Articles
Annual Apprenticeship Conference 2024: Driving Quality & Growth in Apprenticeships
Annual Apprenticeship Conference 2024
In February 2024, our very own Jenny Humphreys, Group Sales and Marketing Director for CQM Training & Consultancy Ltd was invited to speak at the Annual Apprenticeship Conference 2024 on driving growth and building quality within apprenticeships.
This blog explains our approach to driving growth and quality across the apprenticeships we deliver, which provides a unique insight as to how we work as an organisation and build relationships with key stakeholders to ensure we all achieve excellence.
Introduction
CQM Training & Consultancy are a part of the Instructus Group of companies, a charity formed with the intention of developing people both personally and professionally – with our bold ambition being to “Transform Lives”.
We’re an SME and have been operating for over 30 years now, working with employers of all sizes, both in the UK, and internationally, providing solutions based around apprenticeships and commercial training programmes – we’re definitely not a ‘one-size fits all’ company.
We have an excellent team and we are all responsible, whatever our role, for delivering quality apprenticeship programmes to apprentices and employers. That’s what drives our growth, our ability to develop long lasting partnerships with clients where we see repeat business and a growing appetite for apprenticeships intrinsically driven by quality.
We’ve currently got around 500 apprentices on programme, with the majority being on an Improvement Standard (Lean Six Sigma/Continuous Improvement) but we also deliver Leadership & Management apprenticeships along with some sector specific standards within Food & Drink, and Manufacturing.
And of course, I can’t not mention how delighted we all were to be named SME Provider of the Year 2023 at the OAL Awards which recognised our commitment to delivering exceptional apprenticeship training and making a real impact in the education and professional development landscape.
Please excuse the ‘Brain Dump’ infographic but this helicopter view represents all things Quality for CQM and is not meant to be at all scientific or exhaustive. However it does show how much our growth is heavily reliant on quality, and all of the activities related to it.Everything we touch, every process, every role, every relationship we form links back to this. And underpinning this spiders web, is our team, they’re a formidable bunch!
There’s a lot of detail here, so to just quickly touch on a couple of aspects for this blog, our Quality and Compliance processes which are critical to the ongoing success of the business, and our Partnership Approach, to build long term relationships.
Quality and Compliance
Every quarter our Board reviews the actions developed from our Quality Improvement Plan to understand how we are progressing against them and filters this information down to everyone in the company. As a Board we also look at how we’re performing on the ESFA Accountability Framework, whilst in addition to this our Senior Leadership Team review Quality and Compliance KPI measures monthly.
We’re all working together to achieve the same goal, and it’s clear that at every level of the business we understand the fundamental importance of quality in driving our growth.
In addition, I’d like to further highlight our team, specifically our development coaches who deliver the training. They’re all highly qualified, industry experienced experts, who undertake regular CPD to improve the apprentice experience. We’re very fortunate to have such a team of extremely skilled and knowledgeable specialists. They’re on the frontline of quality and we really wouldn’t be continuing to work with the clients we have and grow the business, if it weren’t for their skill and expertise.
Partnerships
I can’t emphasise enough how important the partnerships are that we build between us, the Employer, EPAO and Apprentice. It simply is what really makes apprenticeships work. That collaboration, the partnership between us all can make or break the quality of the apprenticeship.
The collaboration starts at the very beginning, ensuring that we work closely with the Employer – identifying key roles and responsibilities shared between us.
We like to form strong communication channels with Key Sponsor, HR and operations so that all parties understand the value of the apprenticeship for both the apprentice, their team, and the wider business.
Naturally, and by no means least, the apprentice and our relationship with them is at the heart of everything we do.
We recently had the CFO from one of our employers join an engagement session with their learners which went down extremely well. He explained how the skills they would gain from the apprenticeship are imperative to the ongoing success of their business and would really put them in demand for the future. What he said was meaningful and electrifying to see across the group. It’s no surprise that everyone on that engagement session signed up and is currently making great progress in the programme.
For us, getting regular feedback from the employer and apprentice enables us to continually improve our approach, work on our quality and grow the business. We’re only going to get people coming back to us if they’ve had a good experience.
If I were to look at one of the significant changes CQM have made from this feedback, I’d probably pick out our onboarding process. We’ve stripped it apart, and rebuilt what we do. It’s now considerably more robust and thorough. We’ve learnt, that investing this time up front with the employer and apprentice leads to a much better experience and really helps support more timely successful achievements.
So much so, that one of our clients recently told their apprentices, ‘You’re going to have to listen to CQM now, as they do things differently, they do things properly!’
Poor onboarding, in our experience, – and we have occasionally been guilty of this in the past – generally leads to an overall poor apprenticeship programme – lack of commitment, lack of support, lack of communication and attendance, and definitely no repeat business. It all starts to unravel and it’s as though you’re setting the apprentice up to fail from the very start.
That’s why our partnership with the employer and apprentice, is invaluable, listening to feedback and changing what we do really does make all the difference and helps us to grow.
Likewise, involvement in joining regular reviews and supporting apprentices through their journey, facilitating off the job release is a key part of the relationship. We genuinely see a direct correlation between those apprentices that regularly attend reviews with their line managers, and successful, timely, achievements – the end goal for us all.
Which leads me onto our partnerships with EPAOs. Naturally we look for the typical things in an EPAO such as good resources, access to user-friendly systems, support with mocks, good quality assurance processes etc. But perhaps above all, we value their ability to build a relationship with us – the Provider, along with the Employer and apprentice right from the start.
We’re looking for an EPAO who’s effective at communicating and keeps us informed of any potential changes to the standards we deliver, well in advance, so that we can prepare for this and maintain a high level of quality throughout our delivery.
Again, just as with the Employer and Apprentice – We really want thorough feedback from the EPAO on an apprentice’s End Point Assessment experience regardless of whether they’ve passed or failed. This information can help our team improve their approach and be more targeted with additional support where required.
And of course, the best bit of the tri party relationship is coming together to celebrate the success of apprentices. Apprentice achievements are a consequence of their own hard work and determination to succeed, built on the powerful collaboration between the Employer, Provider and EPAO. Without us having a joined-up approach, apprenticeships cannot thrive, and the relevant sectors will struggle to grow.
Looking to the future of apprenticeships
Looking towards the future, this year’s impending general election will mean we need to work even closer together and form stronger partnerships to navigate the change that a new government will bring. As ever, our ability to adapt and manage change within the sector will without doubt require a continued collaborative approach between us all.
From my experience in Sales and Marketing is that we can invest as much money into driving new business our way, we can be incredibly creative and clever in our ways of attracting new business, but if we haven’t got a quality programme backed up by strong partnerships, we’re never going to grow. If we’ve not got a quality product, we’ve ultimately not got a business and we’re just wasting time and money- which is the absolute antithesis of Lean and everything we stand for!
Conclusion
As you can see, this forms just part of our approach to building high quality into our programmes, processes and people relationships. This mindset helps us to better understand and provide effective solutions, that drives growth for everyone involved.
This approach extends to our commercial offering, with our shorter and very impactful portfolio of training programmes that include lean six sigma/CI, leadership/management and other specialist areas at very competitive prices that represent incredible value for money.
As a consultancy, we take the time to understand requirements and provide the right business solutions, ensuring that quality is of paramount importance which allows us, our clients and our learners to grow and benefit.
Speak with us today to see how we can help your people and business to grow.
CQM Training & Consultancy have been delivering business focussed solutions for over 30 years, delivering apprenticeships and training to employers of all sizes, both in UK, and internationally.
Our core specialism is within the Improvement Standards (Lean Six Sigma/Continuous Improvement), Leadership & Management Development along with sector specific standards such as Food & Drink with Food Technologist Level 3.
We deliver apprenticeship standards from level 2 up to level 6 and currently have around 500 apprentices on programme.
We are delighted to have been named as SME Provider of the Year 2023 at the OAL Awards which recognised our commitment to delivering exceptional apprenticeship training and making a real impact in the education and professional development landscape.
Please contact us for further information on the apprenticeships we deliver and how you could benefit from investing in them. Simply complete the form below or email enquiries@cqmltd.co.uk.