Apprentice troubles

[agg221]

My Eldest at 18 is an apprentice at an excellent local motorsport garage . He loves the job but struggles to pay his insurance and petrol on his wage . He tops up his monthly earnings delivering logs for me and also working in the local Spar Shop . If they want it they will do anything to make it happen

 

This is true, to a point, but where does he live and how much does it cost him (inc. food etc)?

 

If you go down the academic route there are student loans - yes you have to pay them back but at least they cover the short-term living costs. If you aren't subsidised by your parents, you don't have the luxury of doing something you enjoy - sometimes you just have to do what pays the bills. You can't just not eat or live anywhere for a few years

 

A lot depends on how employers view apprenticeships - is it education or is it employment? There seems to be a prevailing view that it is education which the employer is providing and hence the apprentice 'owes them'. This is hardly likely to lead to a working environment which the apprentice wants to stay in - not surprising they move on. Employers then seem to feel this is somehow disloyal, but if it has been treated as training, why wouldn't they move at the end of the training period?

 

Some simple calculations - £4/hr for 8hr days, 5days/wk = £160/wk = £8320 annual.

Some current costs (derived from the students I employ):

Round here, a basic single room in a shared house is £350/month = £4200 annual.

Bills will be extra, usually around £50/month = £600 annual.

Food can be done (just, but I challenge you to do it!) on £5/day = £1825 annual.

So basic costs £6625 annual.

 

This leaves £1625 annual for travel (you can only cut this to zero if you live in walking distance of both work and college), clothing, PPE etc and assumes you have absolutely zero social life. I lived like this for a year once when I was a student (figures were somewhat different in those days and I didn't have the option of either a grant or a student loan). Believe me, it is not healthy, either mentally or physically.

 

My view is that if you want the best, you have to offer the most attractive package. If that means you are prepared to pay a reasonable wage and offer training on top then you can have the pick of the apprentices and they are likely to carry on to become a good employee. If you feel that they owe you so you can give them less, they treat it as a period of training and then move on. If you take a negative attitude towards them, either by keeping on about how much worse they are than you at the job, or focussing on their weaknesses rather than their strengths, or simply treating them as inferior and giving them only the worst of the jobs, they may take it as part of the role but will move on to something better the first chance they get.

 

The above has been borne out by my own experience - I have taken on about 15 students and apprentices over the past 8yrs and employed six of them (didn't want to employ three, four others didn't want to be employed but delivered good service while they were with me, the other two I didn't have the need for at the end of their fixed term). I treat them as employees, whose contribution is as valuable as anyone else's, and pay them a good wage accordingly. I give them as much responsibility as I think they can handle given their experience and tend to push this early in their career. Only one has let me down and we had a polite but frank discussion which he found uncomfortable, and then he chose to move on.

 

For me, treating people professionally and trying to understand what is likely to be both viable and motivational has got good results.

 

Alec

 

edit. I think Eddy_t has just expressed the same view but rather more succinctly!

[Andymacp]

I was offering £30 a day for a 6hr day.

Up here you can rent a room with bills included for £60 a week.

[agg221]

I was offering £30 a day for a 6hr day.

Up here you can rent a room with bills included for £60 a week.

 

How many days per week were you paying - was it a 5 or 6 day week and were there any days at college, if so did you pay them for these?

 

This makes a big difference - our apprentices are on 5 day working weeks but spend two days a week at college. If we paid £30/day but only for the days on our site they would be earning £90/wk so working from your figures they would have £30/wk to live on after rent. Food would be £35 so they are already in debt before they start, let alone travel or clothing. At the other end of the scale, fully paid at 6 days per week would be £180 which you could cover all costs with comfortably.

 

What do you reckon their travel costs would be - could you rent in a location where you could walk to your yard and to college, or would you expect them to get themselves to the job site - if so what range (could they cycle it or would a car be essential?) Where we are there is a site bus to and from the nearest large town, which is also where the college is. It costs a pound each way (3days/wk) so travel is around £300/yr. If you had to get the public bus the same distance it would be £3.50 each way so travel would be around £1000/yr. The difference between these obviously makes a huge difference when you are talking about living near the margins.

 

FWIW, we put our successful apprentices onto proper employment contract rates if they pass their second year. They can then reasonably expect promotion after around another 3yrs if they do a good job, which will give them a wage of around £100/day. They know this up front, which is a good incentive to stay. By this stage, they earn this for us anyway and employing someone equivalent would cost the same so it's reasonable. We look on it more that they have been trained to fit what we want than that they owe us. We have quite a good retention rate overall.

 

Alec

[Andymacp]

They get 5 days a week, picked up and dropped off at home. So no travel expense.

They go to college for 4 weeks each of the three years. For the course and assessments. All paid for including travel and accom.

After the first year the wage goes to £50 a day. After cs 39 is achieved its £70 a day.

 

Considering I worked for free for a year when I first started. I think it's not to bad.