Firstly and most importantly, I hope you, your loved ones and colleagues are keeping well. I wanted to write to you all with some updates from Hawk Training. We are now nearing the end of the second week of lockdown and we are all starting to get used to new ways of working.
These are uncharted waters for us all, there has been no bigger challenge to us as a society in recent history and I personally want to assure you that we at Hawk have the agility, the resilience and the passion to continue to support your organisation and your apprentices.
I would firstly like to start by thanking my dedicated and skilled colleagues at Hawk. I have been staggered by the sheer determination and perseverance they have all shown. The way my colleagues have handled themselves and responded to the situation, has made me feel very proud to be the MD of Hawk Training.
The good news is, that as a result of the teams’ efforts, I am pleased to confirm that our programme offer is now entirely remotely accessible. Our tutors are equipped to deliver 121 support sessions remotely, as well as deliver workshops online through a variety of platforms. In addition, we have introduced an online enrolment process, therefore individuals wishing to join our apprenticeship programmes to develop their knowledge skills and behaviours can still continue to do so.
Secondly, I would like to personally thank you, our employers who have continued to engage and communicate with us to support adapting delivery to meet your and your learners’ needs. I know that these are challenging times for you all and in particular those of you who work within the NHS or are key workers. Please be assured that we are doing all that we can to support you through this period and where possible, we will continue to provide you with the learning and development support that your staff need now and in the future.
The welfare and wellbeing of your employees / our apprentices
We are seeing an increase of learners who are needing wellbeing and safeguarding support at this current time, and we want to ensure you that we are here to support these learners through this tough time with our learner support team. To help overcome some of their worries/concerns right now, we will be launching free webinar access for our learners on covering emotional resilience and managing stress which we hope will go some way to support some of the needs we are identifying.
Furloughing
We recognise that some of you have had no option than to place staff onto furlough, including apprentices. I wanted to give you my personal reassurance that we as a provider will continue to support your apprentices’ learning and development during this time. Apprentices can continue their apprenticeship programme even whilst furloughed and we advise that learners take this time to continue to develop their skills using our online learning resources and remote delivery tools. Therefore, if you have apprentices furloughed, please do let us know so that we can continue to support apprentices to progress on their apprenticeship. In addition, there are also other learning opportunities we have added to support apprentices at this difficult time free of charge.
Breaks in Learning
Where an apprentice learner is unable to continue learning beyond 4 weeks then a break in learning may be the most appropriate course of action to support the learner through this time. This does not ordinarily apply to learners on apprenticeships who are put on furlough (see above), however there maybe occasions where the learner is unable to continue with their learning whilst on furlough, i.e. unable to access IT to enable remote learning. On these occasions please contact your Hawk account manager or tutor directly.
Redundancy
We fully understand in these extraordinary times that some employers have no other option than to make staff redundant. We want to support both your organisation and your apprentices in this difficult time, we would ask that you inform us if of any cases where a learner has been made redundant. ESFA funding rules state that learners can continue on their programme up to 6 months following redundancy (funded for 12 weeks).
Equally, if you have any vacancies arising now or in the near future, please advise us so that we can share this with learners.
Developing our provision
We are pleased to update you we have widened our online learning resources to include some ‘bite-size takeaways’ for non-apprentices, some of which will be free for all employees of our customers, some available at a reduced cost to our employer base. This will be going live soon and we will communicate this to you separately. To help future-proof your business if you have any ideas/suggestions that you think would support you, let us know, get involved, we look forward to hearing from you.
Delivery access and remote delivery update
We are now booking apprenticeship learners onto our online workshops. Workshops are open to all apprentices. The link to these can be found below. We ask that learners discuss the workshops that are outside the current scope of their apprenticeship with their tutor to identify additional workshops that meet their needs. For workshops the apprentice is on, they are welcome to enrol now. Workshops with registration details can be found here.
What next?
Please be assured that we are doing our very best to continue delivering a high-quality service and will continue to keep you and your employees updated. If you do have any serious concerns you wish to discuss, please do contact us, either via your Hawk representative or email hello@hawktraining.com
I would like to thank you for your continued support and hope that both you, your loved ones and colleagues stay safe and well.