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Businesses set to receive £1,000 grants for hiring new trainees

• July 09, 2020

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has unveiled Government plans to fund 30,000 new traineeships for 16-24 year olds, seeking to alleviate the expected unemployment increase predicted to hit the youth the hardest. Businesses will now receive £1,000 per trainee up to a maximum of £10,000.

Traineeships are designed for 16-24 year olds with little to no work experience educated up to Level 2 (GCSE), providing them with work placements between 6 weeks to 6 months, developing invaluable skills for employment, often with the opportunity to earn professional qualifications, although this is determined by the training provider. The outstanding attraction for employers is that they are not expected to pay a salary to the trainee, so is a particularly low-risk measure for businesses to increase their scope.

How a traineeship can benefit your business

Traineeships can be a valuable tool for employers, allowing them to train up and introduce their trainee into the work environment at minimal cost compared to a salaried employee, enabling much easier integration into the team if they decide to employ the trainee at the end of the placement. Existing employees will also have the invaluable opportunity to develop their mentoring and leadership skills, resulting in a more efficient, capable workforce from which businesses who take on trainees will reap the benefits of.

The added incentive of potentially £10,000 now makes running traineeships especially lucrative for businesses.

In order to ensure the traineeship is worthwhile there are expectations and requirements for the employer to meet during the traineeship, such as providing meaningful work experience at a minimum of 100 hours, give constructive feedback to the trainee and to invite the trainee to a job interview for employment in the company at the end of the placement, if available; at minimum, to provide an exit interview with written feedback.

Remember, trainees are not employees; businesses are not required to offer a salary, however, expenses for travel or meals are sometimes provided, a portion of the Government bonus could be used in this manner, nevertheless this is not required.

The Government are keen to make it as easy as possible for firms to offer traineeships, if your company is interested in doing so, you can contact a local training provider to design a course compatible with your business needs. The training provider will help plan how to deliver the programme and how many days the trainee works, this can be adjusted at any point during the placement, providing a high degree of flexibility.

Additionally, you can contact the National Apprenticeship Service for advice and support, they will publicise your traineeship through official Government channels.

By Tyler Cairns