Potential redundancy at end of apprenticeship would you rather know?

Dakta

Going to be devils advocate somewhat as I read the opening post this in two ways, sorry if it's been clarified.

Has the role always required client facing skills and initiative?  I say this because of the phrasing 'that the future of their role will require them to be able to be client facing' - my initial interpretation was this sounds more like a role scope change than a  performance issue, but I may be wrong because it's a gut feel and the other posters seem to have leaned the other way. 

It either indicates the apprentice hasn't been meeting these requirements, or these requirements are changing and you're adapting the role to meet different business circumstances.

I ask because the situation would influence my opinion, my advice etc, I'd also ask what support you've provided as well if it is a performance issue as it's the nature of an apprentice to have little workplace training so if looking for initiative and drive, and basically an independently managed person without prompting or guidance I'd want to know what led you to taking on apprentice. I'd also want to know what support you are going to provide to get the apprentice up to spec as it is a guided/supported position if you like. 

I notice you've identified an employer taking on someone with a similar role without client facing duties. Are you associated with them, how did this come to note? 

I'm not sticking the knife in but offering an alternative view, I myself lack confidence but am very skilled (not to blow my trumpet) and quite well qualified in my field. I hate client facing stuff,  or speaking to more than one person at a time full stop and for years avoided it but surprisingly was apt at it - it took a good manager to bring that out of me though.

Iamdave

Thank you Dakta

No the role hasn’t always been client facing, and a lot of firms particularly ones we’ve seen locally don’t operate their staff in this client facing role, this however limits their value to the business and usually ends up with the person at the top doing all the top end work and restricts their ability to step away from the business even for a short period. 

Different firms would operate differently but given the sector we’re in the industry is developing and given we’re wanting to have a life outside the business we need employees who can cover us. 

In their appraisal they said they don’t know if they’d like the client facing aspect of the job but will see how it goes. We’d just like to see a bit more get up and go and urgency from them. We had another employee of similar age who didn’t have the grades from school but was bright and confident, they left for another job in the city. 

For those saying we should have known when we employed them, we didn’t really know the industry was going this way at the time but as we’ve developed our own skills we’ve seen it’s the direction we want to take the business. They were employed based on their grades and they belief that a university graduate could develop the skills they lacked.I don’t think anyone wouldn’t have taken a chance on someone who has never had a B grade lol. 

It’s lack of initiative and thinking outside their own desk that bothers us most, they’ve got a slight reprieve at present as we’ve got a role we can place them in for the next 6 months whilst we set out that we expect them to take a bit more initiative in their work. They are by far the brightest employee, probably on paper the brightest employee in our entire complex of a few hundred people of mostly professional university graduates. But not all skills come from books 

thanks for those that see we’re trying to apply the human aspect to this and give them a chance. 

The redundancy aspect people are questioning was just an easier way of describing the situation. They could be let go when their apprenticeship contract ends but we pay better than apprenticeship money and we’ve tried to treat them as an employee rather than an apprentice out of respect to their skill level on paper. In a round about way their role will become redundant tjough if they can only do the office side of the jib and not the client facing aspect