You may have heard the phrase “If you build it they will come,” but today I’m here to tell you “If you build it they will sell. “By “it,” I don’t mean the product or service that they will sell, I mean the backbone that you develop in your Apprentice. The backbone is everything that you teach them, all the knowledge and techniques that you pour into them day in and day out. In order to build a strong and successful Apprenticeship Program, you must put a lot of effort into training and developing each and every Apprentice.

Of course for each Apprentice you will have to adjust your way of teaching them so that  they fully grasp the concepts, but you must have a constant approach and a standard technique. Creating a basic strategy, in which you will teach everyone in the same exact way, will help you effectively train a high-performing team. That basic strategy is the “How-To” for your Apprenticeship position.

Every job and task has a unique set of steps to it. How to fix a lamp is different from how to sell a product. So the first thing that you have to do is create a “How-To” for each position that you are going to have in your Apprenticeship Program. This might sound really easy, and something that you can write up in 5 minutes, but it should be something that you put a lot of thought into. Take the time to come up with the optimal way of performing the job, so that anyone can be capable of doing it correctly. Therefore, it must be accurate, and accuracy takes patience, time, and paying attention to detail.

In the past few weeks we’ve talked about the BWTI movement and what we believe in.  We even talked about a few of the Apprenticeship positions we are going to be using here at JASZ. I know we have some new followers so I’m going to spend this time bringing everyone up to speed. So again, here are the steps needed to get started with an apprenticeship of your own.

Step 1

Meet with your appropriate state Department of Labor professional and gather all the information you are going to need to get started, like the Standards document I referred to in my first post.

Step 2

Plan what positions you are going to offer in your apprenticeship and make sure your DOL (Department of Labor) professional applies the correct job codes to those positions.

Step 3

Plan out the training for those positions. Currently, I am working on JASZ’s step 3, so I have a lot of useful information that I am going to share with you. When planning the training for an Apprenticeship program it is important to be very specific and clear. Note that some states require a certain number of training hours. Here in North Carolina we needed to specify the number of hours of training that can be completed remotely , and number of hours of training that will be done “on the job.”. I’ve decided to split up the trainings into two categories

A wise man once told me “Things are the way they are because one day someone got lazy and decided to stop selling”. Whether that statement is true or not, I want the Apprentices’ who join our organization to have the absolute best  training and have the ability to duplicate themselves and provide for their families and most importantly love their new career while having fun. If this mentality starts from the highest heights of a company then their organization has no choice but to be happy and bring in happy and fruitful results. Who doesn’t want that? In closing, keep in mind you have to put your heart into your training program for best results.  Join us tomorrow as our Apprenticeship journey continues…

The first step in setting up an apprenticeship program is to fill out some very important forms. There were four documents that were easily completed, and thanks to the NC Department of Labor (DOL) these forms only needed a company name, job description and a labor code. The best part of setting up the apprenticeship program was creating the training material. This was fun,  keeping in mind that the information will allow the young, or not so young, Apprentice Padawans (If you don’t get this reference read Friday’s blog post) to start working in a matter of weeks.

Most of the training my team and I have put together can be done online, a huge advantage for an Apprentice that either  has transportation issues, or have amazing potential but aren’t local to the training site. Our apprenticeship training was setup for specific career classifications, one of which we call Account Representatives. These individuals are responsible for kindling existing relationships with current customers, and attaining new customers for our company to create cutting-edge technology solutions for. They are the Jedi Sales force I described in my last blog, the life blood of our commercial sales team.

The technical staff will leverage off the sales team’s performance. They will have to work together to overcome challenges, meet sales levels, and be responsible for training the next generation of JASZ Techies to join our organization. If you stick around tomorrow we will discover how the other apprenticeship positions work together with the Account Representative, and talk about the other three forms required for establishing an approved apprenticeship.

As you may have read two days ago my manager (CEO) and I were brain storming on how to build a quality sales force with low turnover. Not just any sales force, I am talking about people who are trained so well they are able to train others and actually duplicate themselves. Or better yet, make a difference and be able to influence their own families or community through sales experience. I am a very imaginative person so I hear and envision humorous ideas to keep moral high and my mind entertained. While talking about building this ultimate sales empire I began to hear the Star Wars Marching Music in the back of my head. While humming the Classic Star Wars theme song, I came up with the idea of having an apprentice, someone that has zero experience and develop them into a “Sales Jedi”. For those of you wondering how we came up with the apprenticeship idea there you have it.

I believe in keeping life very simple, allowing imagination to work in my favor, and then executing it with sound business practices. So, here I was with BIG ideas, and a ton of apprenticeship data, but not knowing where to start. So, I took the idea to the lady that makes the big bucks and after some team brainstorming she picked up the phone and made a call to the NC- Department of Labor (DOL), and let me tell you that move was the game changer. A couple of days later the DOL sent over one of their professional apprenticeship consultants. After about 35 minutes of talking with him he boiled down that ton of apprenticeship data into 4 actionable steps. Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you what they are…

The Vets and the Rest – Back to Work Through Innovation (BWTI) ™ Initiative is a grass-roots effort sponsored by JASZ Technology, to get Americans back to work.

Technology jobs traditionally aren’t gained through an apprenticeship, so none of the rules instructions, and information on establishing a recognized or “official” apprenticeship program addresses the 21^st Century apprenticeship.  See how we resolve our first challenge. I should explain what an “official” apprenticeship program is. It’s an apprenticeship program that’s registered and approved by your state’s Department of Labor.  Generally, you can setup an apprenticeship program at your company without registering it with the state, but there are some benefits to having an official or registered and approved apprenticeship program. We’ll invite an Apprenticeship Consultant from the North Carolina Department of Labor’s Apprenticeship and Training Bureau to tell you the specific benefits in the near future.

We wanted to ensure that we were setting up a world-class apprenticeship program because we plan to add an “Apprenticeship” module to the open source software that we’ll release as part of the BWTI initiative, so that other states and businesses around the nation won’t have to re-create the wheel when they join the Back to Work movement. We’ll do the heavy lifting by way of creating the wheel, by setting up an apprenticeship program at our company, and then we’ll program what we did into the software so that it’ll walk your business through the apprenticeship setup process faster and easier than we were able to do from scratch. I believe the only thing that you should create from scratch is a good meal. For everything else, just re-configure the same old wheel to suit your needs.

There’s no lack of apprenticeship resources available from the Department of Labor and other online resources, but I have to tell you – taking it all in was kind of like trying to get a sip of water from a fire hose. It was too much, too, fast, and overwhelming. My team and I downloaded a ton of information then peered over our laptop screens at each other, as we sat around the conference room table, with a “what have we gotten ourselves into?” look on our faces. Then I picked up the telephone and … well you’ll have to come back tomorrow to find out.

The Vets and the Rest – Back to Work Through Innovation (BWTI) ™ Initiative is a grass-roots effort sponsored by JASZ Technology, to get Americans back to work, but it didn’t start out that way. We have a new Sales Director, and he came up with the idea to recruit new Account Representatives into an apprenticeship. This would give inexperienced sales people an opportunity to learn while actually working in their new career. Meanwhile our company benefits from training, and in some cases certifying, our sales force in the techniques that work for our organization. At the end of the apprenticeship the employee has a new career, opportunities for advancement, and skills that are transferable to any company, and we get the ideal Account Representative. I thought this was such a brilliant idea that it struck me that we could apply the apprenticeship concept to other labor categories like Software Engineer, and Help Desk Analyst.  Well, the universe being what it is, I met other like-minded people interested in creating jobs, and one thing lead to another. Soon our little apprenticeship program morphed into a movement and became the Vets and the Rest – Back to Work Through Innovation (BWTI) ™ Initiative.

Our initiative will be a multi-phased approach:

1. Apprenticeships
2. Community collaboration
3. Employing technology to get Vets and the Rest back to work
4. The Back to Work conference

JASZ Technology officially kicks-off its apprenticeship program and the Vets and the Rest – Back to Work Through Innovation Initiative on January 12, 2012. Vets are Veterans of course, the “Rest” is the long-term unemployed, college and high school graduates, and others seeking work.

We’re organizing the conference as an opportunity for North Carolinians, especially Veterans, looking for work or a new career to learn about apprenticeships. To give businesses of all sizes an opportunity to learn about the benefits of establishing an apprenticeship program, and the steps to take to get started.

We’ve only just begun our apprenticeship program and kicked of the Back to Work project, so join us tomorrow where we’ll tell you about the first challenge we faced.

Welcome to our new blog series. My name is Antoinette Taylor, but call me Toni, everyone does.  I’m President and CEO at JASZ Technology. We’re a small tech firm in Raleigh, NC who’s just set out on an enormous and terrifying mission – to solve the jobs problem in America.  I know what you’re thinking, that’s what our government is for.

Well I’m a do-it-yourself kind of lady so I’m not waiting for Superman to come and save our nation, restore the economy, and put men and women back to work. I believe we the collective have the power to fix the jobs problem ourselves. Not five years from now but starting today. John F. Kennedy said, “We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, we’re going to use technology to put women, men, Veterans returning from the war, High School and College grads, and the long-term unemployed back to work through the “Vets and the Rest – Back to Work Through Innovation (BWTI) initiative. The nation’s trying to figure out how to create jobs for the California Carpenter that’s been out of work since the housing bubble burst, or the New York Seamstress that can only get 20-hours a week because the business people that used to bring in suits for tailoring have been laid off. Perhaps it’s the Sergeant that’s about to retire from the military after 20-years and doesn’t know what his next career will be. Maybe it’s the 22-year old Navy Veteran that needs frequent time off for doctor visits to care for injuries she got in the war, or the High School grad with no skills and no job prospects.  What about the company with jobs to fill but the available workforce doesn’t have the education, training, experience, certification or license required for the position.

In our blog series we’re going to tell the story of how we’re getting Americans BACK TO WORK! – One job at a time, in the hope that if we answer the question for our company, and our state, that other businesses can re-create the solution throughout the nation. We’re going to share our challenges, failures, and successes with you so follow us on our journey.

Learn more about the BWTI Movement Here: http://www.jasztech.com/bwti/