Self-Perform Programs — Build Your Trades Training Pipeline

Self-Perform Workforce Development · Birmingham Metro

Want to self-perform more trades? We'll build your training pipeline.

The biggest GCs in the Southeast self-perform because it wins: schedule control, reduced execution risk, and margin that stays in-house. The bottleneck is never the will — it's the workforce. ARC Workforce Academy designs, registers, and runs DOL Registered Apprenticeship programs that turn your hiring pipeline into a self-perform trades division — without you standing up a training department from scratch.

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The Partnership at a Glance

You get: A trained self-perform workforce
We handle: Program design · RTI · registration
Framework: DOL Registered Apprenticeship
Instruction: 100% online RTI
Funding: WIOA / ETPL offsets tuition
Trades: Electrical · Plumbing · HVAC/R +

Why Self-Perform

The best GCs already know: self-perform wins.

Look at any top ENR contractor — self-performed trades are how they control what subs can't promise.

Control you can't sub out

When you self-perform, the schedule is yours. No vetting and onboarding delays, no waiting on a sub's other jobs, no execution risk hiding in someone else's crew. The workforce is committed from day one, quality is enforced by your own foremen, and the margin a sub would have taken stays on your P&L. That's why the largest general contractors keep bringing trades in-house — concrete, MEP, finishes — and why owners increasingly ask for it in the interview.

The bottleneck is the workforce

Every GC that's tried it hits the same wall: you can't self-perform a trade you can't staff. Poaching journeymen is expensive and zero-sum. Hiring green labor without a training structure burns your foremen and your schedule. The answer the big self-performers use is a pipeline — a structured apprenticeship that recruits, trains, and credentials your own people, year after year. That's the piece ARC builds for you.

What We Build For You

A turnkey trades-training program, under your flag.

Everything a self-perform workforce program needs — designed, registered, and operated so your team can stay focused on building.

Reviewing blueprints and wage schedules in a site office

Program design

We scope the occupations you want to self-perform, define wage progressions and on-the-job learning outlines, and structure a program that fits how your crews actually work.

Federal government building with American flag

DOL registration

We handle Registered Apprenticeship registration with the U.S. DOL and the Alabama Office of Apprenticeship — standards, RAPIDS occupations, and paperwork included.

Apprentice studying wiring diagrams on a laptop at home

Related instruction (RTI)

Your apprentices complete the classroom side through our 100% online related technical instruction — no training facility to build, no instructors to hire.

Recruiter shaking hands with a new apprentice

Recruiting pipeline

We recruit and screen apprentice candidates from the Birmingham metro continuously, so your program has a steady intake instead of a one-time hiring push.

Training funding paperwork being approved at a desk

Funding capture

As an ETPL-listed provider, we route eligible apprentices through WIOA Individual Training Accounts — public workforce dollars offset the training cost instead of your overhead.

Inspector completing a checklist on a commercial job site

Compliance & ratios

Registered apprentices hold the apprentice wage determination on prevailing-wage work and count toward apprentice-to-journeyman ratios — documented and audit-ready.

How It Works

From "we should self-perform" to crews in the field.

Scope the trades

We sit down with your ops team and pick the trades and volume you want to self-perform — this year and three years out.

We build the program

Program standards, DOL/state registration, wage schedules, and online related instruction — stood up by us, owned with you.

Recruit & train

We fill the intake with screened Birmingham-metro candidates; they earn on your jobs while completing instruction online.

You self-perform

Each cohort compounds. In a few cycles you have a credentialed core of tradespeople — and a self-perform line on the org chart.

Two Ways In

Start leasing today. Build your own pipeline for tomorrow.

Most GCs do both — leased apprentices carry the near-term work while their own program spins up.

Fast Start

Lease ARC apprentices now

Put DOL-registered apprentices on your jobs immediately — our W-2 employees, our payroll and comp, your supervision and markup. Prove out self-perform economics on real contracts before you commit to a program.

Crews available from our standing pipeline
No employer burden — we're the employer of record
Counts toward ratios on prevailing-wage work
Release when the job wraps — no bench

See Apprentice Labor Supply →

Build the Division

Stand up your own program

We design and register a Registered Apprenticeship program around your trades, run the related instruction, and keep the recruiting intake full — your employees, your culture, your self-perform workforce.

Your own DOL-registered program, built by us
Online RTI — no training facility required
WIOA/ETPL funding offsets training cost
A compounding pipeline, not a hiring scramble

Scope Your Program →

Training is the moat the big self-performers built.

The contractors winning with self-perform didn't find skilled labor — they made it, with structured apprenticeship pipelines feeding their crews every year. That machinery used to take a corporate training department to run. Now it takes a phone call: we bring the registration, the instruction, the recruiting, and the funding know-how; you bring the jobs and the foremen.

Best fit for

GCs adding self-perform trades
Design-build firms scaling crews
Subs growing beyond one crew
Prevailing-wage & public work

DOLRegistered Apprenticeship

100%Online Related Instruction

WIOAFunding-Eligible Training

MetroBirmingham Recruiting Pipeline

Questions GCs Ask

Frequently asked

Which trades can you build a program around?

We run registered programs today in the electrical, plumbing, and HVAC/R trades, with concrete / construction craft laborer in registration. For other self-perform trades — drywall, masonry, carpentry, and beyond — we can register additional occupations as part of your program build-out. Registered Apprenticeship covers hundreds of construction occupations.

Whose program is it — ours or yours?

That's a design choice we make together. Some GCs want their own sponsored program under their name with ARC providing the related instruction and administration; others prefer to run under ARC's existing registration while their internal program stands up. Either way, the apprentices working toward your self-perform division are your hires on your payroll — or leased from us while you ramp.

What does the classroom side require from us?

Almost nothing. Related technical instruction is delivered 100% online, so apprentices keep full-time hours on your jobs while they study. No training facility, no instructors on your payroll, no scheduling classroom releases.

What does it cost, and what does WIOA cover?

Program design and administration is scoped per engagement. Tuition for the related instruction is published on our tuition page, and because our programs are ETPL-listed, eligible apprentices can have training funded through WIOA Individual Training Accounts — meaning much of the training cost is carried by public workforce dollars rather than your overhead.

How long before we can actually self-perform a trade?

Leased ARC apprentices can be on your jobs, under your foremen, almost immediately — that's the fast start. Your own pipeline compounds from there: apprentices are productive on the job from their first weeks, and each cohort adds credentialed hands. Most GCs treat year one as proving the economics and years two and three as building the standing crew.

Does this help on prevailing-wage and public work?

Yes. DOL-registered apprentices can be staffed at the registered apprentice wage determination and count toward required apprentice-to-journeyman ratios — instead of paying full journeyman rate for every body on the job. Always confirm against your specific project's wage determination.

We're a subcontractor, not a GC. Is this for us?

Absolutely. The same pipeline that lets a GC self-perform lets an MEP or concrete sub scale past the crews they can poach. If you're turning down work because you can't staff it, a registered apprenticeship intake is how you grow the roster without betting the backlog.

ARC Workforce AcademySelf-Perform Training Programs