Supporting Our Veterans & Strengthening Our Workforce Through Apprenticeships

As we celebrate Veterans Day and National Apprenticeship Week, we are proud to be creating opportunities for job training and advancement through our Broadband Field Technician Apprenticeship Program, helping qualified veterans and other employees build successful careers and deliver next-generation solutions to our customers.

 

At Charter, our core business objective is to provide superior products with great customer service across our 41-state footprint. In order to deliver on that objective, we are committed to attracting, training, and retaining a highly-skilled, diverse and locally based workforce. Charter’s efforts to invest in its workforce were enhanced last year when the Department of Labor (DoL) certified our Broadband Field Technician Apprenticeship Program, allowing us to begin the process of expanding the availability of this training program from five states to our 41-state footprint.

The Broadband Field Technician Apprenticeship program is a self-progression program that will allow enrolled employees to drive their own careers and gain more in-depth knowledge about their jobs and the industry, at no cost to them. In addition, employees who graduate from the program will receive an industry-recognized broadband field technician certification that they can carry with them throughout their career. Qualified veteran employees in the program get the added benefit of being able to obtain their GI Bill benefits while receiving a paycheck from Charter, helping ensure a smoother transition to civilian life. “Being in this apprenticeship program, I feel it opens up a lot more doors for me,” said Tre Straw, a field technician who is also a veteran. “Charter’s definitely taken the extra step to make sure veterans are taken care of.”

We’ve spent the past year since we received DoL certification, developing the program and training our field operations managers to stand up the program in each of our five field operations regions. We’re pleased that this initial phase of the rollout has been completed eight months ahead of our original target completion of 2020. We are now positioned to focus our efforts in 2019 on actively enrolling employees in the program.

Creating opportunities for job training and advancement like our Broadband Field Technician Apprenticeship program is just one of the ways we are investing in our workforce and enabling them to build careers with us. We ensure all of our employees receive a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour, and we also provide robust healthcare benefits, a generous retirement program including a market leading company match, and are enhancing diversity and inclusion across our company. This commitment helps ensure we have a well-trained, quality workforce who can help deliver the next generation of technical solutions for our customers.

“The quality and the level of training that they give us helps us solve the problems our customers want solved,” explained Charter field technician Connor Moon. “At the end of the day, the customers get the most benefit from this program.” Charter is excited about the opportunities the Broadband Field Technician Apprenticeship Program is going to create for our employees and the benefits that will flow to our customers.