How South Dakota Healthcare Businesses Can Sponsor an Apprenticeship Program
Hiring in healthcare is hard. Keeping the people you hire is even harder. Turnover is expensive, training takes time, and the pool of qualified candidates in South Dakota is not growing fast enough to keep up with demand.
Most healthcare businesses know this problem well. What fewer of them know is that there is a structured, proven, and largely supported solution sitting right in front of them. Becoming a Registered Apprenticeship sponsor might be one of the most practical workforce decisions your business makes this year.
Your Healthcare Business Has a Turnover Problem. Apprenticeship Sponsorship in South Dakota Can Fix It.
Healthcare turnover is not just inconvenient. It is costly in ways that rarely show up clearly on a balance sheet. Recruiting, onboarding, covering shifts during vacancies, and losing institutional knowledge every time someone walks out the door add up fast. And in a state like South Dakota where the labor pool is finite, burning through employees is not a strategy any business can afford long term.
Here is a number worth sitting with: according to StartTodaySD, 93% of apprentices continue employment with their sponsor after completing their program. That is not a rounding error. That is a fundamentally different relationship between an employer and an employee, built on investment, mentorship, and mutual commitment from day one.
Apprenticeship does not just train workers. It creates loyalty. And in healthcare, loyalty translates directly to better patient outcomes, stronger team culture, and a more stable operation.
What Sponsoring Actually Looks Like
Becoming a sponsor is less complicated than most business owners assume, especially with PPI in your corner. At its core, sponsoring a Registered Apprenticeship means committing to train someone within your organization, on the job, under the guidance of an experienced mentor, in a structured way that meets the standards of the U.S. Department of Labor.
What you get in return is an employee trained to your exact standards. Not a generic curriculum designed for someone else's operation. A program built around the specific skills, culture, and workflow of your business. That alignment between training and real workplace expectations is what makes apprenticeship graduates different from candidates who come through traditional hiring channels.
The program runs alongside normal business operations. Your apprentice is working and earning from day one, with wages that increase as their competency grows. Structured classroom instruction happens in parallel, coordinated by PPI so it does not land on your plate as an additional administrative burden.
We Handle the Hard Part So You Don’t Have To
As a Registered Apprenticeship Intermediary through StartTodaySD, Propelled Professionals Inc. sits between you and the complexity of the federal registration process so you do not have to navigate it alone. Our technical assistance to sponsors is completely free.
We develop the competency frameworks, coordinate with educational providers, work with the local workforce system, and manage the registration process on your behalf.
We also help you access available incentive funding, including up to $5,000 per new apprentice hired through current StartTodaySD incentive programs. New sponsors developing a program from scratch have previously accessed up to $15,000 in startup funding to offset initial costs.
The goal is to make sponsorship as straightforward as possible, because the biggest barrier for most small and mid-sized healthcare businesses is not the willingness to invest in their people. It is not knowing where to start.
South Dakota Just Changed the Game for Apprenticeship Sponsors
Earlier this year, Governor Rhoden signed Senate Bill 63 into law, making South Dakota an official State Apprenticeship Agency. Program registration is now faster. Local support is stronger. And the state has made a clear, public commitment to expanding Registered Apprenticeship across every industry, including healthcare.
This is the right moment. The infrastructure is in place, the funding opportunities exist, and PPI is ready to help healthcare businesses across South Dakota build programs that actually last.
You do not need to have everything figured out before you reach out. The conversation can start wherever you are.
Tell us your biggest workforce challenge and we will help you figure out whether apprenticeship sponsorship is the right fit.
Reach out to us today.
📍 375 Dakota Ave S, Suite 101 Dakota Plaza, Huron, SD 57350 📞 605.554.3311 🌐 propelledpros.com
Propelled Professionals Inc. is a Registered Apprenticeship Intermediary through StartTodaySD, serving employers and workers across South Dakota.