Senior leaders able to progress their careers through the Apprenticeship Levy

Senior leaders within businesses and organisations who access formal training through their employer’s Apprenticeship Levy can progress their careers to steer away from becoming ‘accidental managers’ and help to plug the productivity gap, a breakfast seminar heard last week.

Four expert panel members discussed how the Apprenticeship Levy can be used to support leadership training for individuals looking to progress to the next stage of their career by studying a formal qualification in the form of a degree, with funding drawn down from their firm’s levy.

Hosted at the Alliance Business School at the University of Manchester, a higher education provider that works with businesses and their employees to run the management courses, the panel discussed how there was often a misconception that the levy can only be used for people starting their careers.

In fact, the Levy, which is paid by businesses who have a wage bill of more than £3m, can be utilised in a way that enables firms and organisations to build senior leadership knowledge. SMEs who don’t pay into the levy can still access funding from it, on a 90%/10% basis – working out at a  £1,800 contribution for this Masters, which is £18,500 total cost.

Jas Sandhu, a Higher Education Specialist for the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), said that individuals and businesses could get huge return on investment (ROI) from the courses but needed to recognise that it was a big time commitment.

A total of 20% ‘off the job’ time commitment is needed to qualify as an apprenticeship, but this can be viewed flexibly; it is not as simple as just a day a week, it’s aggregating different activities like attending a conference, e-learning, CPD – often things leaders are doing anyway – can be included.

The use of the levy has been underused across the UK since it was launched in 2017.  Reflecting on this, Sandhu said: “The word levy is off-putting, it’s better to think of it as a ‘skills investment plan’. It’s an opportunity for co-investment from the government.”

He added that there was a misconception that the levy is just about 16-year-olds, but in fact it goes from 16 to post-graduate and onwards.

Sandhu said that individuals and businesses needed to “start with the end in mind,” thinking of the benefits needed for the individual and organisation.

He added that in terms of productivity, the UK was fifth out of seven in the G7, primarily due to poor management and leadership skills. He said that the UK’s productivity gap could be plugged by senior apprenticeships as an important part of the solution to this.

Sandhu cautioned the “accidental manager”, where people who have been promoted to become managers but never had any formal management training – and therefore would benefit from the management courses. He added that studying for them promoted social inclusion, with senior apprenticeships offering degree level education for people who may not have been able to access this in earlier life.

“It’s an opportunity to get a degree and a university experience for those later in their career who missed it earlier on,” he added.

How should employers access Apprenticeship Levy qualifications? Sandhu advised delegates it was important to conduct research, understand what’s out there, speak to other employers, attach themselves to a University and work in partnership with them. He said it was also advisable to look for the assurance of a standard, for example the CMI.

CMI research shows that businesses get an ROI of £400,000 per chartered manager, he added.

Diane Hooper, resourcing lead at Northern Care Alliance, is about to start its first cohort of team members on the course. She said: ““The NHS is a retiring, ageing workforce, we are trying to recruit young talent and offer career development.  We want to ‘grow our own’, it should be so good that no-one should ever leave!”

The organisation employs 17,500 staff across Northern Care Alliance. In April 2017, the senior leadership standard become available and the alliance invited five higher education establishments to pitch their masters programme and selected the Alliance Management Business School.

Reflecting on the outcomes for people having undergone the course, Hopper added: “You can see the benefit from day one.  They think differently, they talk differently.  They become a role model to the team, it cascades down to the whole team.”  She also explained that people’s energy levels were being higher, people being excited, engaged, fresh ideas, increase in emotional intelligence.

“We are using senior apprenticeships to recruit and retain, especially in areas where it’s hard to recruit such as A&E and acute medicine.”  Using the levy as a ‘sweetener’ to attract and retain staff

Julia Marshall, Leadership Strategy Transaction Lead at Northern Care Alliance, said firms needed to be focused on the outcomes and also get their value back from paying large amounts into the levy.

She said it was very much an employer-driven approach; that while the qualification benefits the employee, the programme had to meet organisational objectives.

Marshall noted that one of the biggest challenges was getting the detail right, in terms of the audit of progress, plus the ROI.

She added: “There has been no shortage of interest from staff, but it is important to find the right people.”

David Lowe, Programme Director of the new MSc Management Practice course at the AMBS, which is eligible for Apprenticeship Levy funding, said programmes could be a closed cohort to a certain employer or open – for single employees or small numbers to work together.

There are eight module, six of which are core, said Lowe. He highlighted that flexibility was key, tailoring to meet specific needs, and for bigger organisations willing to pay they can even produce completely customised modules.

ROI and tracking progress is also very important and built into the programme at every stage, added Lowe. He said: “The programme deals with real business issues; in many ways the assessment is the day job.”

Lowe said that businesses shouldn’t oversell the benefits and that employees needed to understand what work was required, as they need to be committed.  AMBS runs a screening programme to ensure that only the right people get through.

“The people who excel the most are often the ones without formal qualifications, those who perhaps missed out on a university degree earlier in their life.  They really embrace the opportunity,” he added.