Policy Chapters and Sections

OJT General Requirements

Chapter: 7 Section: 2.2.1.1
Effective Date: 5/11/2016
Expiration Date: Continuing
Published Date: 6/22/2022 5:42:12 PM
Status: Current
Version: 3

Tags: OJT, Training, Program Eligibility

  1. On-the-job training (OJT) programs must provide potential new employees (adults, dislocated workers or eligible youth, when appropriate) or eligible underemployed workers with the opportunity to acquire new skills or knowledge essential to job performance.
  2. The Local Workforce Innovation Board (LWIB) may approve the purchase of items required for the OJT such as tools, equipment, and uniforms.
  3. The participant must be an employee during the OJT contract period and the employer must agree to the contract prior to the person’s start date.
    1. Employment will continue upon successful completion of training.  Successful completion includes:
      1. Acquired the skills identified for the training program and met the goals of the training outline;
      2. Complied with all company and employment obligations throughout the training.
    2. The intent of an OJT is full-time paid employment that leads to self-sufficiency according to the most current Lower Living Standard Income Level or at or above the self-sufficiency level established by the LWIB standard.
    3. Consideration may be given to an OJT placement that is less than full-time if an individual is receiving a service other than education or training and has one or more of the following barriers to employment:  adult or youth with a disability, an ex-offender, a youth aging out of foster care, eligible migrant and seasonal farmworkers, an individual who is homeless, or an English language learner, who has low literacy levels and faces substantial cultural barriers.
    4. Employers may not hire OJT employees as independent contractors.
  4. Employers are ineligible for an OJT contract if they have previously exhibited a pattern of failing to provide OJT participants with continued long-term employment with wages, benefits and working conditions that are equal to those provided to regular employees who have worked a similar length of time and are doing the same type of work.
  5. Training does not have to occur at the employer’s location.
    1. OJT providers are not subject to the eligibility requirements for WIOA training providers. 
    2. Although these providers are not included in the State Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL), they are considered to be eligible providers of training services.
  6. Local Workforce Innovation Boards (LWIBs) may combine OJTs with other forms of training. 
    1. As part of a participant’s training outline, OJT may combine other types of training such as work experience, classroom, and remediation.  Training is paid for using an Individual Training Account (ITA). 
    2. OJT may combine with ITAs to support placing participants into Registered Apprenticeship programs.
    3. When combining OJT with other types of training such as those above, only the OJT hours are eligible for wage reimbursement.
  7. OJT participants are not eligible to receive Needs-Related Payments (NRPs).
  8. OJT participants cannot be immediate family members of the business owner or direct supervisor. The term “immediate family” includes a spouse, child, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, parent, mother-in-law, father-in-law, sibling, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, stepparent, stepchild, grandparent, and grandchild.