Reimagining apprenticeship in Ontario
Government of Ontario, 2017
THE MISSION
As per the mandate from the Premier of the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development, Province of Ontario: “to develop a modernized apprenticeship system focused on increasing completion rates, increasing participation of traditionally under-represented groups, and creating clearer, better pathways for learners.”
THE SOLUTION
A strategic framework playbook for government stakeholders & program heads that identified opportunity areas, insights, drop-off rates, and a bilingual apprenticeship journey map that helped illustrate the dependencies & impacts of multiple stakeholders throughout the user journey.
The process
To develop a strategic framework and opportunity areas for future implementation with the Ministry, there first needs to be a thorough understanding of how to best modernize the system. To do so, three initial research questions surfaced to help ground research methods — the what, who, and how.
Current state
30 in-depth interviews (IDI’s) with apprentices, on-site shadowing with a wide range of apprentices across Ontario — not only was representation across the skilled trades sector important, but also experience, geographical location, and gender was considered
20 in-depth interviews (IDI’s) with industry experts & regulatory bodies (i.e. employers, pre-apprenticeship program stakeholders, Ontario College of Trades, etc.) to better understand how apprenticeship was structured
Workshop with 300 participants across the skilled trades sector came together to initiate discussion and collaborate on the first draft of the apprentice’s journey map. This was a unique moment because the co-creation was finally an opportunity for apprentices as well as all of the back-of-house stakeholders to finally interact in a single setting and simultaneously participate in plenary discussion. Key highlighted activities include introduction to personas to help all participants to start thinking from the lens of the apprentice, putting a name and a face to the apprenticeship journey; having 300 participants validate and collaboratively mark-up the draft journey map in smaller breakout groups; as well as heat-mapping the highs, lows, and drop-offs through dot voting.
Initial draft work: mapping out all associated regulatory bodies, and associated touchpoints in the trades journey
From these current-state interviews, a first-draft of the journey map was brought to the working session.
Introducing personas to help all participants to start thinking from the lens of the apprentice
Future state
Consolidating all feedback and synthesizing data, it was determined that two key areas to help develop a more robust, accurate map was to investigate completion rates & increasing participation, as well as uncovering clearer pathways of the compulsory vs voluntary trades through to certification. To do so, additional IDIs were conducted with apprentices—specifically focusing on drop-offs (individuals no longer pursuing their apprenticeship)—and IDIs with stakeholders and apprentices for the Certificate of Qualification pathway exam.
On July 17 2017, a similar size of 300 participants across the skilled trades sector reconvened at the Beanfield Centre. In this half-day workshop, key outcomes were to validate the final draft of the journey map, and focusing on the drop-off points, to work in smaller breakout groups to identify opportunity areas and how they might mitigate those risks.
As part of the deliverable package, the feedback from Workshop 2 was synthesized into a final document that outlined these opportunity areas.
Opportunity areas were identified and compiled into a document that detailed how to leverage various stakeholders at different moments in the apprentice’s journey to alleviate moments of stress and decrease drop-off rates.
The learnings
Although apprenticeship opportunities are incredibly broad (ie. ranging from construction to hair dressing) the interviews yielded similar barriers and pathways of apprenticeship completion. Namely, the full journey of apprenticeship could take anywhere from 3 to over 6 years to complete, and this was dependent on a variety of factors: course availability, hours vs competency-based completion, job security, workplace ratios, etc. Collectively, these findings were synthesized into the first version of the journey map.
It was eye-opening that these pathways had never previously been mapped before. A lot of the participants and others in the skilled trades sector accounted this to in-part be due to the fact that the perception of being a tradesman is less desirable than a post-secondary degree. However, the overwhelming sentiment from all of our research, workshops, and co-creations was that the skilled trades really are the backbone of the workforce.
