“How would the apprenticeship scheme have made a difference to your learning experience, and what benefits can you see for the businesses who use apprenticeships to train their staff?”
Ben told us – It’s a really interesting point. If I had undertaken the apprenticeship scheme, then I would have attended a lot more skills days where I would have built up presentation skills, team working skills . Overall I think that I would have become, a more well-rounded individual from the start. You could get a lot of the same skills at university, but the apprenticeship is another route for school leavers as well as adding to the skills you may have built up at university. The apprenticeship is self-development as much as it is the skills development. If somebody is coming straight off the back of their A levels or an NVQ then that self-development aspect is one thing we have to offer them to help them develop further as a person and a businessperson.
Ben’s comments highlight an aspect of the apprenticeship scheme that is one of the less well highlighted benefits to business of the Government’s apprenticeship scheme. An apprenticeship is all about personal development. With training targeting the specific skills that you as the employer identify as the most important. Apprenticeships will add real value to your training programme.
Within an accountancy business where clients expect that their accountant will have a certain level of business acumen the benefits of training through the apprenticeship scheme are clear. To quote Ben again; “a combination of working in business, plus the apprenticeship plus the professional qualification builds up an individual to the kind of modern accountant that you would expect”.
And these advantages are not just limited to accountancy practices. Apprenticeships are a good way to bring qualified, business aware staff into the financial teams of many types and sizes of business. The return on investment of using the apprenticeship scheme can be advantageous to any business needing skilled financial teams. With funding potentially available to large and small companies and the support of First Intuition, upskilling existing team members or taking on entirely new employees and building the accounting skills you need will benefit your business in the long term.
First Intuition’s goal is to develop financially fluent professionals who can make an impact for talent hungry employers. Get in touch with the team in Bristol or call us on 0117 3540190.
