Building the Pipeline Together: A Practical Guide for Employers and Educators

Employers and education programs are working on the same workforce problem from opposite ends

An employer that can't fill skilled roles and an education program whose students or participants need a path into work are working on the same problem, each from its own end.

The employer knows what the work requires, how many people it expects to hire, and where new hires struggle. The program knows what it teaches, who is enrolled, when they finish, and how long it takes to change a course. Neither side can see the whole problem from where it sits, and neither can solve its half alone.

That's why this guide is written for both readers at once. An employer will find what an education partner needs in order to act, and an educator will find what an employer needs in order to stay involved. Both will find the part that is easiest to leave out: the students, participants, and new employees who move through the pipeline, whose experience shapes whether the arrangement produces anything at all.

The two sides are also expected to talk. Perkins V, the federal law that funds career and technical education, requires the school districts and colleges that receive its funding to assess whether their programs meet local needs and to update that assessment at least once every two years.

In that assessment, districts and colleges must consult, among others, the local workforce development board and "a range of local or regional businesses or industries." The same section says ongoing consultation may include employer input on curriculum, credentials, and "current technology and equipment," along with finding opportunities for work-based learning.

So an employer's call may be more welcome than it expects, and an educator asking employers for input is doing what the law already anticipates. What the law can't supply is what the two sides say to each other, which is what the rest of this guide is about.

What an employer needs to bring to an education partner is specific information about the work and time it can sustain

An employer starting a partnership with a college or school district needs to bring specific information about the work before anything else: the roles it has trouble filling, what the work involves, the skills a new hire needs on the first day, how many people it expects to hire, and roughly when. With that, a program can compare what it already teaches with what the work requires. Without it, the program can only guess.

The person to bring that information to is whoever runs the program that prepares people for the work. Titles vary, but a dean of workforce or continuing education, a program chair, or a school district's career and technical education director are common starting points. How do we start working with a local college or school district on our hiring needs? covers who to contact and what to ask in a first conversation.

Money is the contribution employers often think of first, and it may not be the one a program most needs. Real problems and projects from the workplace, access to current equipment, practitioners who speak to classes, site visits, mentors, work experience placements, honest input on curriculum, and a named person who answers email are hard for a program to find anywhere else.

The contributions an employer can make differ a great deal in what they ask of staff. Speaking to a class takes an hour, while hosting an intern takes months of a supervisor's attention. What can an employer actually contribute besides money? sorts them by that cost.

The larger contributions depend on the employees who make them. A mentor or host needs time set aside, some preparation, and support from their own supervisor, because mentoring added to a full workload tends to shrink to whatever time is left over. Programs and employers can share that load by building systems of support, so that no single mentor has to be everything to every student or participant.

Whether the staff time is worth it is a fair question. The answer depends on whether the employer hires regularly for roles a nearby program prepares people for, whether it can wait for results on an academic timeline, and whether it can keep its commitments after the first burst of interest. Is a school partnership worth the staff time it will cost us? works through that decision, including the smallest version worth trying.

A working employer-education partnership starts small, names who is responsible on each side, and decides early what it will look at

A working employer-education partnership can start small, with a responsible person named on each side and an early decision about what both will look at, and then grow from what they learn. One role the employer hires for regularly, one program that prepares people for it, and one or two contributions the employer can sustain for a term or a year are enough to learn from.

The steps below describe that shape, and they apply whether the partnership begins with a guest speaker or with work experience placements.

• 1
  Agree on the problem

  Name the role, the program, and what each side is trying to change, in words both organizations would sign.

• 2
  Choose what each side will contribute

  Pick contributions the employer can sustain and the program says it needs, and say what the program offers in return.

• 3
  Name a responsible person on each side, and a second

  A named contact who answers, plus someone else who knows the relationship, helps the partnership survive a job change.

• 4
  Prepare the people who host and mentor

  Give them time, preparation, and someone to turn to before the first student or participant arrives.

• 5
  Decide what you will look at, and when

  Agree before you start on what would show that the partnership is on track in its first term and its first year.

• 6
  Meet to make sense of it and decide what changes

  Review what each side saw, including what students or participants and mentors said, and agree on what to keep, change, or stop.

Apprenticeship is one form a partnership can take, and a highly structured one. The U.S. Department of Labor describes Registered Apprenticeship as a paid job with progressive wage increases, structured on-the-job learning with an experienced mentor, supplemental classroom education, and a portable, nationally recognized credential, and it encourages employers to build programs with "workforce organizations, educators, and others."

Whether to start an apprenticeship is a decision of its own, covered in Should we start an apprenticeship program?, and what a registered apprenticeship actually involves has its own page.

Internships, job shadowing, and site visits are smaller steps that let both sides learn how much mentoring the employer can sustain before committing to more. The companion guide on work-based learning goes further into how placements and mentoring are designed.

Employers and educators won't always want the same things from a partnership. An employer may want candidates soon, while a program wants a stable relationship that shapes its curriculum over several years. When the two sides see the problem differently, the conversation itself may need help, and How do I get partners with different priorities on the same page? covers how that is done.

What building a workforce pipeline together comes down to

An employer and an education program each hold half of a workforce problem. The employer knows the work, and the program knows its students or participants and the calendar it runs on.

A partnership starts to work when each side brings specific information instead of a general request, commits only what it can sustain, and pays attention to the people moving through the pipeline at every stage, from the first time they hear about a field to their first year on the job.

None of that has to start large. One role, one program, one or two contributions, and an agreement about what to look at in the first year are enough to begin. What the two sides find out in that year tells them which commitments to keep, which to change, and whether a larger partnership is worth the time it would take.