By Antonia Brown
Haines Watts
ALL too often, school students are blind to the post-18 options available for them to explore outside of the university route. Many students still believe they need a degree to access certain professions such as accountancy and taxation. This is in fact no longer the case, with the recent introduction of the apprenticeship levy, more and more businesses are taking on apprentices.
Employers with a pay bill of less than £3 million each year, will share the cost of training and assessing their apprentices with the Government, a process referred to as Co-investment. The exciting part about this from an employer’s perspective it that you’ll only have to contribute 10 per cent towards the cost and the government will pay the remaining 90 per cent; up to the funding band maximum.
So with the finances out of the way, the question is ‘Why else has Haines Watts chosen to employ apprentices fresh out of school?’.
Well, we’ve found we can mould our own apprentices into resourceful, honest, tenacious business advisors who tell it how it is. We support them through their studies towards their qualification, provide solid training and give them direct access to our clients early on. This benefits both us and the apprentices by giving them the confidence to confront real world scenarios, question the norm and aspire to be the best they can be.
The challenge now is convincing students, parents and employers that apprenticeships can benefit all concerned. We get it! University’s an appealing route for school leavers – Fresher’s Week anyone? Previously students have been advised to avoid apprenticeships due to the fear of low minimum wage caps, unreasonable working hours and poor training. With the new apprenticeship levy however, this is no longer the case and apprentices can achieve much more.
Our current apprentices have proven this with great exam scores and real, no-nonsense feedback from clients, all whilst having fun along the way.
Being business advisers, we’re constantly on the look-out for the very best talent available and in doing so, we’ve taken on a number of apprentices over the past couple of years and it’s fair to say, it’s been worth every penny.
The question is, might it also be a valuable and worthwhile investment for your business? For more information on implementing an apprenticeship levy in your business call Antonia at Haines Watts on 01604 746760.