1.5 Internal Assessment of Industry Partners & Engagement Processes

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An internal assessment of current industry partners and engagement processes.

Overview

The internal partner assessment is an analysis of your current employer contacts, how they experience your services, and where the gaps are. Examining your existing contact database enables you to uncover pain points, understand the current status of your employer involvement and where improvements can be made. Before you can improve and expand your relationships with employers, you must understand the existing forms of engagement.

Discoveries gained from the internal assessment informs and frames your strategy for new industry partner involvement. Unless the barriers employers face are addressed in your engagement strategy, your efforts to more deeply involve employers are not likely to succeed.

Assess Your Current Partners

1. Assess who your current partners are, what type of organizations are they from, where are they located and what type of opportunities are they offering.
2. Analyze what you need or want from your partners.
3. Assess areas where you expect more involvement.
4. Quantify specific relationships and why they are important.

Assess Your Process – Employer Journey Map

A journey map is a research-based tool. It examines the story of how an industry partner relates or connects with you over time. No two employer journeys are exactly the same but they can be generalized to provide insight into the “typical journey” for an employer as well as offer insights into pain points and areas for improvement.

Service delivery or engagement is a funny thing, it is not measured in jobs posted, number of work terms completed, employer emails, clicks, or even phone calls. It’s a measure of how much your industry partners feel they are in a relationship with your department and institution. Understanding the employer’s perspective helps you to see where and how you can improve service delivery and strengthen industry college relationships. Use the EJM tool to examine your engagement process across service stages.

Profile your Partners

An employer persona is a semi-fictional representation of an ideal employer contact, segmented in a meaningful way and based on real data. They help you understand your employers (and prospective employers) better, and make it easier to connect with them, tailor messaging to their specific needs, and consider how best to provide value to them.

Research Study – Engaging Employers in WIL

PhillipsKPA. (2014, October). Engaging employers in work integrated learning: Current state and future priorities.

• Employers typically first participated in WIL after being approached by a university or student.
• A clear majority (88 per cent) of organizations participating in WIL plan to continue engaging university students over the next two years.
• 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 the term.
• 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.
• For smaller organizations, ensuring the quality of the WIL experience is particularly challenging given their limited resources.
• The two main barriers for organizations currently providing WIL opportunities are lack of resources and time for supervision of the university student.
• The strongest factors encouraging ongoing employer engagement in WIL are support from universities, good personal links with universities, and effective university coordination of students.

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1.4 WIL Reports & Insights

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1.6 Internal Assessment – Camosun College