Member PortalBuilding Understanding and Buy-In with Employers and Partners
What’s Here: Messaging frameworks, employer engagement strategies, and resources that help boards communicate the value of apprenticeships in clear, practical terms
What it Matters: Strengthens boards and partners conversations by helping boards frame apprenticeship in “employer language,” support relationship-building, and increase readiness for implementation.
Workforce boards serve as the connective tissue between employers, educators, and community stakeholders. In apprenticeship programs, that role includes helping others see the value and understand the responsibilities, particularly when apprenticeship is new to an industry or when partners have concerns about time, return on investment, and complexity. The materials in this section help provide perspective and frame the conversation in value statements that resonate.
How Intermediaries Can Promote Youth Apprenticeship
Urban Institute goes beyond theory to explain the specific ways intermediaries help youth apprenticeship take hold and scale. It discusses roles such as convening employers and education partners, supporting program design, and strengthening sponsor relationships, and creating the conditions for sustainability over time.
View their WebsiteEmployer Engagement Strategies and Messaging
WorkforceGPS provides this webinar to focus on how workforce boards and partners can talk about apprenticeship in a way that resonates with employers. It focuses on grounded engagement strategies and messaging approaches, including how to frame value in business terms, address common employers concerns, and tailor outreach based on industry context.
Apprenticeship Business Engagement
The American Institute for Research (AIR) provides this resource specifically focused on supporting workforce boards in engaging businesses around apprenticeship. AIR breaks the employer engagement cycle into four phases and ties common employer issues to implementing apprenticeship to the specific workforce issues and solutions embedded within apprenticeship programs.
Return on Investment
Workforce GPS brings together a variety of studies and tools to aid in discussing one of the most important elements of apprenticeship programs: ROI. Among the resources featured are studies taking comprehensive looks at the value of apprenticeship and practical tools such as ROI calculators to support conversations about productivity, retention, and long-term talent development.