Health & Safety Consultancy and training company Carney Consultancy are looking to expand their workforce with apprentices now they understand what is involved in the process.
We sat down with Angela Carney to have a chat about apprentices, skills and the current system.
“We want to bring through apprentices so they learn all about our business and the company ethos and by going through the apprenticeship route we have the ability to train and mould a person into our companies ways. Also it means we are bringing through the next generation and so ensuring the future of our company.”
Throughout the years in business, Angela has overcome a number of barriers to hiring an apprentice.
Angela said: “I have had to learn how to go about finding an apprentice, that there are lots of different providers and all specialise in different apprenticeships. Learn how to write job description to attract the right person. Identify exactly what I wanted the apprentice to do and therefore which apprenticeships and route was the best one to follow.”
Invited onto the group after we heard about a passion for skills and upskilling staff, Angela was a perfect fit to give some views on the apprenticeship system in North Tyneside.
“I know now what is available but before I go involved I didn’t and was put off taking an apprentice on from a past experience with another provider. I think we in North Tyneside recognise now that we need to encourage employers to take on apprentices and show them how easy I can be to do this with some simple guides.”
Carney Consultancy recognise the important of new skills and upskilling existing staff to ensure the business thrives in the economy.
“A business never stands still it can get bigger or smaller. In order to stay relevant and grow you need to constantly reinvent yourselves and one way of doing this is to learn new skills and upskill existing and new staff so the services you can offer are always growing, it is how we grew our business in the last recession from 1 employee to 5 in 4 years and it’s how we are now at 11 employees still looking to growing in the future.”
What is the one thing you’d do to improve the apprenticeship system?
“Find a way to get out to employers and make them aware of the schemes how they work and how much apprentices can benefit their businesses. Make the process as simple and pain free as possible for businesses. Sell it to the potential apprentices too, schools sell university as the only viable option they don’t give us much kudos to Apprenticeships as they do to A-Levels and University and we need to change this.”
