Employer Engagement Blueprint

EMPLOYER ENGAGEMENT BLUEPRINT COMPONENTS

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PART I - Employability Skills Analysis and Academic Alignment:  Every institution should create a taxonomy of employability skills that are universal to all academic pathways.  These skills must include attributes grounded in “future-proofing” the workforce of Lebanon.   A cross-sector collaboration must be evident.   This process must include an employer survey instrument with results reported back to all stakeholders.  Academic programs must produce artifacts which evidence attainment of all core employability skills.  Ideally, these artifacts emerge from existing curriculum not added courses.

Exemplars Provided: Dr. Dunnivant will provide the Florida Chamber of Commerce Employability Skills Framework and the Tallahassee Area Employer Employability Skills Survey.  These artifacts formed the initial activities for the application of the Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT) approach.

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PART 2 – Economic Sector Analysis and Academic Alignment: Every degree/certificate at each institution should have a corresponding economic development sector aligned.  A plan for the gathering of employability data for each sector should be developed with domestic, regional, and global placement targets as well as an evident gap analysis cycle.  These targets should be aligned with enrollment, completion, and placement targets and metrics.

 

Exemplar Provided: Dr. Dunnivant will review the US Department of Labor’s 16 Sector Workforce Cluster approach and his Advanced Technology Center (ATC) Economic Sector Analysis and Academic Alignment spreadsheet.  This analysis was used in the design of the ATC and development of academic programs.  Academic program enrollment and completion targets were provided to the state legislature supporting the funding of this $35 million center.

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PART 3 – Authentic Employer Ownership of KSA-based Curriculum Development:  Evidence of employer engagement must include strategies and deliverables to assure employers have genuine ownership of curricular activities aligned with their prioritized needs regarding job-specific knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs).  Models must move beyond traditional “advisory groups” to engage faculty as a component of tenure and scholarship.  Clear institutional policies should accompany the ongoing implementation of the selected process.

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Exemplars Provided: Dr. Dunnivant will provide working templates of the BILT KSA Spreadsheet first exhibited in Beirut.  Participant Employer Engagement Blueprints must include implementation of such granularity or an equivalent as well as cyclic frequencies for faculty and employer collaboration on the identification and ranking of KSAs. 

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PART 4 – Talent Supply & Education Pipeline:  Clear strategies to facilitate and assure talent provision to employers must evidence foundational outreach (early learning, K-12), postsecondary articulations with CTE and technical schools, incumbent worker, and on-the-job collaborations, bootcamps internships and apprenticeships. Ideally, these efforts should engage any economic development agencies (EDAs) locally, regionally, and/or globally.

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Exemplars Provided: Dr. Dunnivant will provide institutional examples of articulations to include 2+2, 2+2+2 models, stacked certificates, bootcamp examples, internships, and apprenticeships.  Participating institutions should identify either existing employers possessing potential to support such examples and/or identify targets for specific academic programs prime for enrollment growth or necessitating enrollment support from employers.

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PART 5 – Ongoing Assessment, Adaptation, and Future-proofing of Employer Engagement: To include clear evidence of continued employer engagement and integration of entrepreneurship.  The Employer Engagement Blueprint should include clear strategies to assess the overall effectiveness of the plan, indices of measurement, stakeholder inclusion (at leadership, faculty, student, employer, and community levels), academic program assessment, and funding details where possible (such as intellectual property monetization).  This section should address sustainability of the blueprint, including “agility” markers aligned with entrepreneurial ecosystems and targeted aspects of entrepreneurship, “intrepreneurship,” and curricular themes associated with the institutions’ perceptions of the future of work.

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 Exemplars Provided: Dr. Dunnivant will provide examples of Accrediting Body Metrics (SACS) as well as Third Party Program Certifications.  Dr. Dunnivant will also provide examples of Intellectual Property Policy, Fab Lab and Maker Spaces Start-Up Kit, and the unique “pledge model” policy for scholarships and academic program support.

 

Let us know your thoughts and concerns.  By offering the above, each institution will have a FIVE element Employer Engagement Blueprint to integrate into whatever level of progress they are at by fostering the inter-institutional capacity for shared practices relevant to their respective ecosystems.  This approach aligns well with research recommendations as institutions align efforts to engage alumni, together funneling those parties toward expanded institutional resources and enrollment and completion growth trends.

 

Dr. Stephen Dunnivant