Employer of the Year Award – Apprenticeship and Internship Award

Initiative focus

The initiative focuses on making employers’ engagement in apprenticeships and/or internships a valuable human resources initiative within the company.

Through an annual prestigious national employers’ event, the initiative recognises and highlights employers’ engagement in apprenticeships and/or internships on the same level as other human resource initiatives.

Target group

This initiative will be of interest to the employers’ association already having or considering introducing employer of the Year Awards that will facilitate apprenticeship and/or internship.

Projects that are looking for a variety of ways to support the introduction or strengthening of apprenticeship and/or internship.

Description of the initiative

Employer of the Year Awards

The three employers association – the Federation of Ugandan Employers (FUE) in Uganda, the Federation of Kenyan Employers (FKE) in Kenya and the Association of Tanzanian Employers (ATE) in Tanzania all have Employers of the Year Awards (EYA).

The EYA is an initiative of the employers’ associations that seeks to celebrate employers who see people at the core of their businesses and have implemented policies, systems and processes that create and sustain enterprise competitiveness, productivity along with industrial peace and harmony. The awards may the held under an annual theme. In 2019, for example, the EYA of FUE was conducted under the theme ‘transforming organisations to optimise productivity’. The EYA is held annually and provides a platform for identifying, ranking and recognising excellence within a number of categories. The process of awarding employers is more similar than different. It is not the associations that survey and rate employers instead it is a third party often a reputable auditing firm or similar. Companies are encouraged to sign up to participate in the EYA. An online survey may be used to establish if the company is eligible to participate in the EYA. Within the different awards categories, a survey (for example using a questionnaire) is undertaken by the auditing firm to rate the different participating companies. The results are then handed to an EYA Committee that makes the final rating and ranking within each category. The awards are then handed out at a prestigious event often with a high-level government representative as the guest of honour.

Each of the associations has rules that govern the EYA process. Part of the FKE rules is shown below.

Source    2018 Annual Report and Financial Statement. FKE.

The EYA can be geared toward promoting and encouraging best practices within each of the categories. Thereby, each category provides a gentle push to employers to improve and strengthen their efforts to do better. It is in this regard that it is interesting that ATE has introduced an award category in ‘apprenticeship and internship’.

Employer of the Year Apprenticeship and Internship Award (ATE - Tanzania)
ATE organised the first EYA in 2005 and has since established the EYA as one of the major annual employers’ events in Tanzania. The EYA has developed over the years to be inclusive of the diversity of ATE’s member base for example by including awards targeted to different types of members such as large and small companies, public, private and NGOs. This means that ATE members that are more similar are ‘competing’ against each other, which makes the EYA fairer and thereby more attractive to members.

Through EYA, ATE seeks to promote and sensitize organisations which put people at the core of their businesses and are implementing policies, systems and processes that create and sustain enterprise competitiveness, and productivity improvement alongside industrial peace and harmony.

Source: EYA 2002 - ATE, https://eya2022.co.tz/guidelines.php

As mentioned, over the year the award categories have developed. In recent years the category ‘Apprenticeship and Internship’ has been added to the 2022 version of the 14 categories award categories. As mentioned different types of ATE members can join the ‘apprenticeship and internship’ EYA category. Adding apprenticeship and internship to the list of categories becomes a different and creative way for the association to give additional emphasis on employers’ active engagement in apprenticeship and internship – making it something that is valued. The category also makes it possible for companies to measure their efforts against others, to learn from each other and further strengthen their efforts. The publicity that the whole event generates and the publicity apprenticeship and internship categories become part of will encourage other companies to do something themselves. When other smaller companies can engage in apprenticeships and internships and even win then we can too.
So in regard to EYA, that is that is valued in regard to employers’ engagement in apprenticeships and internships?

The category takes its point of departure in the National Apprenticeship Guideline (2017)and the National Internship Guidelines (2017). In accordance with the guidelines:

“…employers are encouraged and expected to participate in complementing national efforts toward reducing skills gaps and mismatch through effective apprenticeship programmes whose objectives are to promote employability. Apprenticeship is a proven method of narrowing skills gaps as it emphasizes training at actual workplaces. The unique combination of dual modes of training makes apprenticeship relevant to the skills needs of the economy and reduces skills mismatch. Apprenticeship focuses on combining on-the-job training and institutional learning.

According to the National Internship Guidelines (2017), an internship is a formal and temporary work placement between the host institution and the intern. It aims to expose the intern to experiential learning by integrating knowledge and theory learned with practical application and skills. Employers, therefore, are encouraged and expected to participate in complementing national efforts toward reducing skills gaps and mismatches through effective internship programmes whose objective is to promote employability. The internship focuses on graduates and those entering the labour market.”

Source: EYA 2002 - ATE, https://eya2022.co.tz/guidelines.php

Within this frame, the assessment questionnaire has seven criteria used to rate employers. It should be observed that two questionnaires should be filled out by each employer.

One questionnaire is to be completed by the management/CEO or head of human resources and another questionnaire is to be completed by a trade union representative where available; otherwise by a junior employee who is knowledgeable of the organisation and its management and business practices.

The person filling the management or the employee form may mobilise a team of experts from different departments/sections/units/sections to assist him/her in more technical areas.

Apprenticeship and Internship Questionnaire

Source: EYA 2020 - ATE, https://eya2022.co.tz/guidelines.php

When filling in the questionnaire employers apply the below understanding of the scores for each question.

Source: EYA 2020 - ATE, https://eya2022.co.tz/EYA-Information-Guideline-2022.pdf

The forwarded questionnaire are reviewed through either online or physical verification meetings that is expected to have a duration of three to four hours. To facilitate the verification the employers are expected:

• To provide verifiable evidence (preferably electronically) to support their self-assessed scores. The evidence may include policies, guidelines, reports, videos etc.
• To assign informed staff (s) to participate at the meetings to defend their self-assessed scores (teams for both employer & employee sides separately).

Evidence is needed at every level of rating. For excellence rating, the employer should also be able to demonstrate how it meets that level (apart from just meeting the best practice). This may require varied approaches such as reports, documented testimonies/ feedback from employees/staff or clients on certain services/products; verifier’s on-ground observation of various situations, etc.

To ensure the above ATE advise employers to prepare a presentation by an informed person on various policies, programmes, data, reports, etc. to the verifying consultant. After the presentation, there will follow a discussion of the questionnaire – question by question with the person/team from the employer to justify the score and propose a revision when necessary, noting any reasons for change.

Cancellation of the verification meeting is highly discouraged. However, where it is extremely necessary, the information must be made available within a reasonable time to allow necessary adjustments.

• The overall advantages for employers in participating in EYA is listed by ATE.

• Traditionally, engaging in apprenticeships or internships has not been associated with annual employer awards. Adding such an award category promotes engagement in apprenticeships and internships to a level equal to traditional awards subjects such as governance and leadership, quality, productivity and innovation etc.
• Applying transparent and rigid verification and scoring procedures adds legitimacy to the EYA which is absolutely vital for maintaining employers’ interest and for keeping the EYA relevant as an event that can encourage employers to do better.

• Applying a self-assessment method is, in general, problematic, which is why a sound verification method needs to supplement any self-assessment, as mentioned above. This comes with consideration not at least financial consideration. Engaging independent consultants to undertake an unbiased verification will come with high costs. Consequently, it is necessary to have the financial and managerial possibilities to undertake a transparent and fair EYA process.
• If EYA is only relevant to a few of the associations’ members it may well become irrelevant. Making EYA practically assessable to as many members as possible require an award structure that acknowledges the different characteristics of the associations’ members. If the apprenticeship and internship award, for example, is only relevant to a segment of members it becomes irrelevant and cannot serve as inspiration for other employers.
• That the EYA is limited to members that the employer's association managing the EYA could be seen as problematic as it also limits the number of companies that can participate. However, the EYA is also to be viewed as an event that promotes the association and can give new members.
• Having said that and especially considering work-based learning (WBL) initiatives, it could be interesting to see if such awards could reach out to informal sector employers. Informal sector employers have traditionally taken on many apprentices and interns. Using some kind of recognition and awards could be one of several ways of bringing them closer to the formal WBL system.