Employer Engagement

To improve the way providers of learning engage with employers, this project focused on achieving the following five objectives:

• Articulating the business case for higher education attainment, with emphasis on the business case for institutions ability to recognize non-institutional learning, such as that provided by employers. Collaboratory participants helped develop, pilot, and test tools to show the financial impacts of recognition of non-institutional learning for both postsecondary institutions and employers.
• Identifying best practices for working with employers and industries. Collaboratory participants gained access to leading employers and thinkers in the space of corporate learning and development, and developed tools, resources and practices for CBEN members.
• Credit for prior learning awards were determined by utilizing existing research and frameworks to assess the competencies validated through industry-recognized certifications and work-based training to determine how those competencies could align to degree programs.

Targeting employer engagement strategies, this Collaboratory produced 3 field-facing resources — the Employer Engagement Best Practices Toolkit and the ROI Estimator with an accompanying User’s Guide, as well as a report, Creating CBE Pathways: Insights from C-BEN’s Employer Engagement Collaboratory. You can access these reports in the resource library.