Joy Jamerson of HCAP on Making Apprenticeship Simpler

Intro

Welcome back to another episode of Making Apprenticeship Simpler interviews! In today's episode, we're thrilled to have Joy Jamerson, Program Manager at HCAP—the Healthcare Career Advancement Program. Joy will be sharing her expert insights on simplifying the apprenticeship process for employers in the healthcare industry. As a national labor management organization and a DOL-registered apprenticeship intermediary, HCAP is at the forefront of promoting innovation in healthcare career education. Joy dives into the challenges employers face with the current apprenticeship framework and offers practical solutions to make it more accessible and understandable. Stay tuned as we explore how talking directly to employers and tailoring apprenticeship models can lead to a more skilled and efficient healthcare workforce. This is an episode you won't want to miss!

Highlights

• Primary Question: How to Make Apprenticeships Simpler?

• Overarching complexity of apprenticeship systems

• First Area: Simplifying Apprenticeships

• The complexity of paperwork for program approval

• Employers' lack of bandwidth to complete paperwork

• Role and importance of industry intermediaries

• The need for simpler and more understandable apprenticeship models for employers

• Second Area: Steps to Simplify Apprenticeship Creation

• Necessity of consistent funding for registered apprenticeships

• Investment in electronic systems to replace standardized paperwork

• Communication with employers as key to understanding and building programs

• Importance of employer involvement at the table during program development

• Tailoring apprenticeship programs to the specific needs of different employers

• Third Area: Practical Insights and Real-world Application

• Variation of apprenticeship programs across different states

• Importance of tailoring programs to suit specific employer requirements

• Employers' existing training efforts and how registered apprenticeships fit in

• Benefits of registered apprenticeships, including funding and resources

• Concept of a "reverse recruitment tool" for building skilled workforces

Transcript

Patrick Cushing:

Everybody, this is Patrick again. And today we have Joy Jamerson from HCAP, who's going to take us through her perspective of how to make apprenticeship simpler. Before we do that, Joy, can you give a quick introduction on yourself and a little bit about HCAP?

Joy Jamerson:

Of course. Well, I'm Joy Jamerson. I am one of the program managers here at HCAP, which is the healthcare career advancement program. We are a national labor management organization that promotes innovation and quality in healthcare career education. And then we're also a DOL, national registered apprenticeship intermediary and apprenticeship ambassador. We have been, I like to call us, the lead industry intermediary in healthcare, the premier one.

Patrick Cushing:

Love it. Love it. Well, Joy, I think you're our first industry intermediary to have on board, so no pressure or anything. There's one question I ask everybody because I think we're all invested in seeing the apprenticeship system get better and we want to know how to do so. The question for you is, from your perspective, how do we make apprenticeships simpler?

Joy Jamerson:

You know, making the process a little bit simpler to employers. They're already dealing with workforce shortages, dealing with all of the paperwork that they have to complete to get a program approved, whether it be in the OA state or an SAA state, it needs to be simpler. Some employers just don't have the bandwidth to do it. Some of them don't have the staff to do it. When they find out about industry intermediaries, they are in love with us and that we help them through that process. But what if we went away and there were no more industry intermediaries?

How will we be able to continue to move the registered apprenticeship work forward? And it's just making that process a little bit simpler for the employers and then making it understandable to employers as well. Registered apprenticeship, in general, needs to be a little bit simpler for employers to understand. There is a lot of information you can put in registered apprenticeships in Google, and it'll give you a million pages on apprenticeships, but none of it actually speaks employer's language. What is the ask of employers? What are we wanting them to do and why? We're wanting them to implement a registered apprenticeship program.

Joy Jamerson:

Making the process a little simpler, like the paperwork process, and then making the information simpler for employers to actually understand the model.

Patrick Cushing:

Perfect. Perfect. I think certainly things that we see across the board, right, if we can make it easier to start more apprenticeships, we can make it easier so you don't have to learn a whole new language. That makes it easier to get people in the front door. If I gave you a magic wand, how would you tackle making it easier to start? How would you tackle making it easier to speak the employer language?

Joy Jamerson:

One, I would always have funding available for registered apprenticeships so they can continue to fund industry intermediaries. I think like investing in different software. They have standards builder, which is great, but some states still use the standardized paperwork. Make all of that electronic. Then it's just hit enter and it's submitted. Then, it goes to the prospective person for approval. After, making it simpler is actually talking to the employers. That's what we don't do a lot, is talking to the employers like we have to. Anytime HCAP talks to an employer or talks to someone that's not an employer that wants to do a registered apprenticeship, we tell them we need the employer at the table. We cannot build this program without that stakeholder at the table which is the employer.

Joy Jamerson:

That's great. If Joy's foundation (I don't have a foundation), but if I had one, what if I wanted to do a registered apprenticeship program? I just go and build a medical assistant program. Employer A, B or C may not need medical assistance. So making sure that that employer is at the table and hearing what their needs are. Right now we're seeing an uptick in more licensed occupations in the healthcare industry. So with more licensing, that's more higher wage occupations and positions that're becoming available. That's more occupatinos to build apprenticeships around. So just making sure that we're hearing what the employer is saying and then developing those documents that help them speak that language to the employer. If they Google and talk to industry intermediary or DOL, it's simpler for them to understand what the ask is. I tell people all the time, apprenticeship are not that hard.

Joy Jamerson:

We make it hard for them to understand. So just making it simple for them to understand will just be a piece of cake. I'll go in right now and talk to an employer that someone has been talking to for maybe a year or two years. And the minute I start speaking and I tell them the same thing somebody else stated, but I'm speaking their language, the PowerPoint, it's facing them, then they understand it, it clicks. And I asked the person or the organization, "What were you saying that I said different?" They were like, Joy, we said the same information it's probably your approach, and my approach is always making sure that we are building content that speaks to our audiences.

Joy Jamerson:

And that's what I don't see a lot of in this space.

Patrick Cushing:

Yeah, I certainly agree. I often find that employers are doing something like apprenticeship already. Convincing them that, and all we're going to do is fit it into a template that works rather than here's the apprenticeship template. With the apprenticeship template, you feel like you're starting from scratch and learning everything anew. I think that we'll get to some day where you can choose your apprenticeship like, you order McDonald's order on that screen, and then we're off to the races. I hope you don't mind my just taking that running with your idea.

Joy Jamerson:

Not at all. I would even comment on, every apprenticeship is different. If I build a RNA apprenticeship program down in Florida, the same program is not going to look the same in Texas or in Louisiana. It's not a one size fit all. It's a one size fits that employer and that that model fits this employer. We're doing the same thing, but we're fixing the model so it can be fit for that employer. And then, as you said, most employers are already doing some type of training because they need employees. They're really struggling. I've talked to many employers and they're like, Joy, we're doing something like this already. Why should we do a registered apprenticeship program? And then it makes me say, why should they do it? And then it just dawns on me, look at the benefits.

Joy Jamerson:

You're splitting the bill like you're paying for everything. There is funding, even though I don't like to lead with funding. But there's funding out here. There's other opportunities out here, recruitment, resources, workforce development, HCAP. We're all here to help you. You're not going to be in it by yourself. These are the reasons why you should build it. You're probably just doing your incumbent workers, but this can bring in external workers or vice versa.

Joy Jamerson:

We always say, I like to use the term that one of my good friends use. It's like it's a reverse recruitment tool. We're recruiting, we're helping the school, and the school is helping us help the employer get a better skilled workforce.

Patrick Cushing:

Nailed it. Well, Joy, thank you very much. I appreciate you coming on. Tons of experience and it's great to have you. Thank you.

Joy Jamerson:

So much. Have a good one.