Debby Hopkins, Director, Workforce Initiatives at Appteon, on Making Apprenticeship Simpler

Intro

In this episode of "Making Apprenticeship Simpler," host Patrick Cushing interviews Debby Hopkins, Director of Workforce Initiatives at Appteon, on the complexities and opportunities within the US apprenticeship system. AppTeon operates as a registered apprenticeship intermediary under the US Department of Labor, catering to a variety of clients nationwide, including both individual employers and group sponsors. Managing a portfolio that encompasses over 150 employers, Debby frequently addresses the challenges they face, particularly in tracking funding, understanding requirements, and reporting data. Despite the complexities and burdens these issues present, Debby remains dedicated to finding streamlined solutions for her clients.

Highlights

• Primary Question: Challenges Faced by Employers

• Tracking Funding and Reporting Requirements

• Complexity in managing multiple funding sources.

• Variation in state-specific requirements and programs

• First Area: Sources of Funding and Their Specificities

• Examples of Funding Sources

• Different types of state and federal grants, like state expansion grants, H1-B funded apprenticeship grants, and WIOA.

• Second Area: Specifics of Coverage and Reporting

• Funding sources differ in what costs they cover (related instruction, on-the-job training, supportive services, etc.).

• Reporting requirements vary by state and the nature of the grant.

• Third Area: Managing Complications in Funding and Reporting

• Complexities and differences in funding criteria among states.

• Need to co-enroll and braid funding from multiple sources.

• Fourth Area: Proposed Solutions for Streamlining Funding and Reporting

• Universal software to track funding and apprentice progression.

• Potential for a unified Learning Management System (LMS).

• Closing Thoughts and Reflections

• Debbie’s hope for more streamlined and efficient systems for funding and reporting.

Transcript

Debbie Hopkins:

This is Debbie Hopkins with AppTeon. AppTeon is an IT business. We do a lot of work with the federal government, many different departments, but we are also a US Department of Labor registered apprenticeship intermediary. We have dozens of clients around the country. Many of them are group sponsors, and we've got well over 150 employers in our portfolio of products. And one of the biggest issues that we have from a very small employer who is just starting to some of these large group sponsors is how to keep track of the funding, the sources, the requirements, how to report their data. This doesn't seem to fit in anything really existing well today, and it's quite a burden for our clients.

Patrick Cushing:

Can you talk a little bit what are those sources look like specifically? Just a few examples. All right, where might the few different sources of funding be coming from? What kind of reporting examples might you have to deal with?

Debbie Hopkins:

Let's say that there's a group sponsor that has employers in five different states. Some of those are OA states, some of those are state apprenticeship agency states. You have to register your program in those states, even if you have a national program. Each one of those states has their own state expansion grant. They may have an H1 B funded apprenticeship grant. They all have WIOA, and there's intermediary funds from maybe a youth contract, plus our contract. These sponsors can qualify for many of those, but each of them have different reporting requirements.

Debbie Hopkins:

They may have different things they cover. Some of these funding source can pay for related instruction, some can pay for on the job training, many cannot pay for on the job training, some can pay supportive services to the participant, some cannot pay at all supportive services, no matter who it's paid to. Each one of these funding sources has a different criteria. Then depending on who the grantee or the state, you may have to provide data to that grantee in one format or another to collect the deliverables that they need for performance reporting on their grant. It's quite complicated. And because the country still does not fund registered apprenticeship the way it is in other countries, our sponsors are forced to braid funding, trying to follow co enrollment guidance as best they can.

Patrick Cushing:

Perfect. Debbie, if you could make everything you described easier with a magic wand that could fix the funding situation for apprenticeship programs, what do you think it would look like?

Debbie Hopkins:

We are on the advisory council for the Apprenticeship for America, and one of their recommendations, if he was pie in the sky, was to provide enough funding through the apprenticeship system itself so that these sponsors would have enough funding. But assuming that that's not going to happen or happen anytime soon, some sort of universal, perhaps software that anybody could use to braid these funds to track apprentice progression, perhaps even a learning management system if they're controlling itself, but some sort of. So that every single sponsor doesn't have to inefficiently develop stuff from scratch.

Patrick Cushing:

Perfect, Debbie. That was fantastic.