100 Reasons Why Most Traineeships Programs Fail!

Running a traineeships program is no different to running a small business. You need to have a plan, a set of outcomes, a budget, a structure, a team of experts and the ability to measure and manage all the key elements of the business.

The major reason why most traineeships programs fail is that there is no business approach and the program is left up to a coordinator to facilitate the major project. The main reasons for failure are as follows:

Management Program

• No on-site management process or procedure
• Trainer is left to be the project manager, business developer, career counsellor and key motivator.
  
• The Registered Training Organisations (RTO) is only as good as the trainer.
  
• The client typically has little expertise in complexities involved with program & presume/expect the RTO to have it in hand.
  
• Most RTO’s are only offering a training service and don’t provide management of the marketing, funding and human resources processes.
  
• Neither the client, nor the RTO, is managing the program.
  
• The New Apprenticeship Centre (NAC) sometimes considers that they are the most significant stakeholder and quite often over-ride the RTO, and not effectively communicate with the RTO or client. 
  
• No monthly report consolidating all tracking of the elements that need to be managed.

Marketing Campaign

• There is no `needs analysis’ by employee done prior to giving trainees a generic training program.
• Most RTO’s do not understand the importance of preparing the trainees for contract signing and the program itself.
• Employees enter the program reluctantly (suspicious) and pull out half way through.
• If the majority of eligible employees are not doing training then the program will fail.
• Most RTO’s will be content signing up a small number (eg New Workers) and find that there is not enough momentum gained for the program to work.
• No procedure for signing up new employees or determining training for non-eligible employees.

Traineeships Program

• The training material has not been tailored to suit the company, the site and the employee – becomes irrelevant.
• Some RTO’s take shortcuts with the delivery of training and don’t chase up those employees who `no show’.
• The trainer allocated may not suit the culture of the business.
• Trainees not scheduled at times that best suit the business and the trainees.
• No immediate reporting on progress of trainees and attendance.
• As the trainer becomes disillusioned with non-attendance, etc so does the client.
• No procedure for determining breakdowns in the traineeships program.
• Who is quality controlling the curriculum, the training delivery and the training outcomes?
• There is no uniformity of training delivery, and curriculum, across all states and sites.
• There is no reporting link between the funding progress (looked after by the NAC) and the trainee progress. Therefore the funding position is quite often not known.
• Reconciliation of funding amounts received, and for whom and what is normally a difficult process.
  

Training Program

• There is typically no link between the traineeships program and other training – career development has not been considered.
• Company (owned) training is not promoted.
• A retention strategy should be an important part of the traineeships program.
• The traineeships program’s primary benefit should be to help create a training culture and enable further company training to occur.
  

The Questions You Need to Ask!

• Has my RTO addressed all these areas of importance?
• If you have just appointed an RTO how do you know that they can do all these things?
• How does the RTO propose to manage the project?
• Should I, and can I, run this program on my own?