Trainee academy to be launched in the region

Trainee academy to be launched in the region

There are now a number of projects for apprentices. Dropouts should be given a second chance, young people should be challenged, network and work as specialists in companies.
But what about the other side? With the companies that liked to have good trainees and also want to keep them? "As a medium-sized company in the IT sector, we have noticed that "the big players have bought away the trainees like a magnet. This is what ingolf brauner, president of the federation of self-employed persons (BDS) and initiator of the trainee academy, has to say.

"I thought we had to do more for our apprentices." At the same time, he said, he wanted every employee to be a bit of an entrepreneur as well "to appreciate the consequences of trade, to look beyond the horizon. It starts with the trainees."

Seminars twice a month
So brauner held seminars at his company twice a month, teaching his trainees what they didn't learn on the job or in vocational school "key words: social skills, decent greeting, teamwork, for example."

First, he teamed up with an entrepreneur friend of his. Over a beer, the two decide to put the project on a broader footing: in 2006, six companies started the cooperation, today 18 companies are taking part. Bavaria has 15 locations of the BDS azubi academy – perhaps soon in the region as well?
Michael nurnberger from the regional management of the economic region of bamberg-forchheim assumes that this is the case: 64 representatives of small and medium-sized companies came to the information event of the trainee academy, and according to nurnberger, some of them had already expressed their interest in participating in the project.

But how does the azubi-akademie work?? Interested companies join forces and offer their trainees a lesson of about three hours every two to three weeks. The trainees from the various companies meet for on-the-job training, which is held alternately by and in the participating companies. This is how the academy can work free of charge.

"We are always asked how the trainees get to the seminars. The same way they get there elsewhere: they organize themselves. That's part of the system, too", explains initiator ingolf brauner.

According to cooperation partner michael nurnberger, the interested companies from the bamberg region will meet on 11. April for the first time to discuss the most suitable day of the week for the training sessions and the training schedule. "We assume that the project will then take off", says nurnberger.

What topics could the trainees from the participating companies expect to hear about?? From "basic telephone training, "business english" about "data protection or "using new media correctly", "organizing in the workplace" or "negotiation techniques, what is taught is determined by the companies in a curriculum before the start of the training year.

According to brauner, there is no need to worry about collisions with vocational school classes. "The vocational school clearly comes first." If a trainee has block lessons that coincide with an academy seminar, he cannot attend this one academy meeting.

Keeping up with the rough ones
Ultimately, the goal of the azubi-akademie is for small and medium-sized companies to achieve the same or even better goals in the training of young people as large companies through skilful cooperation.

There are still no concrete figures on how many registrations were received from companies after the information event at the end of last week. But michael nurnberger is optimistic: three registrations are certain, and two other companies have already expressed interest.

Entrepreneur doris roppelt thinks the project is basically good. "I would like to see actions like this to take young people by the hand better. In my opinion, the vocational school and the chamber of handicrafts do not yet work well enough together."

From "taking the hand" also speaks fabian westphal, training manager at a hallstadt company. "The trainees should learn to be more independent and take on more responsibility. I hope that the azubi-akademie will be particularly effective in areas where it is difficult to train apprentices in one's own company. And of course one thing is always important: the soft skills." – thus the social competence. Or as ingolf brauner from the BDS azubi academy says: "the apprentice carpenter must also be able to deal with the customers."