Accommodating Apprentices
Many apprenticeship programmes include training phases that take apprentices away from home for intensive periods. This can be a worrying time for young apprentices and for you, as their employer or apprenticeship provider who has a duty of care towards them.
Apprentices have quite different needs to the standard business traveller and so extra time and consideration should be taken when choosing accommodation for them. Apprentices need to feel reassured, comfortable and safe. Here’s our guide to choosing the best accommodation for your apprentices:
Out of town: In our experience employers prefer to house their apprentices in out of town and self-contained accommodation with everything onsite that they need. This can help shield young apprentices from the draw of city centre pubs and clubs, and ensure they stay safe and secure in their allocated venue.
Lots of space: Having plenty of communal indoor and outdoor space is really important too, to enable your apprentices to socialise and build strong bonds with their teammates. Outdoor space is great if the weather is good and team games and sports can be played early evening to help learners wind down after a busy day training.
Duty of Care: Your venue should have an established Duty of Care provision; this should include proviso for things going not quite as planned. For example, if a learner turns up at the venue without a booking, they will not simply be turned away. An experienced venue team will ensure that the learner is allocated a room, checked in and so will not become distressed or worried.
Tackling illness: Ask your venue team to explain how they can help your learners if they become ill, and make sure your learners know that they can turn to the venue team for help. Our team will support a learner – including arranging a taxi to a doctor’s or a hospital appointment – and will also make sure that you are told so you can notify next of kin.
Food: Catering for this demographic is very specific, in our experience they enjoy casual dining and takeaway style options that consider health and wellbeing but also offer the diner a treat. These types of food will ensure that learners feel at home and have plenty of choices
of food that they like, whenever they like. Having familiar food options also ensures that your learners won’t be heading to the nearest fast-food restaurant for take aways!
Ringing the changes: Talk to your venue to see how they create a week-long variety of food options. Many business hotels are used to travellers only staying for one or two nights, and so they have the same options every night. Your apprentices will soon tire of the same options, and so make sure your venue can cater for their week-long stay.
Letting off steam: Venues with facilities to enable learners to let off steam, will also encourage them to stay safe at the venue. Many of our venues have set up gaming rooms to enable apprentices to let off steam after a day’s training. And a venue with a gym, a pool or other leisure facilities will also help them to be entertained and to unwind.
Your eyes and ears: Your venue team should work as an extension of your team – ensuring that your policies and procedures are distributed and followed by your learners, creating an apprentice hub if applicable and generally being there for your apprentices during the week.
We’re delighted to say all venues within our collection offer these facilities for your apprentices. You can read more about how we can help your apprentices – download our Apprenticeship Charter, and contact our sales team who can tell you more: enquiries@thevenuescollection.co.uk
Go back to other articles
