The company has been in operation for 27 years and has employed many apprentice hairdressers over that time. Currently they have three apprentices at different stages of their apprenticeship training.
SPH & Co spends a lot of attention on providing a good on-the-job training experience for their apprentices. The senior hair stylist and senior colourist are paid a weekly allowance above their normal salary to ‘buddy’ the apprentices and train them on the job. To help with this role, they have each been supported to complete a Train the Trainer program.
The company allocates extra hours (1900) in the workplace for training the apprentices. They maintain logbooks of the training they do, and sign them off when they successfully complete skills. Despite this proactive approach to training their apprentices, the RTO does not provide any recognition of the skills they gain. Regardless of their efforts, the apprenticeship seems to take a fixed 3 ½ years to complete.
SPH & Co manager, Steven D’annonzio, believes that RPL appears to have been discouraged in the interests of RTO sustainability, with RTOs receiving higher levels of funding if they don’t provide RPL. A better system of reviewing the skills learnt in the workplace, endorsed by an accredited person within a business, would help an apprentice gain credit and progress through the apprenticeship more quickly.
Steven believes that a lot of employers in his industry seem unaware about their rights and responsibilities towards apprentices. At the same time, a lot of apprentices have no idea about employment matters and no idea of where to go if they need help. Both apprentices and their employers could complete some basic training before commencing an apprenticeship.
Steven uses the financial incentives to cover the cost of the formal training program. He would like to see incentives for employers and apprentices paid across the full duration of the apprenticeship, payable as apprentices pass certain competency levels. This would help encourage apprentices to complete their training.
Apprenticeships and traineeships underpin the pipeline of skills needed to deliver some of the biggest priorities facing our nation. In an environment of widespread skills and workforce shortages, a strong apprenticeship and traineeship system is more important than ever.
