Seven Insights for Designing Apprenticeship Programs for Learning Workers
Today’s in-demand jobs and needed skills are changing rapidly due to technological advancement, economic uncertainty, and global disruption. These shifts are creating an increasingly dynamic and unpredictable future of work. In this landscape, organizations must continuously reimagine how to develop talent to keep pace with shifting demands.
Apprenticeship programs, particularly those embedded in corporate settings, are a particular type of program that needs reimagining, especially now that so many of the traditional entry-level tasks are being disrupted by Generative AI tools.
Historically, these programs have been designed to skill learning workers through deeply situated, role-specific experiences. While they have been a valuable career readiness and talent development tool, traditional corporate apprenticeships often don’t build the level of adaptability and resilience required in today’s digital economy.
These programs have been tailored to highly specific roles and contexts, which makes them excellent at developing targeted skills.
Consider an apprentice bookkeeper, who once would have gained deep, contextual knowledge by manually tracking transactions and resolving discrepancies unique to their company's systems. Now, with AI automating those tasks, they don’t need such deeply situated knowledge and they struggle to transfer that embedded expertise to new tools or contexts, revealing a gap in adaptability.
There is an alternative design of these programs that we can consider. Research conducted by the Next Level Lab shows that with a few deliberate shifts, these programs can become more agile, future-ready learning ecosystems that prepare talent for not just one role, but many roles to come.
What We Studied
This post presents findings from two in-depth studies of corporate apprenticeship programs. The research included:
Extensive interviews with program participants
A review of participant data since the program’s inception
Analysis of program materials, structures, and practices
From this research, we’ve distilled seven practical insights to help organizations evolve their apprenticeship programs into powerful engines for resilient, adaptive talent development.
1/ Embed Learning in Real-Work Contexts
Learning in apprenticeship programs is most powerful when it happens through actual work on real projects, not isolated training exercises.
Throughout our studies, participants consistently identified on-the-job project work as their most valuable learning experience. By learning in context, apprentices felt real pressures, used actual tools, and experienced team dynamics firsthand, all of which deepened their understanding of the work and accelerated skill development.
Our design recommendations are to place learners in the flow of work early in the program, and thereby give them hands-on experience and show them the impact of their contributions. Additionally, provide "safety nets" like a buddy or supervisor to check their work, but let apprentices feel responsible for actual deliverables. This builds both technical competency and confidence while helping apprentices learn workplace norms and problem-solving skills in context.
2/ Integrate Apprentices into the Larger Organizational Community
Apprentices learn best when they feel like full members of the organization and the employee community.
In our studies, participants shared the benefits of being included in employee resource groups, accessing company knowledge portals, and attending meetings with people across departments. Tools like Slack, Teams, and Zoom played a vital role in expanding access, allowing remote apprentices to build relationships and connect with expertise across time zones. These digital collaborations appeared to deeply strengthen community connections by eliminating physical barriers, giving remote apprentices access to colleagues and experts worldwide.
We recommend that programs treat apprentices as junior colleagues, not outsiders. This means encouraging them to participate in company events like town halls, social gatherings, and interest groups, and considering simple activities like executive meet-and-greets or department shadow days to help apprentices understand the organization better and meet more people. This approach helps them quickly build organizational knowledge and professional networks that research shows are crucial for success.
3/ Cultivate Multiple Developmental Relationships
Apprenticeship isn’t a solitary learning experience, it’s a networked experience.
Apprentices in our studies learned most effectively when they were supported by a constellation of mentors, coaches, managers, and peers. These relationships provided timely feedback, space for reflection, and emotional support. Apprentices’ learning accelerated when they had regular check-ins and could “think out loud” with more experienced colleagues.
Even in remote settings, virtual proximity to mentors via video calls, chats, or screen shares replicated the value of “side-by-side” learning if used effectively.
We recommend that programs build a support structure around each apprentice. Ideally, this includes:
A day-to-day manager
A coach
A skill-specific mentor
A peer buddy
Each of these supporters needs to be trained in basic coaching and teaching skills. Providing this constellation of supporters around each apprentice helps drive a culture where experienced employees feel ownership over apprentice success and welcome spontaneous questions and conversations.
4/ Encourage Informal Learning and "Side-by-Side" Coaching
Most impactful learning happens in the moment, not the classroom.
In our studies, participants emphasized the value of informal, unplanned learning. This included spontaneous feedback, impromptu coaching, and learning by watching others work. Formal training helped build a baseline for technical skills, but it was the informal learning moments that solidified the knowledge and made it stick. In fact, Apprentices who had regular, casual access to experienced colleagues reported faster learning and greater confidence, especially when they could apply what they learned right away.
Our design recommendation is that apprenticeship programs should focus on supporting these informal opportunities, especially since they significantly enhance learning. Some strategies to create the conditions for informal learning opportunities include:
Schedule regular check-ins between apprentices and supervisors
Offer “office hours” where mentors are available for live questions
Co-locate virtual and in-person apprentices with experienced team members
Coordinate across mentors, trainers, and supervisors so learning is reinforced, not siloed.
5/ Design for Flexibility and Skill Transfer
The best apprenticeship programs prepare learners not just for a single role, but for future adaptation.
Participants in our studies often discovered that abilities from past experiences were surprisingly relevant to unrelated new roles. They frequently shared stories about applying skills learned in one context to unexpected new roles. The program’s structure encouraged this adaptability by assigning apprentices to diverse tasks and unfamiliar technologies, which built comfort with ambiguity.
This aligns with learning science on knowledge transfer, which emphasizes that when learners work in multiple contexts and reflect on connections, they build broader application skills.
In order to do this, it is our recommendation that programs intentionally structure experiences so that apprentices learn how to gain new knowledge and apply existing knowledge across different projects. This can include activities such as:
Create rotations or diverse project assignments
Train managers and mentors to draw attention to connections between tasks and prior experiences
Encourage apprentices to articulate what they already know and apply it in new settings
Reinforce the idea that the goal isn’t just mastering a job; it’s mastering how to learn on the job.
6/ Leverage Digital Tools to Connect Learning Experiences
Every apprentice in our studies used digital tools such as video conferencing, collaboration platforms, and project management software as part of their daily workflow. But their most powerful use of these tools was to build learning networks: accessing peers, mentors, and information in the flow of work.
Apprentices shared examples of digital tools acting as the "glue" between their learning activities. They described reaching colleagues across the country as easily as those in the same office, expanding their learning network. Technology expanded their learning circles and connected their experiences across projects.
To leverage the power of digital tools to create learning moments and build a networked learning ecosystem, we recommend that programs ensure apprentices are trained on and have access to core collaboration tools. Beyond that, two key practices that our participants constantly described as helpful were 1) using group messaging channels that include both apprentices and experienced colleagues, and 2) encouraging mentors, managers, and supervisors to use screen sharing to walk through complex tasks with apprentices.
7/ Empower Apprentices to Become Next-Level Learners
Successful apprentices are Next Level Learners, with both the technical skills required for their work, as well as a capacity for metacognition, self-awareness, reflection, resilience, agency, and adaptability. This combination help apprentices exercise agency and ownership over their learning, not as passive recipients, but as active participants exercising choice about what and how they learn.
In our studies, participants described thriving when they had ownership over their learning journey. Some pursued extra training. Others shaped their work based on personal interests or aspirations. These behaviors reflected metacognitive skills like self-awareness, reflection, and agency, all of which are qualities that support long-term growth across multiple careers.
When apprentices are empowered, they don’t just absorb knowledge; they build habits that will serve them for years to come. To help them achieve this we recommend that programs:
Give apprentices voice and choice in their experience
Set personal learning goals alongside program requirements
Allow opt-in opportunities for extra training or project roles
Facilitate brief individual and group reflection sessions after key project phases
Normalize “learning from mistakes” and help apprentices reframe missteps as growth.
Future Thinking
As the nature of work evolves, so must the design of apprenticeship programs.
This focus is especially urgent as AI reduces the number of predictable, entry-level roles that once served as training grounds. And while automatic these tasks can be productive, eliminating all entry-level positions isn’t the answer.
After all, we will still need people who grow into experts, managers, powerhouses, leaders, and change-makers.
Apprenticeships, when designed with care, can be the launchpad.
These seven insights offer a blueprint for modernizing corporate apprenticeships to meet the demands of today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. Practitioners can use them to move beyond treating apprenticeships as static talent pipelines, and begin seeing them as living learning ecosystems that flex and adapt to meet emerging needs.
The most effective programs will continue to evolve. Practitioners can use these insights to ask sharper questions, pilot targeted changes, and gather feedback not just from apprentices but also from supervisors, teams, and future placement managers.
By anchoring programs in real work, investing in relationships, and supporting self-directed learning, practitioners can build apprenticeships that produce not just job-ready talent but adaptable, engaged, and resilient contributors ready for whatever comes next.
This piece was written by Dr. Tessa Forshaw, who has overseen this strand of research for the Next Level Lab. Thanks to Mari Longmire and Jake Hale from the Next Level Lab and Jon Rogers from the State of Indiana for their feedback on the work. Additionally, our Accenture colleagues Mary Kate Morley Ryan, Beca Driscoll, and Maggie Lorenz co-authored the first of the two studies with the Next Level Lab and have provided support throughout the work.