NTCA UNIVERSITY UPDATE ––––––––––––– By Becky Serbin, Training and Education Coordinator Tailoring apprenticeship programs to suit your company DOL-approved programs The first thing that most contractors need to decide is if they want a Department of Labor (DOL) approved appren- ticeship program. Even though NTCA University can be used as related content for an appren- ticeship program, currently, the NTCA is not an actual DOL pro- gram provider. This means that if your company benefits from an approved apprenticeship program such as prevailing-wage projects, utilizing your state’s workforce commission to assist in finding workers or potentially utilizing a pre-apprenticeship program, or applying for and utilizing grant money to offset training costs, then you will need to work with your state DOL to apply for and register your training program. Pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs Currently, we have members who are utilizing pre-appren- ticeship and apprenticeship pro- grams. Members who have a pre-apprenticeship program work with local technical schools or workforce commissions to educate potential new hires. At the end of the program, contractor mem- bers offer apprenticeship programs within their companies to students they want to hire. Other mem- bers hire new employees directly into their apprenticeship program. We even have members in one region coming together to build a regional apprenticeship program and sharing the cost and train- ing of the apprentices (See this month’s Training & Education story for details). If you attended Coverings this year, you may have noticed a common theme was the desire/need for education. So it should come as no surprise that I get a chance to talk with a lot of new members about education and training opportunities available through NTCA. Obviously, my first discussion item is NTCA University. The follow up question I often get is: “How can I use it in my company?” So, I wanted to take some time to review what other members are already doing so that you can use this information to help develop a program that is best for your company. 110 TileLetter | July 2018