Internal data offers warm leads for employer partnerships, but often goes overlooked. Examine enrollments across your professional and adult education portfolio to find companies enrolling multiple employees. Review relationships across the institution, like companies sponsoring projects or mentoring undergraduate students, to find potential partners already connected to your institution.
Louisiana State University Continuing Education analyzes non-credit enrollment data to find companies enrolling multiple employees. Staff then survey these students to help develop a customized partnership pitch. The University of Delaware Lerner College of Business and Economics grows training relationships by focusing on companies already involved with the College in small ways.
Universities can also turn to their industry advisory boards to find employer partners. A rubric for scoring employer partnership leads. Two approaches to consider:
- Georgia State University builds advisory boards that contain current partner companies and prospects. In addition to curricular guidance, the University consults these boards about portfolio-industry alignment.
- Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) invites the biggest employers within a particular field to their advisory boards. NOVA gains a nuanced understanding of regional workforce needs, and the employers benefit by having training programs tailored to those specific needs.
Employers rarely articulate specific training needs; more often, they express a need for vague skills like critical thinking and communication. When they are specific, company leaders might articulate the same key business program in vastly different ways: a technology officer might advocate for increased IT investment, while an HR officer would shift focus to deficiencies in corporate culture. Misidentified employer problems lead to poor program design and low employee engagement, decreasing the likelihood of repeat engagements.
A pre-pitch assessment can identify employer needs. Use a pre-determined list of questions and ask an HR representative about specific learning objectives, key influencers and sponsors, and audience for the training.
Learn more about how a company operates to deliver a partnership pitch when it will be received well. Employers might reject even a well-researched pitch if they hear it at a bad time in their budget or training cycle. Good things to know before a pitch are:
- The company’s budget cycle (when training dollars get allocated)
- The company’s performance review period (when goals and development plans are decided)
- Upcoming new staff cohort start dates
- Recent or upcoming leadership transitions
Deliver proposals at the times when an employer will most need your services.
