Industry Partner Engagement Toolkit

1.4 WIL Reports & Insights

Industry partner involvement in WIL

The role work-integrated learning plays in students’ career development is well known but how best to engage industry partners and build partnerships is an under-researched domain, especially in Canada. A few reports point out some key challenges that are having an impact on partner engagement in WIL.

Research (Patrick, Peach, & Pocknee, 2009; Patrick et al., 2014; PhillipsKPA, 2014; Smith et al., 2014; Ferns et al., 2016) have identified challenges and barriers that employers face in their involvement in WIL including associated cost, insufficient resources and support, staff capacity to mentor and supervise students, complexity of partnering with universities and limited, unclear information about how to engage the WIL process. The PhillipsKPA (2014) study of employer engagement with WIL concluded that enabling factors such as “clear and accessible information about WIL” (p. 50) were potentially more effective than the barriers to WIL. 

Biggest barriers to employer engagement in WIL

  • Associated costs.
  • Insufficient resources and support.
  • Staff capacity to mentor and supervise students.
  • Complexity of partnering with colleges and universities.
  • Limited, unclear information about how to engage the WIL process. 

New employers rarely take the initiative

  • Employers typically first participated in WIL after being approached by a university or student.
  • The number of small to medium sized organizations taking the initiative in approaching a college or university is small.

WIL is not top of mind with employers

  • Just one in five organizations not participating in WIL have thought about or attempted to engage a student.
  • While the umbrella term ‘Work Integrated Learning’ is established among key stakeholders, almost half of the organizations surveyed are not familiar with term.

WIL involvement more prominent with older, larger organizations

  • Organizations most likely to be active in providing students with WIL experiences are those that have been in operation around 20 years and/or have more than 15 employees.

The strongest factors encouraging ongoing employer engagement in WIL are support from colleges/universities, good personal links with colleges/universities, and effective coordination of students.

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ACE-WIL Employer Survey

Source: ACE-WIL, Dec 2020

ACE-WIL conducted an employer survey in December 2020 with all 18 post-secondary institutions in BC. Of the 1494 total surveys collected, 126 employers from Camosun completed the survey. The summary of results include the following:

Top reasons employers participate in WIL

Canadian employers are missing out: our research shows that employers who coordinate more frequently with education providers have better results in their search for talent…. However, employers who do not interact see disappointing outcomes—and nearly a third report that a lack of skills is hurting their business.


McKinsey & Company, 2015


BC WIL Employer/Community Partner Survey

Qualitative Analysis, Key Findings, Camosun College Summary

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