your business strategy, and more significantly is there a mismatch between these two elements?

There are a number of themes that we have developed to bridge theses gaps which span from attracting the right people, enabling their career aspirations, adapting to both technological and ‘ways of working’ change, through to reward and retention.

Supplementing these are the apprenticeship opportunities.

Apprenticeships are programmes of training at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, designed for people of all ages (16+) who have left full time education and are in employment. Apprenticeships can be a significant differentiator for your business with benefits stemming from:

• A mechanism for upskilling your existing people and the various stages of their careers to ensure you get the most out of your workforce, with training that is relevant to your organisation
• A way to demonstrate your commitment to the growth and development of your people in a meaningful way
• Access to new talent specifically trained with competencies and skills you need to support your business objectives
• A route to access untapped talent as a result of the big resignation
• Not to mention the significant cost benefits for your organisation's Learning & Development budgets

Critically, if your pay bill is in excess of £3m you are contributing to the Apprenticeship Levy (which is a tax), so whether you are leveraging the apprenticeship opportunities or not you will nonetheless be paying into the Apprenticeship Levy.

A business who views people simply as a requirement for operating (a right, not a privilege), or a resource to be maintained, will lose relevancy and struggle to sustain any form of growth or market share.

It is crucial that businesses acquire and nurture the right skills and capacity to support their objectives. Therefore, it is imperative that talent pipelines are created and maintained to ensure the futureproofing of your business model - apprenticeships are one of the emerging cost-effective and structured ways to do this.

Please do contact us to explore this relatively untapped opportunity, and understand more about how your People Agenda can benefit from the array of apprenticeship opportunities.

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