Guide 12 · Long read

Work-Based Learning That Sticks: Apprenticeships, Internships, and the Mentoring Layer

Apprenticeships, internships, and job shadowing succeed or fall short in the hands of the people who supervise them. Here is how employers and education programs can prepare those people, set clear expectations, and find out what participants experience.

The short version

Work-based learning sticks when the people around the participant are prepared to teach them, and a placement on its own doesn't provide that. The experienced employee who supervises an intern or apprentice day to day does much of the work of turning a seat in a workplace into learning. That makes the mentoring layer part of the program, to be designed, given time, and supported like any other part. This guide covers what to build, what to agree on before a placement starts, and how to tell whether it's working.

Lauren McClain, Ph.D.

Lauren McClain, Ph.D.

Co-founder and workforce development consultant, Grantibly

grantibly.com/about/

· 14 min read

What You Need to Know

Key takeaways about work-based learning

What this guide covers
Where to start

What separates a work-based learning program from a work-based learning placement

What separates a work-based learning program from a work-based learning placement is everything that happens around the participant once they arrive. That includes who supervises them, how prepared that person is to teach, what work they're given, and what they've been told the placement can lead to.

A placement is the arrangement itself, such as an apprentice hired into a role, an intern assigned to a team, or a student scheduled to shadow an employee. The program is what determines whether the participant learns anything there.

Work-based learning takes several forms, and they ask different things of an employer.

1
Registered apprenticeship

A paid job in a skilled occupation, with supervised on-the-job learning, related instruction, and wages that rise as skills grow. The Department of Labor or a state apprenticeship agency approves the program.

2
Internship

Usually shorter and far more varied, with no registration standard of the kind an apprenticeship has, so the host organization and its education partner decide how it runs.

3
Job shadowing and site visits

Short, structured exposure to the work that lets students or participants see what a job involves before they commit to training for it.

The design questions differ across these forms, but in each of them a person inside the workplace stands between the participant and the work. Two programs with identical designs on paper can give participants different experiences, because one employer assigns a prepared mentor with time to teach and another assigns whoever is free that week.

That's how the same program can work well at one site and poorly at another. It's also why judging a program by its design alone can point you to the wrong place when it needs attention.

For an employer, this means the decision to host interns or apprentices is also a decision to put some of your experienced employees' time into teaching.

For a school, college, or training program, the quality of each placement depends partly on employers you don't manage. That makes what you agree with them beforehand one of the most important parts of the program. Education partners can reasonably ask employers for much more than money, including practitioners, real projects, mentors, and honest input on what to teach.

The mentoring layer

Why the mentor, more than the placement, determines what an intern or apprentice learns

The mentor determines more of what an intern or apprentice learns than the placement does, because the mentor decides, day to day, what the participant works on. The mentor also explains why the work is done the way it is and notices when the participant is stuck. In some workplaces that person is also the participant's supervisor, and in others the two roles are split.

Either way, the participant's experience of the program is shaped heavily by the experience of working alongside that person.

The federal rules for registered apprenticeships build this in. The U.S. Department of Labor describes the on-the-job learning in a registered apprenticeship as structured training "which includes instruction from an experienced mentor." The regulation that governs registered programs, 29 CFR Part 29, requires each program's standards to provide "assurance of qualified training personnel and adequate supervision on the job." It also requires a ratio of apprentices to experienced workers "consistent with proper supervision, training, safety, and continuity of employment."

These are federal requirements as checked in November 2026, and states with their own apprenticeship agency may add to them. What does a registered apprenticeship actually involve? sets out the rest of what a registered program requires.

A requirement written into a program's standards still has to become time in a mentor's week. Internships and job shadowing have no comparable standard, so whether anyone is responsible for teaching depends on what the host organization and its education partner decide.

A report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine looked at mentoring in college and graduate programs in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. It concluded that because mentorship can be so influential, "its occurrence should not be left to chance or idiosyncratic implementation."

That report concerns students in higher education rather than workplaces, but the same reasoning applies to a placement. Mentoring that happens only when a generous employee makes room for it will be uneven from one participant to the next, and participants may notice.

Treat mentoring as part of the program's design. Before the first participant arrives, name who mentors each one, decide how much of the mentor's week goes to the role, and decide who supports the mentor.

Where it goes wrong

Where work-based learning tends to break down once interns or apprentices arrive

Work-based learning tends to break down after interns or apprentices arrive, in the parts of the program that depend on people inside the workplace. The usual causes are specific enough to check for. When participants leave early, or finish and don't stay, it can look as though the people recruited simply weren't committed. How the placement was designed and supported is often part of the reason.

The first three causes come down to the same thing: the program depended on a mentor or supervisor and gave that person little to work with. That's why many of the fixes are within reach of the employer and the education partner. Which causes apply in your program is something to find out by asking participants, mentors, and supervisors, and Our interns and apprentices aren't sticking. What's going wrong? walks through each one in more detail.

What to build

How to prepare and support the mentors who supervise interns and apprentices

Preparing and supporting the mentors who supervise interns and apprentices starts with time, because teaching someone a job takes longer than doing it yourself. Beyond time, mentors need to know what the program expects of them, how to support a participant without doing the work for them, and where to turn when something goes wrong.

The third step can be the hardest for a well-meaning mentor. Stepping in every time a participant hits a problem can feel supportive, but it takes away the participant's chance to work out what to do and to discover that they can. Questions such as "What are your options? Who could help? What will you do next?" keep the participant doing the thinking while making clear that help is there.

Mentors need support themselves, too. A mentor who is stretched thin, unsure of the role, or left alone with a struggling participant may burn out or stop mentoring altogether. If your organization is also promoting experienced employees into supervision, the same principle applies to them, and We promoted our best people into management and they're struggling. What now? looks at that side.

Before day one

What to agree on before an internship or apprenticeship placement begins

Before an internship or apprenticeship placement begins, the participant, the mentor, the employer, and the education partner each need the same picture of what the placement involves. That picture covers what work the participant will do, who they report to and who else they can ask, how their progress will be reviewed, and what the placement can lead to. When those things are left unsaid, each person fills the gap with their own assumptions, and those assumptions often don't match.

A registered apprenticeship writes much of this down by rule. Each apprentice signs a written agreement that sets out the occupation, the term, the hours, the wages, and a probationary period. The program must also review each apprentice's performance and keep progress records.

The probationary period can't exceed a quarter of the program's length or one year, whichever is shorter. During it, either the apprentice or the sponsor can cancel the agreement without giving a reason, which makes the first weeks the time when clear expectations matter most.

Most internships and shadowing arrangements have no equivalent requirement, so the host organization and its education partner have to decide these things on purpose. Four areas are worth agreeing on in writing whatever the form.

1
The work

What the participant will do in the first weeks, and how that changes as they learn.

2
The people

Who mentors them, who supervises them, and who they can ask when neither is available.

3
The schedule

Hours that fit around classes and other commitments, and what happens when the two conflict.

4
What comes next

Whether the placement can lead to a job offer, the next stage of an apprenticeship, a credential, or a reference, and what that depends on.

Expectations run in both directions. Employers need to know what the education partner will provide, such as related instruction, preparation before the placement, and someone to call when there's a problem. Education programs need a named person at the employer who answers email and who knows what each participant is meant to be learning. The first conversations between an employer and a local college or school district are the natural place to settle these.

The whole participant

How participants' lives outside the workplace affect whether work-based learning sticks

Participants' lives outside the workplace can affect whether work-based learning sticks as much as anything inside it. That's especially true for students or participants who are also attending classes, raising children, or working another job. Class schedules, shift times, transportation, childcare, money, and health can each make a placement hard to keep up, even when the work and the mentoring are going well.

Two kinds of response can help a participant stay.

Design the program around participants' real circumstances

Designing around participants' circumstances can mean hours that fit around classes, help with transportation or other costs where the program can offer it, and a clear way to raise a scheduling problem before it becomes a reason to quit.

Notice when a participant is struggling

A participant who has gone quiet, started missing shifts, or stopped asking questions may be dealing with something the mentor can't see. A mentor who knows to ask can often find out in time to help.

How participants interpret what happens to them matters as well. Someone new to a field, or who sees few people like them in it, may read an ordinary setback as a sign they don't belong. Mentors can help by treating mistakes as a normal part of learning and by connecting what the participant is doing now to who they want to become.

Encouragement has limits, though. A participant overwhelmed by financial pressure, caregiving, transportation, or an unmanageable workload may need practical resources more than a better mindset. A program and an employer can sometimes provide those.

Students start our program and don't finish. Why? looks at the same pressures across a whole education program, and How do students actually end up choosing a career path? looks at how a student comes to see a field as one they could join.

What to measure

How to tell whether a work-based learning program is working before long-term outcomes arrive

You can tell whether a work-based learning program is working before its long-term outcomes arrive by agreeing on what the program is meant to change and then looking at interim evidence while it runs. The outcomes most people care about, such as whether participants build careers in the field, can take years to appear, and a program that waits for them learns too late to improve.

1
Participation and progression

Who enrolls, who is placed, and whether participants reach each stage of the program on time.

2
The placement experience

What participants do day to day, how often they work with their mentor, and whether they get help when they need it.

3
Mentors' and supervisors' experience

Whether mentors have the time, preparation, and support the program assumes they have.

4
Completion and transition

Whether participants finish, and whether they move into related work or further education.

Understanding how the program is running comes before judging its results. If completion is lower at one employer than at another, start by asking what participants at each employer received. One may have had a prepared mentor and real work, and the other little supervision and little to do. Completion and hiring numbers can show you where to look, and the people involved can help explain why.

Participants, mentors, supervisors, employers, and program staff each see a different part of the program. Surveys, focus groups, and participatory listening sessions are designed to hear from each of them. Ripple Effects Mapping is one participatory method for tracing what a program set off, including what nobody planned: participants share stories of what changed and map how one effect led to another.

Who asks the questions matters too. Participants may not be candid with the supervisor who decides whether they get a job offer, and an external evaluator removes the power dynamic between program staff and participants.

Deciding what to ask, whom to ask, and when is design work an evaluator does with the program. Each kind of evidence, and when to look at it, is laid out in how to know whether a work-based learning program is working, and teams weighing a do-it-yourself approach can start with what a program can realistically evaluate on its own.

Getting started

Which kind of work-based learning to start with, and how fast to grow it

The kind of work-based learning to start with depends on the problem you're trying to solve and on how much mentoring your organization can sustain right now. An apprenticeship suits a skilled role that people learn over time through supervised work. It fits best when you'll need people in that role for several years and can commit experienced employees to teaching them.

Under the federal rules, a registered apprenticeship involves at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job learning in a time-based program, or a demonstration of specified skills in a competency-based one. The commitment often runs a year or longer.

If you're not ready for that, smaller forms of work-based learning are a legitimate place to start. Hosting a few interns, offering job shadowing and site visits, or having an experienced employee speak to a class can come first. Each lets you learn how much mentoring your team can give and what support newcomers need before you commit to a multi-year program. Should we start an apprenticeship program? works through that decision, including when the honest answer is to wait.

Whichever form you choose, grow it at the pace your mentoring can support. Adding participants faster than you can prepare mentors spreads the same experienced employees across more newcomers. That's one way a program that worked well with a small group can struggle with a larger one. Before expanding, look at what participants and mentors in the current group experienced, and act on what they tell you.

A simple check before expanding. Count the prepared mentors who have time for the role, and add only as many participants as they can support.

The same applies to an education program choosing where to place its students or participants. An employer that can name a mentor, describe the work, and say what the placement leads to is ready to host. An employer that wants participants but can't yet answer those questions may be better suited to site visits or classroom visits for now, while you work out the rest together.

The Grantibly perspective

Lauren's perspective

At Grantibly, we have evaluated federally and privately funded programs designed to prepare people for high-demand careers, including apprenticeships and other career pathways. Projects are often eager to know whether their program worked. That's an important question, but it's difficult to interpret outcomes without understanding implementation. Was the program implemented as intended? Who participated? How much of the program did participants actually receive? What barriers emerged? Did participants at different sites have the same experience?

When a program falls short of its goals, the program may not have been fully implemented, participants may not have received enough of it, external conditions may have changed, or the model may need refinement. Programs evolve. Staff change. Partners change. In work-based learning, a new mentor or supervisor is one of those changes, and it can change a participant's experience considerably.

The people closest to the work often know things the data can't tell you on its own. People who stay can tell you what is working. People who leave can identify friction points. In a work-based learning program, those people are the participants and the mentors who work beside them. Administrative data might show that one group has lower completion rates. Participant feedback may reveal barriers the numbers alone can't identify.

So instead of asking only whether a program worked, we would ask what worked, for whom, under what conditions, and what evidence supports that conclusion.

The Bottom Line

Work-based learning sticks when the people who teach it are prepared and supported

Work-based learning sticks when the program treats the people who supervise and mentor participants as part of its design. An apprenticeship, internship, or job shadowing placement puts a participant in a workplace. The mentor, the supervisor, and the expectations set before the first day then determine much of what that participant learns there and whether they stay.

For employers, hosting participants is a commitment of experienced employees' time, and that commitment works best when it's planned and protected. For education programs, what you agree with employers before a placement begins is as much a part of the program as anything you teach. Either way, ask participants and mentors what they're experiencing while there's still time to act on what they say.

A work-based learning program is only as strong as the support it gives the people who do the teaching.

Sources
  1. U.S. Department of Labor, Apprenticeship.gov, "Registered Apprenticeship Program"
  2. Code of Federal Regulations, 29 CFR Part 29, Labor Standards for the Registration of Apprenticeship Programs
  3. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM (2019)
  4. Hansen, Warner, and Sero, "Ripple Effects Mapping: Identifying Expected and Unexpected Outcomes," Western Extension Risk Management Education Center, Washington State University
Frequently Asked Questions

More questions about work-based learning

Is an internship or an apprenticeship the better fit for our organization?

Whether an internship or an apprenticeship is the better fit for your organization depends on the role and on how long you'll need people in it. An apprenticeship suits a skilled role learned over time through supervised work, with apprentices employed and paid on a rising wage schedule. An internship is usually shorter and more flexible, and it can be a good way to learn how much mentoring your team can give before committing to more.

How many apprentices can one mentor supervise in a registered apprenticeship?

How many apprentices one mentor can supervise in a registered apprenticeship is set in each program's own standards rather than by a single federal number. The federal rule requires a ratio of apprentices to experienced workers consistent with proper supervision, training, safety, and continuity of employment, and a collective bargaining agreement can also apply. Your state's apprenticeship agency can tell you what applies where you are.

Do mentors of interns and apprentices need time taken off their regular work?

Mentors of interns and apprentices need time set aside from their regular work, because teaching someone a job takes longer than doing it. How much depends on the role and the participant, so agree on an amount before the placement starts and check during it whether that amount was realistic. A mentor expected to fit the role around a full workload may end up mentoring only when there's a spare minute.

Can a small employer offer work-based learning without running its own program?

A small employer can offer work-based learning without running its own program. Job shadowing, site visits, and internships can be arranged with a local school, college, or training program. In a registered apprenticeship, the sponsor that runs the program can be an association, committee, or other organization. Apprentices can be employed by participating employers, which can make the paperwork and the related instruction more manageable.

Who should ask interns and apprentices about their placement experience?

The person who asks interns and apprentices about their placement experience should usually be someone other than their supervisor, because participants may not be candid with the person who decides whether they get a job offer or a good reference. An external evaluator removes the power dynamic between program staff and participants. Whoever asks should explain how the answers will be used and protect participants' privacy, following IRB and institutional guidelines where they apply.

What should a school or college ask of an employer that hosts its students or participants?

A school or college can ask an employer that hosts its students or participants for a named mentor with time for the role and real work with the context explained. It can also ask for clear expectations about what the placement can lead to and a contact who answers email. It's reasonable, too, to ask the employer to share what it notices about how participants are doing, so problems come up while there's still time to address them.

How soon can we tell whether the mentoring in our work-based learning program is working?

You can start to tell whether the mentoring in your work-based learning program is working during the first group of placements, by checking in with participants and mentors as the placements run and watching whether participants leave at the same point or from the same team. Those signals won't show the program's long-term outcomes, but they show whether participants are getting the support the program was designed to give.

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Lauren McClain, Ph.D.

Lauren McClain, Ph.D.

Lauren McClain, Ph.D. is a co-founder of Grantibly and a workforce development consultant who develops the workforce through evaluation, training, facilitation, and strategic planning. A sociologist and former faculty member at Savannah State University and Western Kentucky University, she taught more than 50 social research methods courses, mentored more than 21 thesis and dissertation committees, and served on three Institutional Review Boards. Her work helps organizations use evidence to understand what is happening, decide what to do next, and do MORE good.

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