Danielle Rose, Director of Experiential Learning at Forsyth Technical Community College, on Making Apprenticeship Simpler

Intro

Welcome back to another Making Apprenticeship Simpler inteview where we dive into insightful conversations with industry leaders on apprenticeship. I'm your host, Patrick Cushing, and today we are thrilled to have Danielle Rose, the Director of Experiential Learning at Forsyth Technical Community College, join us. With a wealth of experience in apprenticeship programs, Danielle will share the innovative initiatives Forsyth Tech has undertaken, including their LEAP program, which has successfully paired apprentices with local employers. In this episode, Danielle discusses the importance of diversifying recruitment strategies for apprenticeships, stressing the value of incumbent workers who are often overlooked. She also offers practical advice for employers on integrating apprenticeship opportunities within their existing workforce. Stay tuned as we explore how simplifying recruitment can lead to more successful apprenticeship programs. Let's get started!

Highlights

• Overview and Achievements of LEAP (Learn and Earn Apprenticeship Program)

• College-sponsored apprenticeship with 50 employer partners

• Reaching over a dozen occupations (manufacturing, transportation, healthcare)

• Preparations for the 150th apprentice signing

• Future focus of expansion into healthcare

• Primary Question: How to Make Apprenticeships Simpler?

• Importance of recruitment in simplifying apprenticeship

• First Area: Expanding Recruitment

• Avoiding pigeonholing in recruitment by thinking beyond the stereotypical apprentice profile

• Recruiting females and incumbent workers

• Evaluation of current workforce with temporary agency employees

• Second Area: Consider Current Employees Within

• Identification and consideration of existing employees for apprenticeship

• Success stories of a 43-year-old female and a 32-year-old male and details on their journey and achievements

• Third Area: Changing the Conversation

• Introducing key questions during discovery calls:

• Can the company recruit a skilled workforce?

• Is there knowledge about to be lost through retirement?

• Is there a need to diversify the workforce pipeline?

• Are there employees the company would like to invest in?

• Closing Thoughts and Reflections

• Emphasis on not overlooking incumbent workers

• Importance of mutual investment between employers and their workers

Transcript

Patrick Cushing:

Everybody, this is Patrick Cushing from WorkHands. And today I've got Danielle Rose from Forsynth Technical. I'm going to let her introduce herself. And Danielle, can you tell us a little bit about your experience with apprenticeship, your role at Forsyth, and anything else that would give us context to your answers here?

Danielle Rose:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm Danielle Rose, director of experiential learning here at Forsyth Tech. We are in Winston Salem, North Carolina. If you go directly over from Raleigh and up from Charlotte, you get to us. We're kind of in the foothills. We're a mid sized city of about 250 to 300,000 people. And five years ago, our community college started this program called LEAP, or the Learn and Earn Apprenticeship Program.

Danielle Rose:

It's a college sponsored apprenticeship program. And we just signed our 50th employer partner. As a sponsor, we're doing the paperwork, the documentation that everybody is so scared of, even though it's not scary. And then our employer partners sign on with us, and we then are education and employer partners together throughout that apprenticeship journey. We currently are running, over a dozen occupations, mostly in manufacturing, transportation, trying to get into healthcare a little bit. That's kind of the next up and coming apprenticeship world. We are about to sign our 150th apprentice. So we're just rocking and rolling.

Patrick Cushing:

Fantastic intro. Love it. Okay, Danielle, I've got one question for everybody who comes on here. From your perspective, from your experience, how do we make apprenticeship simpler?

Danielle Rose:

Well, that is a loaded question. I could probably talk all day about it, but I'm gonna go with a topic that I was just talking to some employers about earlier today, and that is on the recruitment side. As an employer, I think you can make your apprenticeship program simpler by not pigeonholing who you are recruiting. You know, I think a lot of people think of, and I'm talking more through the manufacturing lens, just to say that most people are thinking of the 17, 18, 19 year old male that's coming out of a trade program in high school. What they're not thinking of is the females that might be interested in the world of manufacturing and also the incumbent workers. And I think those within your own four walls are the perfect candidates for your apprentices. I'll give you an example. We have a very large manufacturer in town, over 800 employees.

Danielle Rose:

They wanted to join LEAP, and they were really concerned about going into the high schools and competing with all the other companies, trying to find that perfect apprentice. When we started looking at their current workforce, they actually had about a quarter of their employees through a temp agency, and they were working in roles such as an assembler or something that maybe didn't require a degree. Well, they had two employees that right away they thought of. They said, okay, they've been here over a year. They show up every day. They work overtime. They're committed to the company. Well, you're looking for maintenance technicians.

Danielle Rose:

Might they be interested? They had a conversation with those two employees, and both of them, first of all, were thrilled that the company noticed them and then also put a lot of thought into, well, might I want to go back and get a degree? And could I do this through apprenticeships? Both of those students now have their journey worker credentials. One of them was a 43 year old female, and then the other one was a 32 year old male. They both went through the apprenticeship program together in the same cohort, got their associate's degrees in mechatronics, got both their state of North Carolina and national journey worker credential, and continue to work there today. All that to say, I think that it would be simpler for companies to recruit apprentices if they did not overlook the people that are already right there under their roof.

Patrick Cushing:

I love that because so often apprenticeship is thought of at best, is it's a parallel path to college. We always put in this lens that we already understand. But there are people right there. There are people we can invest in who are excited to be invested in. I guess my one follow up here is, say you had a magic wand and you could solve this problem. How would you change that conversation? How would you make it so this is a more obvious way for employers to know they can invest in their existing people.

Danielle Rose:

Well, that is a loaded question. I think the biggest thing is during, from my perspective during our discovery calls, I've started making that part of our checklist. So we have a four question checklist that says, you know, can you say yes to any of these four things? And if so, an apprenticeship might be good for you. One of them is, are you able to recruit a skilled workforce? One of the questions is, do you have knowledge about to be lost through retirement? Are you looking for a way to diversify your workforce pipeline? And then the last one says, do you have employees that you'd like to invest in? And I think almost every company ends up saying yes to that. And that kind of opens up the conversation of what, a low risk opportunity to try out an apprenticeship, somebody you already know the return on investment is even greater. So I do think that just adding that in the conversation with that initial recruitment checklist has really helped.

Patrick Cushing:

Love that, Danielle. For everybody else out there, please don't forget your incumbent workers. They've invested in you, you invest in them. It's a fantastic way to make apprenticeships simpler. Danielle, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure. And everybody else will see you again next time.

Danielle Rose:

Thanks for having me.