How Healthcare Employers Can Strengthen Their Workforce Through Apprenticeships
The shortage of healthcare employees in the United States has reached a critical status in recent years. More than ever, healthcare organizations are struggling to fill vacancies and support nursing and physician staff with frontline and entry-level allied health professionals. Traditional methods for recruiting, hiring, and training these employees are time-consuming, laborious, and costly for employers. Additionally, this method requires a pipeline of educated and certified talent, placing an additional burden on individuals to invest time and money in an education program before landing a job.
As a result, healthcare apprenticeships have been gaining popularity among employers. Health Tech Academy is helping to reinvent this practice and successfully implement it across a wide variety of care settings, including hospitals, nursing and residential care facilities, outpatient facilities, and pharmacies. In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at modern apprenticeships and their benefits, expand upon how they are a viable solution to the staffing shortage, and walk you through how you can find the right training partner for you.
What are workforce apprenticeships?
An “apprenticeship is the oldest form of education and job training in the world,” says Susan Crane, executive director of an educational platform, “This hands-on approach to education translates into real differences in the skills and capacity of apprenticeship graduates in the workplace.” Healthcare apprenticeship programs — also known as workforce apprenticeships or clinical apprenticeships — are an industry-driven, work-focused education model that provides on-the-job training and mentorship. In addition, apprentices also typically receive online classes, hands-on skills practice and regular contact with instructors and more experienced employees. The goal of clinical apprenticeships is to offer practical, economic, and scalable solutions for healthcare enterprises to address critical shortages and other staff-related workforce challenges. A collaboration with a healthcare apprenticeship training partner brings many benefits with it, including establishing the very effective and sustainable hiring model known as a train-and-hire partnership or a train-to-hire partnership.
Health Tech Academy enables employers to build a pipeline of skilled and certified allied health professionals. Our online bootcamps equip individuals (who may not have any prior experience) with the most essential and up-to-date knowledge for the chosen career path. To complement their coursework, they’ll receive on-the-job training and skills assessments directly from the employer, ultimately providing a skilled and trained candidate ready for permanent employment in just 4-6 months. Whether you’re looking to attract new talent, upskill your current staff, or bridge non-clinical staff into clinical roles, Health Tech Academy can help you launch programs designed to match your organization’s needs.
What are the benefits of a clinical apprenticeship?
Apprenticeship programs offer a myriad of benefits to companies and individuals alike. Education for allied health professionals includes a significant amount of hands-on learning concurrent with lecture-based learning, making healthcare a natural fit for apprenticeship programs. Some of the benefits of modern apprenticeships include:
- The ability to fill critical entry level roles faster
- Higher retention rates and lower staff turnover
- Evaluating and refining hard and soft skills
- Healthier and clearer team communication and collaboration
- Improving new employee onboarding and seamless transition into the role
- Recruiting and training candidates for a cost that’s often made back in a year or less
- Providing more and better opportunities and resources for career advancement
- Improving technical patient care and the patient’s personal experience
Today, healthcare apprenticeship programs are vital for building a robust workforce, relieving staff burnout and turnover rates, and experiencing greater overall efficiency.
How do you find the right healthcare apprenticeship training partner?
Finding the right healthcare apprenticeship training partner who shares your goals and vision can feel overwhelming when you realize how many training partners are out there; we’re going to help you narrow it down.
Here are the five most important factors to be aware of and actively discerning when considering starting a partnership with a new healthcare apprenticeship training provider.
1. Customization and flexibility
Is there a customizable flexibility with their offering, or do they simply provide a one-size-fits-all training model? Are they constantly evolving and looking for new ideas and solutions, or are they “set in their ways,” even if a better model is available?
The best training provider will have a set of clear and proven methods for achieving progress, and those methods will be adaptable to each partner’s unique needs and challenges in order to sustainably maximize their results.
2. Your budget and the cost
Money isn’t everything, but it is a big thing, and it does play an important role in our decisions. Some training providers are going to charge per individual they train, while others might offer a subscription model with a capped number of students.
In either case, be clear about the training partner’s terms and ensure the cost per student and training requirements fit within your budget. Some partners may also allow for a ramp-up period, giving you the opportunity to start small and scale.
3. Program length and timing
Different programs are different lengths of time, and they promise different business results to happen within a certain timeframe, like getting a job or promotion by a certain point after program completion.
How and when you plan on integrating the apprenticeship program into your organization affects which providers match your timeline. For instance, if your total onboarding process is 8 weeks long and you want the apprenticeship to be included, you might be more inclined to find an apprenticeship that’s between 8 and 10 weeks long, rather than 6 months.
4. Career-focused education and certification
Does the program prepare learners with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in their chosen career path? Or does your staff need to fill significant gaps?
Certain healthcare apprenticeship training providers go above and beyond to ensure expertly curated career-focused content, preparing apprentices for their career. Some partners also offer vouchers for certification exams and exam prep and coaching.
5. Student support and mentorship
How does the partner plan on supporting you and your employees? Training partners may offer extensive coaching, live chats, one-on-one mentorship, and student workshops. Others may rely on employers to provide mentors and coaching.
The level of support and mentorship you want is going to depend on your candidates and the skill and experience you want them to gain.
Applying the above five elements to each partner you consider will efficiently narrow down the list and help you find the perfect training partner for your organization.
Why partner with Health Tech Academy?
Health Tech Academy is a premier training provider that offers career–focused education, training, and upskilling for allied health professionals.
We partner healthcare employers (including medical offices, hospitals, pharmacies) to provide learning programs, apprenticeships, and career laddering so you can build a talented, diverse frontline workforce.
There are many benefits to leveraging a partnership with Health Tech, including:
- More empathetic and personalized patient care (an improved patient experience)
- Greater employee productivity and overall satisfaction
- Standardized training across the organization
- Higher employee retention rates
- Reduced turnover rates (which leads to significant cost reduction)
- Improved trust and overall relationship between the employer and employee
- Fostering more and better leadership opportunities
- Increased profit and earning potential
By partnering with a top-tier healthcare apprenticeship partner like Health Tech Academy, your organization will be able to save time and resources in addition to expanding your workforce.
To learn more about how we can help you further your employees’ careers and scale your teams more quickly, complete the form below to contact our Partnership team today.
