If you are an employer, it’s your responsibility to make sure that your company is constantly growing and evolving.

To do this, sometimes employers need to offer traineeships or work experience placement as a way of expanding their workforce. Since the government announced the traineeship employer incentive we have seen an increase in interest for traineeships.

What are the benefits for businesses that offer traineeships?

In this blog post, we will explore the traineeship employer incentive and ten different reasons why offering a traineeship or a work experience placement can benefit both the business and the individual!

What is a traineeship?

A traineeship is a fully-funded work placement provided by the Skills Funding Agency and is an opportunity for an employer to offer a trainee the chance to learn more about that specific company while they work and get ready for an apprenticeship or a job.

Traineeships for employers

Considering a traineeship, here’s what you need to know

Traineeships have been designed to help young people aged 16-24, or those who are 25 with an Education Health and Care Plan get ready for an Apprenticeship or a job.

Traineeships are actually a full funded skills development programme that includes a work placement, they usually last from 6 weeks up to a year.

With Traineeships, the participants are currently not in employment so they are usually on benefits. The idea is to help them prepare for a job or an apprenticeship

Because of this Traineeships are unpaid, our advice would be that business owners or employers can offer reimbursements towards expenses such as travel.

So in short a Traineeship supports under 24s, or those who are 25 with an Education and Health Care Plan who are currently not in employment.

How to get the best out of Traineeships for your business

When offering a Traineeship employers need to provide:

• A real career opportunity for up to 10 young people
• Safe meaningful and a high-quality work experience
• in partnership with the training, provider supply current employees from your business to provide coaching skills supporting and mentoring
• Constructive feedback and advice to the trainee
• At the end of the traineeship, if one is available an interview for an apprenticeship or a job
• At the end of the traineeship, an exit interview with meaningful written feedback if no job or apprenticeship is available

Although traineeships are funded to your business, to get the most from them we recommend that where possible you help trainees with expenses, such as for travel and meals.

Now that you know what a Traineeship is and how to get the most from them for your business let’s look at our top 10 benefits of traineeships for employers.

Our top 10 benefits of traineeships for employers

As well as the traineeship employer incentive the benefits from a traineeship can include:

The main benefit to employers is that there is funding offering an employer incentive and that is £1,000 for each traineeship that you can provide.

In fact, if you have the employment capacity you can take on up to ten trainees and get up to £10,000 as an employer incentive.

1. A pool of skilled labour or new talent to draw on when long term staff are absent or unavailable, without incurring the costs associated with hiring and training new employees.
2. Reduced recruitment time through employing people who have already been assessed as suitable for work in your organisation.
3. Increased commitment levels amongst apprenticeships and trainee workers because they feel valued by their employer due to being given training that may not be available elsewhere.
4. The chance to trial someone before making them a full employee or offering them an apprenticeship – which can also cut down on recruiting expenses! This is especially helpful if you’re looking for someone very specific (e.g., all engineers) but don’t want to commit.
5. The option to train someone in a field that you don’t have the expertise for and put them back into the job market with increased skills for a route into a job or an apprenticeship.
6. Tax incentives – some companies are eligible for an allowance from HMRC worth up to £15,000 (depending on their size). This could be used as incentive pay or offered as monthly payments over two years.
7. Increased motivation levels amongst employees or trainees who are given these opportunities because they can see themselves progressing within your company.
8. Reduced staff turnover rates among employees who get trained through this programme; which means less time spent recruiting/training new people!
9. This is particularly useful if you’re looking for very specific skillsets such as engineers where it’s difficult to fill vacancies quickly enough due to skill shortages
10. This is your chance to help a young person get ready for an apprenticeship or job and to help increase our region’s talented workforce.

Traineeship benefits for young people

People who train through a Traineeship programme or work experience placement are referred to as trainees and since they are gaining new skills from a funded training provider they are much more likely to stay in the region or get back on track thanks in part to the pre employment training

It’s not just about job security for the next generation or young person, it’s also about making sure that people are gaining new skills and training for their future employment.

Another benefit of employers offering these opportunities because they can see themselves progressing within your company.

Reduced staff turnover rates among employees who get trained through this programme or a work experience placement gain guidance and help; which means less time spent recruiting/training new people and more time focusing on the business needs!

This is particularly useful if you’re looking for very specific skillsets such as engineers where it’s difficult to fill vacancies quickly enough due to skill shortages

How to find out more about traineeships and Government support

Digital Future First is here to help small to medium businesses access support, incentives and guidance.

Funded support for SME businesses within the SEMLEP region

We are funded by the European Social Fund to help SME businesses located within the SEMLEP or South-East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership region, this includes businesses based in Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes, Luton and Northamptonshire.

European social fund

Register your business with us

Register your business with us so that we can keep you in the loop with all the latest government incentives as and when they are announced.

Get started with traineeships  other government incentives and support

Our team of advisors are funded, which means there is absolutely no cost to use our service.

Book your needs assessment today to find out more about the traineeship employer incentive, when you do our advisors will want to find out all about your business, they’ll ask you about your business goals and when they do we recommend that you include as much details as possible. Crucially they will also ask you about your challenges for now and for the future.

Once they have a good picture they can take you through the available programmes and help you draw up an action plan with the next steps to get you started.

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