Employing an apprentice/trainee

Employing an apprentice or trainee can offer many benefits to your business. Incentives are available to help with costs. As potential employers of apprentices or trainees, it is important that you understand your obligations.

We’ve outlined some key things to consider to help your business thrive from hiring apprentices and trainees.

Benefits of employing an apprentice or trainee

There are many benefits to employing an apprentice or trainee. Many people who employ apprentices or trainees contribute positively to both the future of that individual as well as making a difference to their own business or industry.

Benefits of employing an apprentice or trainee include:

• train staff your way, so they can positively contribute towards your business
• contributing towards creating a future workforce in your industry (positive long term development)
• mentor and contribute towards creating motivated workers
• train future supervisors or mentors within your business
• improve business reputation
• tackle a skills shortage
• as training is on the job, you can arrange it to suit your business needs, minimising disruption and maximising your business impact.

Costs and incentives

There are costs to employing apprentices or trainees. These include:

• Wages - apprentices and trainee are generally initially not as productive as experienced or qualified employees. This is reflected in wage rates. Wages need to be paid according to the appropriate industrial arrangement
• Training costs
• Time spent training the apprentice or trainee
• Other costs and entitlements, similar to qualified or new employees

However, there are a range of employer incentives available to help with costs. Visit Funding programs for employers and industry to find out more.

Your obligations

To ensure a productive relationship, it’s important to know your obligations when hiring apprentices or trainees.

Obligations will be outlined in your training contract. Key obligations include that you:

• have appropriate employment arrangements
• will follow the training plan (including undertaking any training and assessment activities)
• let your Apprenticeship Network Provider (ANP) or Skills Tasmania know if issues or problems relating to the training contract occur.

Employer responsibilities and obligations are detailed under this page.

Other requirements

There are other requirements relating to employing apprentices and trainees. These include:

• Following government policies relating to training contracts, which relate to:
  • administration of a training contract
  • entering into a training contract
  • once you are in a training contract
  • progressing through a training contract
  • ending a training contract.

These polices are detailed in Tasmanian Traineeships and Apprenticeships Committee (TTAC) Policies and Guidelines.

• Ensuring adequate record keeping, including regular updating of the training plan
• Deliver adequately supervised training, and release of the apprentice/trainee for paid off the job training, as per the training plan and industrial obligations.