#Apprenticeships: The secret to attracting and retaining essential talent for your business

Apprenticeships and the Apprenticeship Levy continues to be a controversial topic, with many companies, businesses and individuals disagreeing on the right way to use the levy and who apprenticeships are best suited to.

However, as National Apprenticeship Week (which celebrates apprenticeships and the benefits they can bring to individuals and businesses) begins, I want to shine a spotlight on one of the unsung benefits of investing in great quality programmes: staff productivity.

At Barclays, we have been developing innovative apprenticeship schemes and investing in promising individuals through these programmes for years.

From our Bolder Apprenticeship scheme, which was the first of its kind and encourages older people who have been out of work for a while to reskill into a new career, through to our degree programmes and master’s level schemes, we offer some of the best apprenticeships out there.

We use apprenticeships to train people from all walks of life at different stages in their careers to ensure they learn the right skills to thrive at Barclays. When people apply to start an apprenticeship with us, we make sure they are applying for the scheme and area that is right for them and then, once they are on the programme, they are given guidance and support throughout.

This support and careful guidance means that we are able to support people into careers that are essential to Barclays, and ensure they have the confidence to love what they are doing and add value to their role – and to Barclays.

Our apprentices contribute a huge productivity impact to the business, with each apprentice contributing £18,000 of net productivity gains over the course of their programme.

This boost not only benefits the apprentices themselves, and of course our business, it also impacts the whole economy and helps to narrow the skills gap between the UK and its competitors abroad – an issue of growing importance in these uncertain political and economic times.

The benefit to the business doesn’t need to be spelt out here; through training staff by offering apprenticeships to help them gain the skills they need to work in Barclays and creating an environment they want to remain a part of, we are ensuring we have the skills we need to continue to succeed.

We can train our own talent, teaching them the values and culture of the business as well as the skills the business needs to thrive. By doing this, we encourage loyalty and know we’ll keep our staff with us for a long time.

Claire Findlay, Head of Apprenticeships at Barclays