With the construction industry continuing to face a shortage of younger people in the trades, on-the-job training is as important now as ever before. While important, the training of apprentices on the job can present difficult situations between general contractors and subcontractors. Consultant Michael Stone shares one example of a GC who had a sub training an apprentice on-site on a time and materials (T&M) contract job for Markup and Profit.
In this situation, the subcontractor is training his apprentice on the job to bring him to journeyman status. I’m all for it. Training is necessary; we all went through it, and it’s how we pass our skill set to the next generation. We need more general and specialty contractors to get involved with apprenticeship training programs. The subcontractor is making an investment in the future of his company and the industry.
But it’s not right to ask the general to pay the bill for the apprentice training if they didn’t agree to it ahead of time. The sub should have told the general that the time would include training time so the general could agree to it or insist on a fixed figure quote.
Training should only happen on fixed figure jobs. The sub could include training in their fixed figure quote, or they could decide to absorb it as an investment, that’s their decision, but at least the general would know what to expect.
Don’t ask another contractor to pay for your investment. You need to be fair in your dealings.