Michael Easter, a number-one ranked bicycle racer in California, suffered muscle seizure during a race that knocked him out of competition. Commenting afterwards, he said, “All the skill and all the will can’t overcome dehydration.”

You and your staff are feeling the dehydration of tech overwhelm. You are using and losing more fluid work than you can take in. 

In September, there were more than 300,000 tech postings for jobs, with almost that number of jobs being created within the next year. My home state, Colorado, has over 30,000 open positions for cyber security and coding.

All of your skill and will cannot meet the overwhelming demands that are on you. 

How do you fill the need before you seize up and get passed by?

What If

What if I could show you a way that resulted in:

• 48% ROI
• Or $1.70 return on every $1 invested
• 12% return per year over 7 years

And what if the solution provided you with:

• Diversified talent 
• Increased productivity
• An upskilled and re-skilled workforce
• More engaged and longer tenured employees

Introducing Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a strategy for training a new generation of technology workers with a combination of pre-employment preparation, on the job training and complementary study. 

It’s been around for years. 

Yet, only 20,000 of 11 million employers utilize apprenticeship. Technology sectors have been slow to adopt its value. 

The government is hoping to change that in technology and in other industries. The United States Department of Labor has led the charge by launching the Apprenticeship Ambassador Initiative, the 120 Day Cybersecurity Sprint, the Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship and by investing 170 million dollars into funding Apprenticeship Building America.

The wave of apprenticeship is upon us. Since 2017, over 700 Registered Apprenticeship programs have been developed in white collar and new collar fields such as cybersecurity.

Apprenticeship is the second glove we put on to address the need for more technology talent. The first is Citizen Development, which I’ve written about before. That is the internal answer: developing skills and guardrails for current employees to contribute to technology development. Apprenticeship is the complementary answer for finding new employees.

Four Reasons To Invest In Apprenticeship

Stepping back from the obvious reasons for apprenticeship (such as the ROI listed above, which came from studies in manufacturing and in programs in North and South Carolina), there are four drivers behind wise and successful CIOs adopting apprenticeship.

1. The Pool

• You draw from non-traditional pipelines, such as college degreed, and provide a more predictable pipeline.
• You provide yourself an expanded pool of candidates by giving opportunity to those for whom college is an economic impossibility.
• You promote inclusion. In Colorado, workers in IT are 77% white and 79% male.
• You get ahead of your competition. If only 20,000 employers out of 1 million are active in apprenticeship programs, you are catching the wave others haven’t even swam out to.

2. The Persons you will work with

• Apprentices remain with a company on average 3.2 years longer than others. 
• You are hiring learners who know they must be earners of the wages paid.
• You are working with people who are looking to transition from a job to a career with you.

3. The Potential in front of you.

• You are hiring because of proven competence and not just a degree. I’m all for degrees. I have them. Workers with degrees definitely have their place. But apprenticeship programs and their partner educators work with you to align apprentices with the particular skills and competencies that you need.

4. The Permeation of development

• In shaping the talent you need through apprenticeship, you are building a culture of continual learning and innovation.

I’m for you. You know this. And I’m concerned. I talk to too many technology leaders who personally or who lead others that are staring at burnout - not just the need for a break, but the need to do something entirely different. 

Pedal harder isn’t the answer. You need to take in more than you give out. You need to bike in tandem.

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