Can debt collection agencies afford not to consider apprenticeships in 2021?

Tammie will be delivering a session on ‘Future-proofing your Business: Exploring Apprenticeships as part of your workforce’ alongside Chris Cherry of Strategic Development Network at our upcoming CSA Learning & Development Conference on 9 February 2021. Here, she shares an insight into what she will be discussing and asking some important questions of employers who are yet to embrace apprenticeships as a key part of their workforce planning and overall business strategy.

While working at the Education & Skills Funding Agency, I engaged some of the UK's largest companies on the skills agenda and worked with them to develop apprenticeship programmes. I also worked directly on the implementation of the apprenticeship reforms and standards. I now support and advise businesses and stakeholders on a wide range of apprenticeship-based projects, with much of this work focussed in Financial Services.

One of the things I specialise in is workforce analysis and I like to start by looking to understand employers’ workforce planning issues alongside their overall strategic direction. What tools, budget and resources have they got in place to ensure that they will be able to access the skills and talent they need for the future? What untapped resources are they currently not utilising? How are they going to get to where they want to be as an organisation? How engaged are senior management in this agenda? How is skills acquisition being used to deliver on strategic objectives?

Since engaging with the Credit Services Association (CSA), I have been impressed with how high on the agenda these issues are for them. They are keen to support their industry, which faces both outdated perceptions around what it does and significant skills gaps, in an increasingly stringent regulatory environment and complex economic landscape. In fact, the Association is currently looking to recruit a new Non-Executive Director with specific expertise in apprenticeships and further education to make this a strategic priority at Board level.

Despite many businesses in the debt collection sector making great strides to become people-centric and becoming increasingly acutely aware of where their future skilled workforce is going to come from, like many other sectors, there are still firms that are yet to make apprenticeships a core part of their business strategy. This means that Apprenticeship Levy funds are being lost, and begs the question, can debt collection agencies afford not to consider investing in apprenticeships in 2021?

Small short-term investment, big long-term return

As 2021 gets into full swing, most organisations will be looking at their long-term business plans in the face of unprecedented change. The pandemic has created huge amounts of uncertainty and unpredictability, but some things are clear: There will be increased demand for high quality collections to support the ever-increasing number of financially vulnerable people - and the debt collection industry will need to create a future generation of talent that can deliver this.

With Apprenticeship Levy funds ringfenced (for both Levy-paying and non-Levy-paying employers) and other support and funding available from Central/Local Government and training providers, this is a great time to set-up or grow your apprenticeship programme. My experience has consistently shown me that to make your apprenticeship programme strategic and ensure it has the maximum long term impact, it does need engagement and commitment from the ‘top down’ in an organisation, but the necessary investment of time and resource is certainly less than the potential ‘cost’ of not doing it now.

In 10 years’ time, do you know where your pipeline of talent and specialist expertise is going to come from? What will your recruitment costs look like? Rather than paying dividends in workforce resilience, the wasted Apprenticeship Levy funds will be ‘lost’ as a ‘tax’.

Linking apprenticeships to your organisational strategy

So how do we make sure this doesn’t happen? I understand the frustrations of HR and L&D teams who are struggling to get buy-in at board level for implementing apprenticeship programmes in their organisations. Lots of employers are trying to grow apprenticeships from the ‘bottom up’ and this approach rarely works.

What apprenticeship champions within organisations need to get this buy-in is workforce data and evidence that makes the business case. Where are their skills gaps, unfilled roles, ageing employees, high staff turnover, ever-increasing recruitment costs, and other red flags? How do these issues impact on the ability to achieve organisational objectives and goals? The ‘penny drop moment’ comes when this measurable return on investment is presented, for example, showing potential savings on recruitment or agency costs over, say five years may be enough to make the case. But this can take time, and support for a long-term strategic plan for apprenticeships is needed. Sometimes this means starting small and piloting in one area/department of the business where there is an ‘urgent’ need and then demonstrating the tangible impact of this to justify further investment in other areas.

“But what about ‘20% off the job’?” they may respond. There will still be those that challenge, but a valued employee spending 20% of their time learning practical skills that will be in high demand in the future is far more appealing than being unable to fill roles at all or having to pay sky high salaries and recruitment fees to find the most in-demand talent. When presenting the case, we must also present the (much less appealing) alternative. The question to ask is not “what happens if we do do it?” but “what happens if we don’t do it?”

Becoming an ‘employer of choice’ for future talent

I also find it helps to identify themes from of an organisation’s strategic plan that apprenticeships can help drive. Being an ‘employer of choice’ is a reoccurring theme, with many debt collection agencies investing heavily in their ‘employer brand’, and apprenticeships can play a key role in this when it comes to future talent, particularly post-Brexit and post-Covid-19. Other areas of the financial services sector, like the big banks, are using apprenticeships to get their brand out there amongst the next generation of talent. Competition for this new talent is only going to increase and, despite many still seeing apprenticeships as a short-term solution, those that are embracing them find that apprentices become highly engaged long-term employees, who forge a successful career pathway with the organisations that are prepared to invest in them. And don’t forget apprenticeships are a great way of investing in and retaining your existing talent as well, by giving them a structured progression pathway.

Again, this is more cost effective than adding to the long list of high value employee benefits that attract people into roles in the short term but may not keep them engaged when a slightly more attractive offer comes along.

I’m really looking forward to talking more about this with employers in the debt collection and wider sectors at our session on ‘future-proofing your workforce’ at the CSA Learning & Development Conference on 9 February. I hope to get you thinking differently about apprenticeships as a fantastic tool to attract new talent and retain and develop your existing employees. Let’s make 2021 the year that apprenticeships become part of not only your workforce planning but also your organisational strategy.

L&D Conference 2021

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