The printing industry needs apprentices. It always has and, most likely, it always will. And for the foreseeable future print will struggle to recruit sufficient apprentices to replace skilled and experienced time served staff that are retiring or leaving the industry, possibly prompted by Covid and a lifestyle rethink. The inability to fill skilled positions was again highlighted by the most recent Printing Outlook report from the BPIF. There may not be a crisis, but it is beginning to look like one.
The federation is the country’s largest provider of apprenticeship training, not the only provider, but comfortably the largest. “In the last three years we have had 600 people start on apprenticeships,” says Karly Lattimore, head of training at the BPIF. It is not enough. Not if the industry employs around 80,000, with half of these in skilled positions over a 40-year career. That amounts to 1,000 reaching retirement age a year and 1,000 apprentices are needed each year to replace them.
There are plentiful explanations for the failure to attract the cream of the country’s youth: print has failed to shake off its historical father to son progression; print has failed to convince youth that it is an industry that can provide a challenging and fulfilling career; it is considered ‘male, pale and stale’; there is little contact between printers and the education sector that is needed to change this. And the list goes on, with some truth to each of the comments.
Lattimore says: “More can be done to promote print as a sexy industry. There are lots of schemes and we are working with the DWP, job centres, schools and colleges to change the perception. But I think that a lot more can be done to demonstrate that printing is just as skilled as engineering or construction and can provide a career for those youngsters.”
Print certainly has the image that it is outdated and not reflective of wider society, at least for the majority of youngsters. A breakdown of the 174 apprentices that began between August last year and July this year shows that 76% are male. “This is progress over the last couple of years when only 20% of apprentices were female. We are slightly narrowing the gap. We are narrowing the gap too on ethnicity over the last three years,” she says. However, it means that still 89% of apprentices are white and print lags behind other industries in this regard. “This is not what we would want,” she says.
The reason to recruit apprentices is obvious: “It’s important to recruit to take advantage of those that are leaving because they have a wealth of knowledge and expertise to share with the new generation that will otherwise be lost,” Lattimore adds.
That said, apprentices are not always school leavers that lack the academic bent for a university education. There is a reluctance now to take on the mountain of debt that comes with a university degree compared to starting to earn money in those first post school years. Degree apprenticeships provide a further route to higher level qualifications, though there is none in commercial print at present.
These apprentices are identified by their employers, so tend to be a little older than the normal cohort of under graduates. Instead of being £30,000-£40,000 in debt, a youngster going into work may have earned that amount in the same period and will be much better off than a university graduate with a mediocre degree.
“Apprentices can be any age,” says Lattimore. “The oldest on the BPIF’s books is 58. The definition is that an apprentice is someone not working in the industry before they became an apprentice, it’s about learning new skills.” Most recruited on the training programmes now are of that university age, post A levels and between 18-25-years-old, rather than leaving education at 16 with almost no formal qualifications.
The first step is the Level 2 apprenticeship, taking three years of training mostly on the job. In the normal course of events, a tutor would visit the youngster’s place of work on a regular rotation.
This has not been possible in the last year and real life meetings have been replaced by online video conversations. This has been welcomed by many and some kind of hybrid communication is likely to continue.
What matters is meeting what are very clear expectations, says Lattimore. “We want to make sure that the apprentice is well supported and motivated to want to achieve. It is not a one size fits all.”
Nor is it a one size fits all when advertising for an apprentice. The BPIF’s list of 39 apprentice vacancies over the summer ranged from those wanting a youngster with knowledge of colour management, to a requirement to “maintain effective communication and working relationships with the client services team, proactively identifying opportunities to assist”, working with MIS, maintaining plate processing equipment; the applicant who “needs to have an understanding of the principles and problems of manufacturing the printed products to meet the required demands of the company and customer in a timely manner”.
Another, perhaps more appealing, stated: “If you like sitting at a desk all day, this is not the job for you! We will teach you a trade where you have to use both your hands and your brain to turn our clients’ vision into finished books that we are all proud of.”
When reality checked with a member of Generation Z, this was judged the more attractive ad, certainly compared to those using the argot of the industry, which was baffling to someone with no prior knowledge of print. Are companies guilty of not encouraging and supporting those that could join print?
Larger companies can be more structured and organised about recruitment. And because they have a greater appetite for apprentices there is a greater chance of word of mouth from friends to have a positive influence. Bluetree Group has a greater appetite than most, needing a constant flow of recruits to cope with its continuing growth. The crucial factor for any recruit, whether in customer service, office, software or production, is an attitude that shares the corporate values.
“We advertise job opportunities in a range of places and, as such, our new recruits come from various backgrounds,” says a spokesman.
“A crucial quality that we look for in new recruits is whether they share the company values, which means we see a diverse range of people who are like minded throughout the entire business. The educational level of our new recruits is determined by the position we are recruiting for. For example, we have artwork roles which do not require specific qualifications, but company values must be demonstrated. That said, we have roles within our web team that are typically in search of graduates, or in the case of senior developers, individuals with both a degree and experience in this field.”
A two-day induction programme dives further into the company values, including how to support mental health. In the weeks that follow there is both an in house trainer to take recruits through a series of structured courses and a team of training coaches.
Amy Ridsdale joined Route 1 Print as an account manager after ten years working in another non print role. She says: “Working at Route 1 Print is everything I expected and so much more. When I first joined, I undertook training with our client services team, giving me a thorough understanding of our clients, their needs and where we can improve.
“Joining the print industry has been a real learning curve for me, but I feel like I have a great team around me that take their time to impart knowledge rather than a stock answer to a question. I have also really benefitted from the way we are set up here. Our offices are directly above the production facility, which gives me the opportunity to understand the equipment and ask our experts if I have any questions.
“What really sold me on the company were the people I met from the moment I walked into my first interview: they were really lovely and put me at ease immediately. So, the real appeal for me was the culture.
“Route 1 Print is growing, so ongoing training is vital. I feel like I learn something more about our products or our industry every day.”
Without a background in print, would someone like this have been recruited elsewhere in print, or indeed would she have even considered going into an industry which is proving so satisfying for her?
There will be opportunity for Ridsdale to join a leadership programme at Bluetree where external trainers are brought in to provide the additional expertise for managing people and change.
This exists in the wider world with Level 5 apprenticeship training. This has been a success for the BPIF with universities endorsing the quality of the training provided. These courses begin in September and January each year. It takes the trainee on from the higher level skills achieved under a Level 3 apprenticeship, into people management, appraisals, planning, change and more.
In the 21st century these are skills that are trained rather than assumed to be innate. “The role of process leader is about more than people management,” says Lattimore. “He or she needs to understand cost efficiencies and waste reduction, for example. It’s about leading the process rather than the team. In the bigger and more structured companies we are seeing a different type of role and they can get the up and coming managers in the same virtual classroom as the printers and production managers.”
The other big issue that hangs over the apprentice question is whether printers are willing to take on apprentices in the first place. Many smaller printers feel they cannot justify the cost of an apprentice nor the time to manage and train someone who is not fully productive, hence the complaint about the difficulty in finding people with the desired skills. It is considered easier to seek and find, rather than grow people. The Apprenticeship Levy is intended to help in these cases and Paragon Customer Communications is assigning part of its payment to funding apprenticeships in smaller companies. There are other regional and local schemes that can help underwrite the cost of taking on a youngster as well as help from government to mitigate the cost. It is working, at least to some extent. McAllister Litho Group in Scotland has started four apprentices this autumn. Pensord Press has taken on two.
And a trainee is changing from being the nuisance that it has been depicted as in the past. Fresh thinking can brighten up the workplace.
“We’ve asked about the impact that the apprentice has on the rest of the workforce and on the whole, it’s positive,” Lattimore says. The alternative to training youngsters, on the other hand, does not bear thinking about.
From the training section in the Sep/Oct 2021 magazine
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