Designing, registering, and launching an apprenticeship program is a major achievement. But the hard work does not end there. Apprenticeship programs need continual planning and maintenance to provide long-term benefits to workers and employers.

Creating a sustainable apprenticeship program requires a long-term vision of success, intentional planning, self-assessment, and an understanding of what it takes to achieve program resilience.

Tools That Help You Plan for Program Sustainability

Through the Youth Apprenticeship Intermediary Project, Urban Institute researchers created tools to help you plan for sustainable, long-term success of your apprenticeship program. Here’s how to use the tools:

• Watch the training webinar. The Urban Institute hosted a training webinar on sustainability planning in April 2024 to support new apprenticeship programs. The webinar included lessons from Urban’s research and technical assistance, a discussion of the six elements of program success, and three youth apprenticeship programs sharing their experiences and advice for long-term planning and management.
• Assess your program with our planning worksheet. We have created a guided worksheet activity incorporating feedback from webinar participants and internal review. As you begin the worksheet, start your sustainability planning by defining a vision of success for your program. This will help you align your program’s development and analysis with that unified definition.
• Explore our graphic to learn about the elements of program sustainability. Learn about the six critical components of program success and resilience. Programs should seek to assess and address each element. Use the elements to guide your thinking and planning around sustainability.

Six Elements of Program Sustainability

Cultural Integration

An apprenticeship program’s long-term success and resilience relies on an organization-wide recognition of the value the apprenticeship program brings to the organization, especially among its leadership.

Cultural integration is a key condition of long-term program success because it refers to a mental and cultural shift in how an organization understands and values an apprenticeship program. It means that an organization has integrated the apprenticeship program as a core way of recruiting and developing talented workers, and the organization sees it as a part of business as usual rather than a way to meet short-term hiring challenges. Without cultural integration and understanding of an apprenticeship across an organization, a program may fail or cease to exist.

To encourage cultural integration, hold regular conversations with staff who don’t regularly work with the apprentice program and introduce apprentices to different business areas. Additionally, find ways to measure program success and its value internally, such as tracking apprentice retention and tenure after completing training, employee engagement and satisfaction for program mentors, reduced number of hiring processes, and more. 

Improving Cultural Integration

Explore the following resources to learn how cultural integration shows up among employers and programs as a critical factor of success and program sustainability:

• Building Sustainable Apprenticeships: The Case for Apprenticeship 2000 (Innovations That Improved Apprenticeship 2000’s Quality and Longevity, pg. 8)
• Iowa High School Apprenticeships: Creating Pathways to Promising Careers (Spotlight on Ruan Transportation Management Systems, pg. 10)
• Watch the Your Business + Youth Apprenticeships video to hear from employers and apprentices directly.

Stable Financing

While direct public funding support in the form of incentives or tax breaks remains important to helping employers and sponsors manage the costs of Registered Apprenticeship Programs, the funding landscape for apprenticeship in the US varies by state. Additionally, grants are time-based, and priorities for program supports change regularly. Planning for how to cover the costs of an apprenticeship program without relying on government assistance is necessary for long-term success.

Apprenticeship is ultimately an investment in a company's talent pipeline, or, in some cases, an industry or region’s workforce. The source of this investment can vary and change over time, but stable financing is critical to an apprenticeship program’s long-term success. As with the element of cultural integration, discussed above, creating a plan for stable support for an apprenticeship program relies on clearly understanding the program’s costs and benefits.

We know apprenticeship programs are most successful when the cost of managing the apprenticeship program is viewed as an investment and a core part of an organization’s training costs, built into the organizational budget.

From our case study on union-based programs, also called joint-labor management programs, we’ve learned that earmarking funds for apprenticeship and training helps ensure a strong management infrastructure. This has resulted in stable programs lasting for many decades or even over a century.

Improving Stable Financing

Explore the following resources about how government supports for apprenticeship programs are structured, different ways to think about the ROI of investing in apprenticeship programs, and the impact that stable financing can have on program success and sustainability.

• Wisconsin's Well Structured Youth Apprenticeship Program (see section “Structure of Wisconsin’s Youth Apprenticeship Program” on p. 2)
• “Iowa High School Apprenticeships: Creating Pathways to Promising Careers” (see section “How Can Schools Enhance Work-Based Learning Opportunities for Students?” on p. 17)
• Union-Based Apprenticeships for Young People (see section “Apprenticeship and Training Trust Funds” on p. 3)

Management Infrastructure 

When considering the long-term success of an apprenticeship program, it is vital to have stable program leadership and managers who can support apprentices and ensure a quality experience from year to year. It is also important to consider succession planning of that management infrastructure.

Having a solid management infrastructure that can withstand staff transitions and support the long-term success of a program requires a collective, organization-wide understanding of the apprenticeship program, and a set of dedicated resources to support a well-defined multi-level leadership structure, such as a program director role and other associated program management and supervisor roles for the apprenticeship program. 

For a program to endure for decades, as in the case of Apprenticeship 2000 or many of the union-based apprenticeship programs highlighted in our case studies, planning for future management of the apprenticeship program has been critical. This foresight ensures uninterrupted success despite organizational and leadership change.

It is important to document and safeguard the institutional knowledge needed for a successor to successfully manage an apprenticeship program. This process ensures the continuation of relationships with key external partners supporting the long-term sustainability of the program.

Improving Management Infrastructure

 Explore the following Urban publications to see different ways that programs have set up their program management infrastructure:

• Union-Based Apprenticeships for Young People (8–18)
• Building Sustainable Apprenticeships: The Case for Apprenticeship 2000 (see, in particular, the section titled “What Is an Apprenticeship Consortium?” on p. 3)
• Resources for Managing your Apprenticeship Program

Quality Experience

To build sustainable success, apprenticeship programs must provide value to all involved. One important aspect of that is promoting a positive working environment for apprentices learning on the job and mentors who provide on-the-job instruction. Getting this right will ensure your apprentices successfully complete the program and stay on as skilled workers, maximizing the value of the apprenticeship program for both the employer and the apprentice.

The most successful programs have a clear emphasis on training the trainers. Individuals supervising the on-the-job learning and mentoring apprentices must be well equipped and ready to support apprentices. See below for a set of resources we’ve created to help select and prepare mentors for their roles with apprentices. Well prepared trainers proactively focus on meeting apprentices’ needs or addressing any barriers that could hinder an apprentice's success, leading to more successful apprenticeship programs with greater apprentice retention and completion rates.

Evaluating the overall experience for both trainers and apprentices requires direct conversations and touch-points from apprenticeship management to assess if changes must be made. 

Improving Quality Experience

Bolster your apprenticeship program with mentoring resources that Urban has developed to support mentor training, including games, a recorded webinar series, and a fact sheet.

External Partnerships

External partnerships can offer critical resources and supports for program and apprentice success that a single employer or sponsor may not be able to provide on their own. Registration agency staff in your state can provide access to new resources or introduce you to intermediaries and technical assistance providers.

As an employer sponsor, building good relationships with local schools, community nonprofits, and job centers can be critical to building awareness of your program and recruiting apprentices. Schools can deliver related technical instruction that employers cannot offer in-house. Schools and community nonprofits can also bridge resource gaps for supportive services.

Improving External Partnerships

Explore the following resources to see different ways that programs have found local partners to help them succeed:

• Building Sustainable Apprenticeships: The Case for Apprenticeship 2000, (see, in particular, the section titled “What Is an Apprenticeship Consortium?” on p. 3).
• In our case study on rural youth apprenticeship, we highlighted how a program in rural Missouri partnered with the school district to fund wi-fi hotspots to support apprentices completing their related instruction. Skip to the case studies (p. 5) or read the full 2021 report: Rural Apprenticeships for Young People: Challenges and Strategies for Success.

Monitoring and Improvement 

Apprenticeship programs achieve sustainability through regular maintenance and care. It is important to evaluate practices and outcomes and identify opportunities to improve the structure and delivery of on-the-job training, training for mentors, supportive services for apprentices, and more.

Program evaluations should be a regular practice conducted on a set timeline that works best for your organization. The element of monitoring and improvement cannot remain in a vacuum. While program leadership should lead the monitoring and improvement activities, mentors, apprentices, other organizational departments such as HR, and external partners should all have inputs into opportunities for continuous improvement.

Building a Practice of Monitoring and Improvement

We designed the Apprenticeship Program Self-Assessment Sustainability Planning Worksheet as a first step toward building a practice of program evaluation and planning for improvements. Consider going through the worksheet with other program stakeholders to create a shared vision of success for the apprenticeship program. Plan to revisit this planning activity again in the future to see if goals and needs change.