Bosses at Birmingham-based engineering company, adi Group, are encouraging local businesses to invest in pre-apprenticeship schemes in a bid to help plug the Midlands skills gap.
Adi Group is hoping to generate significant employment opportunities across the region by doubling its current staff levels by 2020 and help address the area’s entrenched skills gap.
Working alongside national business organisation, the CBI, and with support from West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, adi aims to inspire the next-generation of young engineers via its pre-apprenticeship scheme – the UK’s first apprenticeship for 14-16 year olds – and deliver nearly 100 pre-apprenticeships by 2020.
The vision is that pre-apprenticeship model and approach will reach out to thousands of children, via a network of like-minded businesses interacting with their local schools.
This sentiment is brought to the fore in adi’s newly published pre-apprenticeship programme guide for businesses – Inspiring the Workforce of Tomorrow, which covers the ‘whys’, ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ of the scheme, including the tangible benefits that businesses can gain from integrating the model into their own workplaces.
For instance, adi expects businesses to significantly reduce future recruitment costs by creating a steady and reliable pipeline of recruits, who are more likely to remain loyal to the company.
CEO of adi Group, Alan Lusty explained: “It’s a well-known fact that our country is struggling to fill the nationwide skills shortage, and we recognise that apprenticeships are a vital avenue for businesses to consider.”
“With a recent CBI survey revealing that employers are growing increasingly concerned about not being able to find enough highly-skilled staff, we hope that our innovative scheme will find its way into more businesses. We look forward to seeing where these conversations will take us, and how we can help shape the future of the nation’s skills shortage together.”
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