Guest posting to voced-coord list June 16 - 28, 1997

Item 4 of 10: How employers benefit

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 21:33:06 +1100
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Richard Sweet
Subject: VocEd: Richard Sweet (guest) - How employers benefit

In thinking of how to convince people to become involved in school-industry programs most of us automatically start with student benefits, and then move on to thinking about how the school might benefit. But neither of these will be able to benefit until an employer signs up and agrees to participate seriously - by teaching, developing and assessing so that quality outcomes occur, not just by offering a bit of work experience.

How about starting with benefits to the bottom line? The Confederation of Swedish Employers has produced a handy little booklet (e-mail me and I will send you a copy) that shows that employers who become seriously involved in school-industry programs have recruitment costs that are only 55% of those incurred by employers who have to rely upon recruiting in the open market.

In Australia we as yet do not have data that is as solid as this. But there is a fair degree of anecdotal evidence around about benefits that extend way beyond lower recruitment costs. For example the supermarket chain that has built competency based workplace learning into the heart of its internal training procedures as a result of seeing their benefits in a school-industry program. Or the regional jeweller who has been able to expand from one shop to four because his long term involvement in a school-industry program has given him a quality of worker that he didn't believe possible and therefore the confidence to expand. Or the building society worker who says that becoming involved as a workplace supervisor has helped her to understand her job far better, as she had to understand it properly in order to pass on its skills. Or the young retail worker who decide to increase his skills and move into training as a result of his involvement in a school-industry program as a supervisor. These sorts of benefits all increase workers' skills and motivation, and they all impact upon the bottom line. And we haven't even started on the benefits to the corporate image, or that warm inner glow that comes from putting something back into the community.

What stories can you tell about how firms have benefited from being involved in your program? Share them with all of us.

Richard Sweet
Research Coordinator
Dusseldorp Skills Forum
210 Clarence St
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Tel: (02) 267 9222
Fax: (02) 267 7882
e-mail: richard@dsf.org.au