Toolkit for Developing High-Performing Industry Partnerships
Operational Capacity
Effectively managed industry partnerships need committed partners at all levels. Strong leadership and dedicated staff, with the knowledge and skills to engage in the work and plan for sustainability, can help the partnership achieve long-term success. Dedicated funding from diverse funding streams and partners are essential to meeting the goals and objectives of the partnership.
Operate with Knowledgeable Staff
Engaging employers and partners to discuss topics like job quality, equity and inclusion, and worker needs is important and requires expertise and competency in a variety of areas.
What success looks like
- More employer relationships at multiple levels within an organization.
- More employer champions speak with and recruit their peers.
- Employer and partner participation that moves away from transactional interactions.
Tools
- 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.
- Collaborative Leadership – Learn what collaborative leadership is and how to practice it. Use this to develop an environment where stakeholders depend on collaborative problem-solving and decision-making.
- Changing Systems Is Like Moving a Mountain: And Other Insights from Successful Workforce Leaders – Use this summary of lessons learned and key skills for system change leadership as a guide for identifying partners who reflect these skills and finding ways to develop them across partners and staff.
- Core Skills for Public Sector Innovation – A beta model of skills to promote and enable innovation in public sector organizations. Industry partnerships can use as a guide to identify partners who reflect these skills and find ways to develop them across partners and staff.
Invest in Staff Training to Maintain Industry Knowledge
Staff must be equipped to research trends about regional partners, assets, and resources to stay relevant to industry and worker needs.
What success looks like
- Partnership is responsive to market changes with staff who serve as a catalyst for change.
- Staff have competencies related to emerging areas of expertise such as job quality, systems change and racial equity and inclusion.
- Staff know how to act on employer feedback and how to include worker voice and perspective.
Tools
- Succession Planning for Workforce Partnerships: A Toolkit for Practitioners (SkillWorks) – This report offers lessons learned and a series of tools geared to help projects plan for succession and turnover.
- Voices from the Frontline: An Introduction to New York City’s Frontline Workforce Professionals – This report lays the groundwork for learning from workforce development professionals and what they need to stay and advance in the field. Industry partnerships can use this to understand some of the challenges facing partner organizations and staff.
Align Partnership Priorities and Goals
Ensure that organizational funding, policies, structure, and staffing support strategic engagement across partners and activities.
What success looks like
- Partnership goals and activities are formalized into organizational staffing plans.
- Adequate funding and resources are available to support staff in meeting their objectives.
Tools
- Partnering Up: How Industry Partnerships Can Bring Work-Based Learning to Scale (National Skills Coalition) – This brief discusses the important role industry-driven partnerships can play to align workforce, education, and human services systems. Use this to identify partnership goals and strategies for systems-level work.
- Co-Invest for Impact: A Pivotal Model for Workforce Success (National Fund) – Use this blog series to learn about different co-investment models being used in four regional collaboratives.
- Sustainability Guide for Funder Collaboratives (National Fund) – Use this framework and tools for thinking about sustainability and apply that thinking to the development and sustainability of your industry partnership.
- Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations (FSG) – This report offers a review of what it takes to be a backbone organization and how to evaluate and support its work.
Identify and Communicate the Partnership’s Value
To attract funding from different sources and secure financial commitments from employers, partnerships must “pitch” the value-add of their work.
What success looks like
- Sustainable funding from employer partners to support partnership initiatives.
- An increase in total funding and mix of funding sources over time.
- Aligned funding that supports partnership goals and impact broader systems.
Tools
- The Step-By-Step Guide to Evaluation: How to Become Savvy Evaluation Consumers (WKKF) – Use this guide that was designed to demystify evaluation and help organizations get the most out of learning from their work to develop an approach to evaluating industry partnerships.
- SkillWorks Phase II Evaluation: Overview of Outcomes (Mt. Auburn Associates) – This report on outcomes and lessons learned from a regional funders collaborative can be used by industry partnerships to identify intended outcomes and opportunities for working with the public workforce system.
- Genesis at Work: Evaluating the Effects of Manufacturing Extension on Business Success and Job Quality – Learn about the Genesis initiative – how it worked with manufacturers, results it achieved, and key considerations for other industry partnerships to learn more about this approach.
- Metropolitan Dallas Healthcare Employer Learning Consortium Case Studies – This report highlights success stories and lessons learned from three hospitals in the consortium working with other community and educational partners on upskilling. Use this report as a guide for communicating about industry partnership outcomes.
Build Relationships with Policy and Funding Decision Makers
Relationships are key to developing a solid understanding of the environment that influences the partnership’s work and impacts equitable access to resources and outcomes.
What success looks like
- A mechanism for communicating with employers and elevating employer and industry voices regarding policy decisions.
- The infrastructure and opportunity to impact a system, such as transportation, that intersects with policy, workforce development, and economic development.
- More legislative and administrative support for industry partnerships and strategies, such as work-based learning and apprenticeships.
Tools
- Sector Partnership Policy (National Skills Coalition) – Read some examples of state sector partnership policies that help local communities meet the needs of both workers and employers.
- Funding Career Pathways (CLASP) – Use this federal funding toolkit for state and local/regional career pathway partnerships.
- Public Funding for Job Training at the State and Local Levels (Urban Institute) – Use this mapping of funding flows in three states and a summary of strategies to identify ways in which an industry partnership might supplement funding for job training programs.
- Opportunities for State Economic and Workforce Development Collaboration (Urban Institute) – Explore examples of sector strategies that support better state-level funding alignment and collaboration between workforce and economic development agencies.
- Promoting the Adoption of Sector Strategies by Workforce Development Boards (Ray Marshall Center, UT) – This summary of the processes and funding models through which workforce boards have adopted a sector‐based approach and the roles they play can be used as a guide for talking with workforce boards about aligning resources that support industry partnerships.
