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The Employer Perspectives Study describes strong employer-community college partnerships. It draws insights from employers identified by colleges as partners that have contributed to their programs. Abt Associates and the Urban Institute, with their partners Capital Research Corporation and the George Washington University, (the research team) interviewed 41 employers to better understand their perspective of what constitutes a strong partnership with a college. In doing so, the study provides community colleges, future grantees of federal workforce initiatives including other training providers and the public workforce system, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other policymakers, and other stakeholders with insights about how to approach, build, and sustain strong partnerships with business.

The community colleges that collaborate with employers received funding through DOL’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants program, a $1.9 billion federal workforce investment from 2011 to 2018. It sought to help community colleges across the nation increase their capacity to provide education and training programs for unemployed workers and other adult learners to prepare for in-demand jobs. DOL administered the grant program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education. Across four rounds of grants, TAACCCT reached more than 60 percent of the nation’s publicly funded community colleges and included at least one college from every U.S. state in each round (Cohen et al. 2017). A key component of the TAACCCT Round 4 grants is building employer partnerships to support the goals and successful implementation of these projects. This study is part of a larger evaluation of the TAACCCT Round 4 grant program conducted for DOL.

Research Questions

• What constitutes “strong” employer relationships for workforce development initiatives, and how can DOL and other leaders support and leverage these relationships across the workforce system?
• What types of employers are involved in strong relationships with TAACCCT-funded community colleges?
• What is the employer’s role in developing and implementing workforce development initiatives?
• What is the nature of the relationship between the employer and TAACCCT college(s)?
• How did the relationship between the employer and TAACCCT colleges(s) develop, and how sustainable does it appear to be?
• What is the value of the involvement in workforce development initiatives to employers?

Key Takeaways

• Employers reported that partnerships ranged in length from a few years (21 employers) to decades (12 employers).
• More than half of the employers reported that partnerships focused on a single education and training program (29 employers), whereas others collaborated with the college on multiple programs (12 employers).
• Almost two-thirds involved more than one staff person in cultivating a relationship with the college (27 employers).
• Relatively few employers made financial contributions (5) or helped the college apply for grants (7).
• Employers that collaborated with colleges for six to 10 years (8 employers) involved multiple staff in the partnership, worked with the college to pursue grant funding, and collaborated on more than one education and training program more frequently than did employers with shorter or longer collaborations.
• About half of the employers (22) reported that the colleges initiated most strong employer-college relationships.
• Some employers (15) recommended that colleges initiate the discussion and be willing to meet at the employer location (e.g., at their offices, industry association meetings).
• A few employers (4) indicated that colleges should involve high-level staff in outreach to employers to signal commitment to the relationship and credibility.
• Some employers (13) said that colleges should consider engaging employer partners early, before education and training programs are fully developed, in order to align them with employer priorities and needs.
• Employers expressed a number of reasons for working with colleges, ranging from specific business interests (34 employers) to sector-building (12 employers) and altruism (4 employers), with some reporting more than one reason. Often these motivations overlap.
• Some employers (11) reported that grants that fund state-of-the-art training equipment or facility upgrades made relationships with colleges more attractive.
• Customer-focused relationships, where the college customizes training and services to fit the specific needs of a particular employer, were not common among strong employer partners in this study (6 employers).
• Most employers reported having sectoral (or broader industry) relationships with a more generalized focus (33 employers).
• Employers with customer-focused relationships with colleges (6 employers) were not more invested in their relationships than other employers were (35 employers).
• Most employers described regular communication of moderate intensity (36 employers).
• More than two-thirds of employers talked about participating on colleges’ advisory boards (26 employers), and most of these had an industry focus; smaller employers tended to perceive greater value from participating on these boards than did larger employers.
• Some employers strongly recommended that colleges hire and invest in staff with a strong customer-service orientation and deep industry knowledge to maintain relationships (14 employers).
• About half of employers (22) cited many benefits from their collaboration with colleges, but satisfying hiring needs was the most common.
• Few employers (9) reported systematically using business metrics such as retention to measure these benefits, and none monetized the benefits.
• Most employers (35) described their contributions to the relationship in terms of staff time, but no employers had calculated the cost of this input.
• A few employers (8) could quantify any costs, and all of these costs corresponded to monetary or material contributions.
• Because they did not monetize costs and benefits, none of the employers formally calculated a return on investment, but all perceived the balance as positive.

Citation

Scott, M., Eyster, L., Su, Y., Blount, D., Trutko, A., Smith, A., Gardiner, K. (2018). Abt Associates and Urban Institute. The Employer Perspectives Study: Insights on How to Build and Maintain Strong Employer-College Partnerships. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.