Richard Lee, a Skillnet Non-Technical Skills Coach outlines his approach to coaching apprentices and how being honest gets the best result for everyone.
I firmly believe that, no matter what their age, gender, ethnicity, learning ability, disability or personal beliefs are, you can always make a positive difference in an apprentice’s learner journey.
There are many ways you can do this. However, all individuals are different, behave in different ways and can give a different perspective into learning and developing an apprentice through their own journey.
Honesty is the Best Policy
I try to be honest with the apprentice about their goals and their progress. We provide regular feedback to the apprentices and their managers as to what they have completed so far, and what they still have to complete in order for their time with me to be a “success”.
This is measured not only by being awarded a recognised qualification at the end of their apprenticeship, but also by gaining knowledge and insight from a different perspective than they may have seen before within their own organisation.
From experience we see this helps our apprentices generate their own ideas, and different ways of working which may actually be more effective in their career development. It also lets them see an outsider’s way of looking at their work.
I like to give feedback to each individual on exactly how I think they meet the needs of their own role and suggest where they can improve, both before and after their qualification and learning experience has finished.
In the non-technical space there are many different paths to take, and a thousand different jobs which benefit from our leavers’ newly acquired skills and qualifications in Customer Service, Business Administration, Learner Mentor, Team Leading and Management.
Anyone with these skills and qualifications, learned in our structured way, will make a positive difference to any team, any manager and any organisation.