His colleagues call him the king of the apprenticeship program—and it’s easy to see why.
Mark Tapy, the senior talent management manager (quite a mouthful) at Pinnacol Assurance, has led the company’s apprenticeship program since its founding in 2017. Since then, 63 apprentices have gone through the program, and 13 have been hired full time, Tapy said—85% of those hires are members of the BIPOC community. The effort that the Denver-based workers’ comp insurance provider puts into helping young workers launch successful careers has strengthened the company’s recruiting and retention strategies, he added.
A brief history. Apprenticeship is an ancient form of on-the-job training. Even the great Michelangelo was once an apprentice—he was 13, but still. Today, organizations are reassessing the impact apprentices can have on their businesses. LinkedIn, Twilio, Intuit, and IBM are just some of the employers that have embraced these programs to bring in new talent.
“Hiring is really expensive. Onboarding is expensive, and then when you have attrition, it’s even more expensive. So, I think that this could be a model that can actually be the most cost-efficient, if done right,” Lili Gangas, chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, a nonprofit focused on equity in tech, told HR Brew earlier this year.
Getting started. Between 2015 and 2016, Pinnacol did an internal evaluation of its workforce and determined that about one-third of its employees were entering the retirement preparation phase of their careers, Tapy said. The organization realized it needed a pipeline of capable, young talent to lead it into the future.
“We were coming across studies that were saying things like [only] 1% of college students were interested in going into careers in insurance, which is pitiful,” Tapy said. “So, our CEO actually went to Switzerland with a delegation of other executives from companies who are similarly facing pipeline challenges and they saw firsthand the Swiss model of apprenticeship, where 70% of young people go through an apprenticeship-style experience…and those leaders said, ‘Hey, this is exactly the type of strategy that we’re interested in.’”
Tapy was appointed to lead the program, which is currently connected with five school districts, and invites juniors and seniors from 18 high schools to apply to become apprentices.
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Getting to work. Apprentices spend three years with the organization, attending high school part time and working part time. To successfully complete the apprenticeship program, students must log 2,500 hours, and complete rotations in different departments within the company, where they can experience all of the jobs that fall under the insurance umbrella. Those apprentices who become full-time Pinnacol employees can take advantage of the organization’s tuition reimbursement benefit, allowing them to pursue further education without the burden of student debt.
“We really see it as not only a great pipeline strategy for us, but for our apprentice participant,” Tapy said. “It’s a way for them to develop both educational and experiential outcomes in high demand industries that prepare them for middle-skill roles. And ideally, can have them achieve those outcomes without taking on debt, which is kind of the best case scenario on all fronts.”
Getting high school students to give up some of their precious free time, which might normally be used for extracurricular and other social activities, is a big ask. Few 17-year-olds yearn to wake up early for a hard day of insurance work, so it was up to Pinnacol to get creative to get students excited about a career in insurance.
“Perception doesn’t always meet reality,” Tapy said. “People feel highly fulfilled with their work when they know that they’re doing work that helps other people, and provides support and gets people back to where they need to be. The heart of our mission is really taking care of people, and that’s something that I think a lot of young people really have an appetite for.”
Different strategies. Even if an apprenticeship program isn’t within an HR team’s budget, Tapy suggested that “you can start with career panels, job shadows, bringing students on site, maybe mentoring, mock interview strategies with local school districts and partners, to kind of build a fluency for working with young people.”
“That was helpful for us,” he added. “We already kind of had a volunteer culture along those lines.”