03 February 2022
Mid-market companies are increasingly making use of apprenticeships as a means of upskilling their people at all levels. Many are using the tactic to prepare staff to fill vacancies from within – as competition for external hires intensifies.
Amid the ‘Great Resignation', companies often struggle with recruiting talent across all lines of business. The pandemic has triggered large swathes of the labour market to re-evaluate its expectations toward work, and as such, a growing number of staff are leaving work which does not meet its expectations – while remaining selective when it comes to selecting new employers.
As businesses struggle to fill vacancies in this environment, many are turning to upskilling their current staff to improve retention – and fill vacancies from within. A new study from Grant Thornton has found that apprenticeship use in the mid-market particularly is set to expand in 2022, with 53% of respondents agreeing that more of their people will be trained using apprenticeships this year than in 2021.
From 601 respondents to Grant Thornton’s poll, all but one business said that they currently use apprenticeships to develop their people. The strategic benefits of this were numerous, with 31% of companies hoping that apprenticeships would help to improve social mobility in their business, and 50% agreeing that formal development supports employee wellbeing.
