Plastics & Rubber World - July/August 2019 - 16

plastics ireland

earn
as you
learn
PRW meets with Ibec's trish
Breen in Dublin to find
out about apprenticeship
programmes now available
to polymer companies in
Ireland

ibec apprenticeships can help
secure the talent pipeline

ata collected by Ibec (the former Irish
Business and Employers Confederation), shows there are about 200 plastics practitioners currently active in the Irish
market. This number covers a broad range
of businesses, from large multinationals
with thousands of employees through to
SMEs operating with a skeleton staff.
According to Trish Breen, apprenticeships project manager at Ibec, no matter
the size of the company, all are experiencing an ongoing "skills shortage", where the
labour pool isn't sufficiently deep to support demand for trained employees.
To address this situation, in 2017, Polymer Technology Ireland and the Irish
Medtech Association - Ibec groups which
represent the sectors - launched several
new apprenticeship programmes. These
apprenticeships have been developed by
industry to allow companies to grow and
develop their talent pipeline.
"We offer higher certificate and degree
awards over two and three years," says
Breen. "These programmes include Manufacturing Engineering Technician Apprenticeship (Level 6) over two years, Manufacturing
Engineer (Level 7) and Polymer Technologist
(Level 7), both over three years."
Companies can either upskill existing
employees or attract school leavers with
the programmes. The apprenticeships
are delivered on a 'block release' basis. In
practise, this means the course is offered
over 15 contiguous weeks each year. The
apprentice spends the balance of the year
on the job.

Government fundinG

Retention of staff
is as big an issue as
getting new staff
Trish Breen, Ibec

WWW.PRW.COM | July/august 2019

Billed as 'earn as you learn', the students
continue as employees of the given company while enrolled in the course. But
there is a downside, as the company is required to pay for all other related costs, including salary, plus travel and accommodation (if attending from outside Athlone).
By way of explanation, Breen says that
pre-2016 'craft' apprenticeships, including
carpentry or electrical courses, are fully subsidised by the government. But these new
apprentice programmes only receive government funding for the actual course work.

"It's a big ask for some companies,"
says Breen. "When prospective companies compare the craft and new apprenticeships, they see the difference in the offer. Cost is a big challenge for companies
considering getting involved."
And there's more, as Breen continues: "The company is required to assign
a mentor from within the organisation.
It doesn't entail that much work, four to
five hours each week, but it's another resource. These companies are very busy
and many are time poor."

Positive PositioninG

To date, the apprentice courses have attracted a wide range of candidates, from
new joiners through to experienced employees looking to gain a formal certification.
"If the company is putting forward a recent school leaver, we sometimes recommend they offer a tiered salary package
that increases annually over the threeyear programme. It's a way to try and control costs," says Breen.
While Ibec works in conjunction with
First Polymer Training (see page 20), only
Ibec offers formal degree courses. With
that in mind, is it disingenuous to call them
apprenticeships? Would it be more accurate to brand them as academic degrees?
"It's interesting you'd say that. It's under
the apprenticeship umbrella largely due
to it only being open to employees, but
it is a degree course. Sometimes parents
want their children to just get a university
degree and don't consider an apprenticeship. But in this case the students are getting paid while they learn, which has to be
considered a win-win," replies Breen.
The other benefit of the course is that
in many cases, the company will know the
employee will remain with them over the
length course, and also stay on post-graduation.
Taking that into consideration, Trish
Breen has the final word: "Cost, resources,
and time are the three key issues companies have to manage when thinking about
the Polymer Technology course, but manage those points and the programme will
ultimately deliver long-term benefits."

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Plastics & Rubber World - July/August 2019

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