Addressing Skills Gaps in Wholesale and Retail : Development and Successful Implementation of Structured Apprenticeship Model

This article illustrates a structured apprenticeship model for wholesales and retails that was developed and implemented across all business and management studies within Universiti Utara Malaysia. The apprenticeship program provides four semesters of training and work placement for graduates of business and management studies before they are employed by the enthusiastic wholesalers and retailers. The purpose of this article is to describe the apprenticeship model, to investigate the benefits of the program and to point out the areas of up-skilling graduates’ skills. Results based on key performance indicators on the pilot study of this program in 2012 indicate that the program is very successful in training graduates to become competent executives and managers in wholesales and retails industry. Mentoring instructors and retailers also benefited from working and engaging in the program. Introduction Extensive studies have been devoted to investigate the contribution of apprenticeship to enhance intermediate skills among graduates, or participants and to reduce the unemployment (e.g. Fersterer, Pischke & Winter-Ebmer, 2008; Kost, 2008; Backus, Keegan, Gluck & Gulick, 2010). Also, the apprenticeship systems have been claimed to deliver relative low unemployment rates in Japan (Madon, 1998) and other countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Ryan, 2001). However, there is evidence that industries find the apprenticeship program as unpopular where they prefer to recruit skilled workers and have their own in-house upgrade training (Beckmann, 2002; Lewis, Ryan & Gospel, 2008). These findings indicate that the successful of the apprenticeship program is heterogeneous, influenced by the quality of the program and the strength of engagement between government, industries and education institutions. The wholesale and retail industry is today the fourth biggest contributor to the Malaysia gross national income (GNI). The industry contributes about RM83 billion (USD27.3 billion) in 2010 (PEMANDU, 2011) and keeps on growing. It is projected that 595 thousand new jobs creation from the industry by year 2020 (Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education, 2012). The industry has witnesses considerable changes in recent years, influenced by the accessibility of internet and sophisticated communication tools and new socialisation. Large wholesalers and retailers have undergone considerable structural change, with traditional hierarchical systems of management being replaced by dynamic structures and involve responsibility being devolved more widely through organisation. Besides, official ministries have given serious attention and support to transform local wholesalers and retailers under the along themes of “Modernise, Globalise and Revolutionalise”. Such changes require for employees with higher skill levels to exploit such momentum. This need is said to have been accentuated by the fact that workers must be able among others to work more flexibly, able to take a broader variety of roles, able to communicate effectively and demonstrate good problem solving. The launched of national economic transformation has driven the Ministry of Higher Education to launch the Graduate Employability Blueprint for 2012-2017. The blueprint attempts to boost the level of graduates’ marketability and to fulfil the needs of the professional and skilled manpower especially towards the 12 National Key Economic Areas which includes wholesale and retail. The blueprint among others highlights the needs to enhance technical skills and soft skills among graduates which have been determined as crucial by employers. The list of skills includes poor command in English, attitude or personality towards jobs, low demonstrate ability to solve problems, insufficient job skills and general knowledge (Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education, 2012). Studies report that universities incorporate both technical and soft skills into academic curriculum which cover experience learn in workplace learning through internship or structured parttime job, embed industry input into existing curriculum, supporting programs in students’ development career management skill, laboratory experience and academicians experience in workplace (Bilkinsoy, 2007; Lewis et al., 2008). However, the implementations of the programs are rather in contested space (red ocean) where some agencies, departments and universities competing each other to execute “effective skills development” and enhancement apprenticeship programs. Meanwhile, few private or government listed companies engage with the programs, hence there are some issues with manpower supply-chain from university to industry. This paper aims to discuss the refinement made on an apprenticeship program that was developed based on blue ocean strategy. Under the support of some official ministries, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) take a lead to bring in other universities, employers and agencies to structure a continuous teaching and learning process via apprenticeship program specifically for wholesale and retail industry. The benefits of the program will be outlined and some areas of up-skilling graduates’ skills for meeting employers’ demand in wholesale and retail industry will be highlighted. Methods The goal of the apprenticeship program for wholesale and retail industry is to increase the employability rate among the university graduates upon their 6-month completion of study. In practice, the university have many skills enhancement programs, conducted by students affairs department, centres, schools and sometimes with collaborated industries. These scenarios are rather in contested space where each provider conducted similar programs and the up-skilling skills among graduates are not properly addressed. Meanwhile, the government organised bridging the gap employability program to accelerate the transition from education to employment, but graduates are re-train. Through the concept of blue ocean strategy, we are able to develop an apprenticeship program that (i) eliminates the duplication of programs among the skills providers and (ii) minimises the skills gaps from university to industry. The program is championed by the UUM, the Ministry of Higher Education and some enthusiastic employers in wholesale and retail industry in the country. This collaboration teams creates Industry Centre of Excellence (ICoE) to focus on talent development via technology and knowledge sharing. The program is driven by the needs of the enthusiastic employers so that graduates are highly secured job, offered for scholarship and enhance in life-long learning. However, we limit our discussion to the development phase that was made in the university, where the development of apprenticeship program was based on an algorithmic approach to refine the existing skills enhancement programs. Figure 1. Development of apprenticeship program for wholesale and retail industry. The development of the apprenticeship program for wholesale and retail industry is given in Figure 1. The document problem phase (i) identifies problems faced by the employers towards skills of employees and (ii) determines the available trainings in the university. In this phase, Centre of University-Industry Collaboration (CUIC) in UUM acts as a window of communication to pull information from both university and industries. A survey was conducted by the CUIC to determine the important skills required by the employers upon the recruitment and a statistic on number of job offered. Next, the list of skills enhancement or development programs which currently running in the university was prepared. Next, the formulate problem phase addresses some questions pertaining inability universities to meet requirements from industries. We implemented the 5Ws and an H questions to determine the “right” problem. The questions are Document problem