Do you need an apprenticeship management system?

This is based off a discussion for CBExchange, a three day conference hosted by the Competency-Based Education Network, as part of their apprenticeship pre-conference. It's been adapted to fit here.

You're now knee deep in forming this apprenticeship program for your organization and starting to look toward something beyond standards and paperwork. It's time to run the thing.

At this point, one of the first questions you are (or should be) asking is this...

Do you really need an apprenticeship management system?

My answer? (That runs counter to our entire business...)

No.

If you're asking the question, you do not need one... yet.

If you're only going to ever have <10 apprentices, you don't need one. Heck, you might never need one.

In particular, you don't need one if you're not sure why you need one. There's many a program run off spreadsheets to this day. It usually takes a stickler for the details overseeing a super spreadsheet and a group of willing followers to their system, but it's doable.

But really, if you're not sure why you need one, you haven't felt the pain that apprenticeship management systems address. It's hard to appreciate until you've reached that point.

Do you want an apprenticeship management system?

Probably.

A spreadsheet -- or many spreadsheets, or many spreadsheets that feed into a super spreadsheet -- can do the trick.

But, wrangling a super spreadsheet, a dozen supervisors, a couple dozen apprentices, and likely some instructors and/or outside educators adds up quickly.

The thing with apprenticeships is that the tracking workload grows exponentially with the growth in your apprentice headcount. Every single apprentice has their own set of:

• OJT Hours or Competency

• Classes

• Documents

• Supervisors

• Instructors

• Wage Milestones

And within each of those, there's more to track -- which competencies are complete? When? and at what level if incomplete? Do you have attendance and grades for classes? Each apprentice adds a whole host of data to track and additional stakeholders to work with.

When do you need an apprenticeship management system?

There's a few different patterns to this. For some, there'll be an apprenticeship management system on day 1. They've heard the horror stories about tracking on paper, about super spreadsheets, and audits. They never want to deal with that, and so they have an apprenticeship management system on day 1 with only a handful of apprentices.

The other most common time when you might need an apprenticeship management system is the exact moment when that super spreadsheet breaks down. This is typically around 30 apprentices. At this point, you have might have upwards of 50 people who're working on the same things, the same spreadsheets. The tracking load grows exponentially, and the order you could manage with under 10 is gone.

This benchmark is one of the most common periods that we find programs come to us. Their organization's realized the benefit of apprenticeship, but the people managing it have realized the pain of tracking all of this.

What does an apprenticeship management system do for you?

So, how can an apprenticeship management solve this problem for you?

To start, you can enact some control over who can do what. No longer will Steve, your supervisor who rarely would use a spreadsheet outside of apprenticeship, get into your spreadsheet and mess up the formulas. No longer will you have multiple copies floating around that you need manage. No longer will you have to login to your file system to see how things are going.

You all work from a shared set of information. You can define controls on who can do what. You can automate away the thinking and the constant reminders to turn in evaluations, time sheets, and more.

You, the administrator, have reports, but they're generated from the database. The data's normalized and validated.

When you're audited by the DOL or your state apprenticeship agency, you don't need to pull paper files and find the right spreadsheet, paired with the transcript, paired with the signed agreement. You can just pull up the account in your AMS. You can just download the single file you need.

If you're a multi employer program...

All of this is multiplied even further. Certainly, there are apprenticeships solely inside of a single organization, but often in apprenticeships, you're working across organizations. You're working across organizational cultures, communication norms, and processes.

With an application, you can standardize all of this away.

But, don't take my word for it! Try it. See if you feel the pain of running by super spreadsheet.

If you're curious, you can try a sandbox for free with us any time, too. Just reach out, and we'll customize one for you anytime.