Workforce development programs – based at community organizations or at community and technical colleges – have sprouted up across the country over the past decade. These programs offer training opportunities that enable unemployed or underemployed adults to return to the workforce or acquire or retain a job in their community. Participants in these programs graduate with credentials and/or skills that can help them obtain a job and, potentially, build a life-long career.
However, for many unemployed or underemployed adults, the effectiveness of this training depends significantly on the degree to which employers are truly engaged in the development and implementation of these programs as well as the opportunity for continuous feedback. When there are more opportunities for participants and employers to interact, there is a greater likelihood that both participants and employers will achieve their desired outcomes – for employers, a skilled workforce, and for participants, employment.
In evaluating workforce development strategies, I have seen employers collaborate in training programs, but the level at which they are engaged varies considerably. At technical colleges, for example, education and training programs must be tightly aligned and connected to the business community to produce optimal results. Yet, connecting business and education always has been a struggle. To mitigate this tension, the Wisconsin Technical College System Board, beginning in the 1980s, identified degree programs that warranted an advisory committee consisting of business and industry representation. The committee was charged with ensuring that technical colleges created programs that met the needs of employers in the region.
Despite this innovative policy, in some cases this mechanism has still not been enough to fill the gap between colleges and industry. In some cases, advisory committees are engaged too late in the program development process, or the advisory committees function as a report out from the college, rather than as a true collaboration between the college and employers. Thus, despite employer involvement, it sometimes has been insufficient in translating training into employment, particularly for those lacking some of the soft skills so important to employers.
Increasingly, federal grant applications ask for demonstration of employer engagement. While this is a promising practice, employer engagement must be more than attending quarterly business advisory committee meetings, or providing input on curricula. Higher education institutions and community organizations must forge a deeper connection with industry, and vice versa, through early, consistent, and deeper engagement, in particular through work-based learning opportunities where activities extend the classroom into the workplace. In my work in Wisconsin evaluating a Round 2 TAACCCT grant, focusing on technical college training programs, I have seen a handful of colleges and employers work together to better meet the needs of industry, and, by default, improving opportunities for students to get jobs in their fields. Promising examples from the Wisconsin technical colleges include:
- Externships and internships with local employers
- Priority hiring from local businesses
- One-on-one mentoring of students
- Job shadowing
- Partnering with employers to allow students to produce actual materials, thus providing free labor to the employer and relevant, hands-on experience and practice for students
When training programs and employers co-create avenues for deeper engagement, they enhance their own relationships and open the door to graduates by connecting them to those who have the power to hire. A strong, collaborative partnership, in which both entities feel like they are giving and receiving, creates opportunities to leverage resources and make a deeper impact in their communities.