Does working on your supervision practice replace the workplace trainer course?

No. Training apprentices in a company requires an official qualification, organised within the vocational training system and recognised by the cantonal authorities. The practices described here — explaining, observing, giving feedback — belong to everyday practice and complement that qualification, never replace it.

How do you supervise an apprentice when you are short of time?

By structuring rather than adding hours. A short, regular check-in, always at the same time, clear objectives for the period and tasks chosen for their learning value make supervision more effective than constant but disorganised availability. Involving other colleagues in certain tasks also spreads the load.

What should you do when the relationship with an apprentice goes badly?

Talk about it early, with facts, and do not stay on your own with it. A misunderstanding about expectations, a generational gap in attitudes to work or a personal difficulty explains most tensions. If the situation does not improve, the person responsible for training in the company and the contacts provided by the vocational training system are there to step in.

Supervising an apprentice at work: the trainer's role

Sofia, an experienced technician, learns in June that she will be supervising an apprentice from the start of the school year. She knows her job inside out. She has never had to explain it. By October, she notices with frustration that her apprentice “copies without understanding”, and wonders whether the problem lies with him or with her.

It lies mainly with a role she was given without the means to carry it out.

A pillar of the Swiss system

Dual vocational training is one of the main education pathways in Switzerland. The apprentice divides their time between vocational school and the company, where they learn the trade in real situations. An essential part of their training therefore depends on the quality of the support they receive day to day.

That support rarely comes from professional trainers. It comes from employees in post, chosen for their competence and reliability, who add the role to their usual work.

Knowing how is not knowing how to teach

An expert carries out a task fluently, without breaking down the steps they absorbed long ago. That is exactly what makes passing it on difficult: they no longer see what a beginner does not understand.

Three habits make a profound difference to the quality of supervision:

explaining why, not just how: an apprentice who understands the reason for a step will be able to adapt it to a new situation;
observing before correcting: letting them do it, watching, then going back over what was done;
giving precise and frequent feedback, rather than an occasional review.

Giving precise feedback and following someone’s progress day to day are also at the heart of our course The manager-leader toolkit.

What does not replace the official qualification

Training apprentices in a company requires an official trainer qualification, recognised within the vocational training system. No work on attitude replaces it: such work focuses on everyday supervision practice, which the official qualification necessarily covers in more general terms.

A generation gap to get used to

Finally, supervising an apprentice often brings together two generations with different attitudes to work, authority and communication. What seems obvious to one — punctuality, how to ask a question, how quickly to answer a message — is not necessarily obvious to the other.

Naming these expectations from the start keeps them from turning into reproaches. It is one of the situations we work on in Non-financial motivation levers and team coaching.