Toolkit for Developing High-Performing Industry Partnerships
Employer and Industry Engagement
Employers often engage in industry partnerships to address talent needs. They begin as a coalition of the willing. Workforce intermediaries work to build trust with employers and industry. As additional employers become involved, and the industry partnership develops, members recognize their roles for investing in workers and creating quality jobs.
Practice: Develop and Maintain Employer Leadership
Employers and industry are actively and consistently engaged and understand the role they play in improving outcomes for workers.
What success looks like
- Employers attend meetings, invite peers to meetings, are responsive to requests, help determine priorities, and provide employer data to inform partnership priorities.
- Employers making job design changes and taking action inside of their own organizations to invest in training, policies and practices that support worker retention and career advancement in an equitable manner.
Tools
- The Next Generation Sector Partnerships training manual – Use this step by step guide to help you build strong, employer-led industry sector partnerships.
- Talent Pipeline Management Academy Curriculum (US Chamber of Commerce Foundation) – Use this toolkit to identify strategies for effective and sustained employer engagement and leadership using employer and other data.
- Leading and Partnering for Greater Economic Opportunity: A Guide for Colorado Businesses (Colorado Workforce Development Council) – Use this guide to learn more about ways businesses can lead at a collective table and work together.
Practice: Use Labor Market Data and Industry Intelligence
Data informs the development of equitable goals and activities that address employer and worker needs – including conversations about the quality of jobs and needed competencies, training, and career pathways.
What success looks like
- Education and training programs are aligned with industry needs and produce equitable outcomes for frontline workers and people of color.
- More employers understand and empathize with the need to improve the quality of their jobs and support worker advancement.
Tools
- Iowa Sector Partnership Toolkits – Use these toolkits for guidance on using data to guide industry partnership building throughout the three developmental stages of planning, emerging, and sustaining.
- Falling off a Cliff: When Workers Can’t Afford to Take a Job – Use this to see how local data can illustrate the cost of frontline jobs and the impact on workers’ public benefits.
- Indicators of an Inclusive Regional Economy (Center for Economic Inclusion) – This report offers an illustration of how a regional partnership framed economic inclusion issues in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region by disaggregating key measures by race, place, and income.
Practice: Activate Employers to Make Jobs Better
Build member awareness of best practices in their sector that strengthen job quality, enhance worker voice, and result in business success.
What success looks like
- Better outcomes for workers, e.g., credentials earned, job placement, retention, promotions, and wage gains.
- Better outcomes for businesses, e.g., lower turnover, higher productivity, and improved customer satisfaction.
Tools
- Job Design Framework (National Fund) – Use this menu of components to identify different ways to create the right quality job for employers and workers. These components can also be helpful in defining job quality and setting goals for improvement.
- Job Quality Competency Model (National Fund) – Use this model to better understand what skills and competencies are necessary for collaboratives to embark on job quality work with employers.
- Good Jobs Good Business (Pacific Community Venture) – Use this toolkit to help small businesses create good jobs and connect to pro-bono business advisors across the country. Industry partnerships can use it to frame conversations with businesses and suggest potential resources.
Practice: Promote Skills-Based Industry Recognized Training and Credentials
Work with employers to articulate competencies, work experience, and educational requirements for jobs. Share industry intelligence with educators and other partners.
What success looks like
- Workforce supply meets demand in an equitable way.
- Placements, retention, wages, and career advancement increase for people of color and others facing employment and income disparities.
Tools
- Building the Talent Pipeline: An Implementation Guide (US Chamber of Commerce Foundation) – Use this guide to learn about six strategies employers can use to be more effective end-customers of education and workforce partnerships.
- Opportunity @ Work Marketplace – This tool connects employers with online training providers to job-seeking STARs (Skilled Through Alternative Routes), allowing employers to more quickly identify and vet STARS who meet their needs.
- Making Work-Based Learning Work for Retail: A Guide for Retail Employers (Jobs for the Future) – Use this guide for an overview of work-based learning models and advice on how to implement them to develop stronger talent.
Practice: Improve Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention Practices
Create a more diverse workforce and an equitable and inclusive workplace by working with employers to update hiring practices. This can include updating job descriptions, referral sources, hiring criteria, workplace culture, policies, and practices.
What success looks like
- Diversity of the talent pipeline across different occupations within the industry sector increases.
- Placements, retention, wages, and career advancement increases for people of color and others facing employment and income disparities.
- Better outcomes for businesses, e.g., lower turnover, higher productivity, and improved customer satisfaction.
Tools
- Inclusive Local Hiring: Building the Pipeline to a Healthy Community (Democracy Collaborative) – Use this guide to learn how to leverage hiring practices to advance inclusive, local job creation and career development for communities experiencing the greatest health and wealth disparities.
- Talent Rewire and Grads of Life’s Opportunity Navigator – This tool can help employers understand and follow best practices for opportunity employment.
- Investing in Entry-Level Talent (FSG) – This resource offers four key strategies for employers to use to increase retention and career advancement of frontline workers.
- The Women’s Fund for the Greater Cincinnati Foundation – This toolkit offers a collection of nearly 60 workplace policies to help employers support, stabilize, and retain employees.
- The Management Center, Equity and Inclusion Tools – This library of tools can help organizations address internal practices and management approaches related to equity and inclusion.
Practice: Promote Career Advancement
Work with employers to redesign jobs, develop career pathways, and remove barriers to career advancement by changing business practices. Examples include providing workers with more information about skill development, offering financial assistance, and creating more flexible work arrangements.
What success looks like
- Diversity of the talent pipeline across different occupations within the industry sector increases.
- Career pathways and resources to support advancement are clearly defined.
- Better outcomes for workers, e.g., credentials earned, job placement, retention, promotions, and wage gains.
Tools
- Advancing Frontline Women (FSG) – This report offers 12 evidence-based practices that companies can employ to help break down workplace barriers for women and create a competitive advantage.
- A Guide to Upskilling America’s Frontline Workers (Deloitte and Aspen Institute) – This guide outlines upskilling practices that employers have effectively applied to develop their frontline workers. Industry partnerships can use this to learn more about which employer practices are already being implemented in their industry.
- UpSkilling Playbook for Employers (UpSkill America) – This playbook highlights examples of employers investing in upskilling strategies to support worker advancement and business competitiveness.
- Progression in Employment: Employer Toolkit & Case Study Collection (Institute for Employment Studies) – This toolkit can be used to engage employers in building pathways and opportunities to support career progression for workers, by creating a supportive work environment through job redesign and supportive management.
Spotlight: Employer & Industry Engagement
The Baltimore Workforce Funder’s Collaborative, in partnership with Civic Works, created an industry partnership in the retail sector where employers were aligned around the mission of creating good jobs. Employers worked with a menu of job quality options to help employers identify where they were with respect to job quality and determine their job quality goals. In addition to receiving targeted technical assistance from Civic Works, employers could be featured on Good Business Works, an online platform that recognizes and promotes small businesses that offer a good job. Small businesses involved in the partnership changed recruitment, hiring, and retention practices, resulting in increased productivity, profits, and a more equitable and inclusive workplace.
