PARTNERING WITH A COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY

From the desk of Marcia Dresner...

Colleges and universities play a vital role in developing future leaders, thinkers, and scholars. As the need for businesses to develop human capital becomes stronger, corporate learning executives are increasing their reliance on universities to help educate and develop workforce skills and competencies. Companies are beginning to see the importance of these relationships, and we want to know how you established your successful partnership. 

Why a partnership with a college or university?

The need for businesses to develop human capital is driven by globalization and increased competition from emerging countries. In response, companies are investing in the skills and talents of their own employees and turning to a local college or university to do supplement their learning programs to do so.

This type of partnership works to address critical business challenges by leveraging the wealth of content and resources that is accessible through a university. The need for a partnership becomes evident when an organization is confronted with a business challenge in which they are unable to solve themselves. The solutions a university has to offer should show palpable benefits and may include:

• Degree
• Certificates
• Specialized custom programs

What actions are required from both ends to aid success?

Organizations need to be on their game in order to establish a successful relationship, and must present a clear vision of what the collaboration is to accomplish. This consists of a description of the business challenge coupled with an overall cost and benefit discussion. Additionally, the organization needs to be the one to define project team roles, communications/coordination, and collaborative partnering techniques.

Universities need to be willing to customize their current programs to the needs of the organization, and must be able to respond in a timely manner based on the level of urgency from the organization. Because company employees are unlikely to just show up to the programs, universities must be able to characterize the benefits of attending a corporate training program.

The 10th Annual Awards Application

For purposes of the CorpU Awards, the college can be a “for profit” or “not-for-profit” higher education institution. Successful applications for the awards program will demonstrate:

• A clear vision of what the collaboration was designed to accomplish. This should consist of a description of the business challenge the organization faced when it decided to seek assistance from a college or university coupled with an overall cost and benefit discussion.
• Carefully defined project team roles, communications/coordination, and collaborative partnering techniques that contribute to the project’s success.
• The college or university’s ability to customize its current programs.
• An appropriate response by the higher education partner based on the level of urgency required by the project.
• The proper allocation of resources provided by the college or university and the corporate partner to develop the solution, nature, and structure of oversight in addition to coordination and project management activities to achieve the solution.
• Well-defined benefits to the organization’s work force as a result of attending a corporate training program offered through the partnership.

A Range of Efforts           

There are many ways in which companies partner with academic institutions. As the figure below shows, the respondents to the CorpU 8th Annual Benchmarking Study were most likely to have high potentials and executives attending existing programs, with customized courses, degree programs, and off-site courses also used by more than a third of those surveyed.

Source: Corporate University Xchange 8th Annual Report

The winners of the CorpU Awards in this category used all of the methods listed – and more – in the creation of their programs. Here are the stories of two recent Excellence Award Winners, Simonton Windows and The Boeing Company.

Simonton Windows

Simonton Windows worked with their partner – the Corporate Education Group of the Lake Forest School of Management – to create the Simonton Leadership Challenge. The Leadership Challenge was to help develop leaders internally and was a 10-day certificate program comprised of three 3-day courses. The courses were based on curricula and topics taught at the Graduate School, but the curricula was customized in 3 ways:

1. Content was connected to the company’s critical success factors and core competencies
2. All examples were tied to the company’s business and the window industry
3. Faculty were chosen because they were able to relate to the company’s culture, organization, or business

The Training Director had the support of the company’s president, and sessions were designed in collaboration with selected senior management who served as subject matter experts (SMEs) for specific case information. They measured the cost/benefit ratio of the effort at almost 8 to 1!

The Boeing Company

The Boeing Company faced a huge challenge when it decided their new 787 Dreamliner airplane was going to be made, not of metal, but of composites. Everyone from the material scientists, to the engineers, to the people who would have to maintain the aircraft had to learn what it meant to handle this totally different material. Boeing turned to the University of Washington, a long-time partner, for help. The response was a series of courses and certificate programs that not only moved from the theoretical to the practical, but also addressed Boeing’s needs. Here is how the first three courses for design engineers were structured:

• Course I: Aircraft Composite Structures: Mechanics and Materials (40 hours) 80% fundamental / 20% practical
• Course II: Aircraft Composite Structures: Analysis and Design (40 hours) 40% fundamental / 60% practical
• Course III: Aircraft Composite Structures: Design Case Studies (30 hours) 20% fundamental / 80% practical

Over 400 design engineers went through the three-course sequence and the ROI for the program was estimated at 500%. Additional programs were designed to meet the needs of other people critical to the project’s success as well. 

What’s your story?

As mentioned before, there are many ways to partner with a college or university. There are articulation agreements that offer college credit for corporate learning. There is the use of a local 2-year college for certifications and generic IT training, not to mention arrangements in which visiting professors deliver seminars in their areas of expertise. These are just a few methods, however, and the CorpU Awards program is the chance for your learning organization to share what you do. So tell us: what’s your story?

Click here to register for the awards, or click here for more information and applications.

Marcia Dresner, Senior Research Analyst