You’ve heard us mention that we support employers becoming their own apprenticeship sponsors and that’s what needed to happen to get the Repinned Luxury Upholstery apprenticeship ready for DoL approval in Iowa.
As with many companies that start a conversation with our team, Riana LeJeune and Justin Copeland came to the conclusion that the benefits of apprenticeships are amazing, but the admin, compliance and coordination aspects looked daunting…until GoSprout.
Challenges:
A Shortage of the Right Skills in the Workforce
At the national level, there’s a shortage of upholstery skills in so you can imagine the challenge for Riana & Justin, based in Des Moines. Said Riana, “So we were trying to be the trailblazers.”
Iowa Under-Resourced for Apprenticeships
Repinned found that Iowa didn’t have an RTI solution yet but the new Iowa Department of Apprenticeships was certainly willing to help.
Intimidating Process
“It was a bit overwhelming before we found you,” said Justin. Riana added that both getting started and staying compliant appeared daunting.
Understaffed to Run the Program without Tools & Expertise
“As a business owner and already running my day to day business and then trying to tackle this on top of that…a lot of people in my industry won’t take it on because it’s just too many responsibilities…”
Enter GoSprout
But the great news is, we were able to overcome those challenges for Repinned. GoSprout’s Kris Garcia mentioned how those types of challenges are pervasive, but that overall, navigating Iowa was great to work with. Go, Iowa!
So Repinned was able to successfully blaze the trail!
Repinned is now set up to receive apprentice resumes in a way that qualifies for a 50% wage reimbursement from the state.
They became their own sponsor and opened their upholstery track apprenticeship.
They loved our help in understanding how to access all the funding available.
Their confidence in their ability to provide OJT went way up.
And the Department of Labor signed off all of it!
“Putting everything into a structured format so we can progress it thoroughly…will definitely help,” said Justin.
The Industry Is Excited About Upholstery Apprenticeships
Repinned is a member of The National Upholstery Association and fellow members of already been reaching out to learn more about how to offer apprenticeships themselves.
So give us a shout. We’re happy to help you launch your upholstery apprenticeship.
Repinned’s Advice
For those thinking about launching an apprenticeship, Riana says, “It’s important to have a team in place, and the support team from GoSprout is amazing!”
If you want to see for yourself, schedule a guided tour with our team, and we’ll be happy to show you how our apprenticeship tracking software streamlines everything, so you get all the benefits without the distractions of doing everything with spreadsheets and emails.
