From Challenges to Solutions: Zach Warren on Streamlining Apprenticeships

Welcome to another episode of Workhands Interview. In today's discussion, Patrick Cushing, our host, sits down with Zach Boren, a senior policy program manager at the Urban Institute with a rich background in apprenticeships. Zach brings a wealth of experience from his tenure at the Office of Apprenticeship in Washington, DC, where he focused on modernizing and simplifying the apprenticeship process to make it more accessible and manageable for both employers and apprentices.

Throughout the episode, Zach delves into the complexities of the apprenticeship system, emphasizing the critical need for improved customer support for employers and better utilization of intermediaries to facilitate the creation and registration of apprenticeship programs. They explore various strategies to reduce the burden on employers, enhance the educational components of apprenticeships, and address the funding disparities compared to traditional higher education.

Tune in as we unpack the challenges and innovative solutions aimed at making apprenticeships a more integral and recognized part of workforce development in the United States.

Speaker Bio

Zach Boren is an ardent advocate for modernizing and improving the accessibility of apprenticeship programs in the United States. Recognizing the gap in awareness and underutilization of these programs, Zach has dedicated his career to enhancing the support system for employers interested in initiating apprenticeships. He has observed that historically, the process of setting up apprenticeships was predominantly informal and often required personal interactions with state directors or specific representatives. This obscure system led to a general lack of recognition for apprenticeships as a viable career learning path.

In his pursuit to elevate the apprenticeship model, Zach emphasizes the importance of simplifying the initiation process for these programs, aiming to make it more straightforward and accessible. He credits the Office of Apprenticeship for making significant improvements over the past decade in streamlining procedures and increasing support. Zach's forward-thinking approach involves continuous dialogue and strategic innovations to further refine the customer experience in starting apprenticeship programs, enabling more organizations to easily integrate these valuable learning opportunities into their operations.

Highlights:

Revitalizing Apprenticeships: "I think the number one thing I would focus on is the customer support for employers that want to start apprenticeships."— Zach Boren 00:01:2400:01:35

Exploring Modern Apprenticeships: "It's how do you want apprentices to learn on the job? What do you want them to do very well? And then what can they learn in the classroom to learn that very well, along with a mentor?"— Zach Boren 00:03:3900:03:54

Transforming Workplace Training: "I think that's really the best way to go about doing that work, is to be able to design a program, sell it to an employer, organize it, and then quickly register it."— Zach Boren 00:04:1600:04:30

Enhancing Job Training Efficiency: "So, hey, we're going to take care of your on the job training, we're going to take care of your related instruction, and we'll take care of the paperwork."— Zach Boren 00:05:3500:05:44

Challenges in Expanding Apprenticeship Programs: "So the challenge for government at this moment, I think, is to figure out how do we bring parity in between what we invest in, in education?"— Zach Boren 00:07:4100:07:53

Challenges of Implementing Apprenticeship Programs: "We see a lot of employers who start up programs, they have trouble kind of getting it going because they don't have that deep knowledge on how to train an employee. It's not built into their DNA just yet."— Zach Boren 00:08:2300:08:39

Investing in Future Workforces: "It's important to grasp that that has a system that really works and invest 2 billion a year into union based apprenticeships."— Zach Boren 00:10:1400:10:27

Investing in Apprenticeships: National Necessity: "We spend on par that in our higher education system, but we've not yet got there on the apprenticeship system."— Zach Boren 00:12:2700:12:35

Innovating Apprenticeship Programs: "When we look across at international models that have worked over decades, they all pay for the instruction that apprentices receive. And so if that's free and that's available, and it's available in whatever occupation you're selecting, you know, let's say it's paid for through community colleges or it's paid for through an online platform, or maybe a multitude of options for employers, which there probably should be multiple options."— Zach Boren 00:13:5800:14:35

Challenges in Apprenticeship Programs: "Completion rates are still below 50% and we've not yet cracked the nut on how do we get, if we're doing all these big starts of new apprenticeship programs? We have hundreds of thousands of new starts of apprentices, but then half of the system gets left in the dust bin because we didn't figure out how to maintain for costs, for questions that remain unresolved, or the technical assistance that a program really needs over the lifetime, then I think we'll continue to have challenge really getting to the scale that we want."— Zach Warren 00:15:1900:16:56

Themes

1. Simplifying employer apprenticeship initiation.

2. Importance of enhanced customer support.

3. Role of intermediaries in apprenticeships.

4. Funding and cost challenges.

5. Apprenticeships in non-union sectors.

6. International comparisons in apprenticeship investment.

7. Improving apprentice completion rates.