The Employer Perspectives Study

Many employers face challenges building their workforce. This includes hiring people with the right skills, upgrading skills of current employees as needs change, and ensuring all staff have “21st Century” skills such as creative thinking, communication, teamwork, time management, and problem solving. Training providers, such as community colleges, can help prepare workers to meet these employers’ skill needs.

The Employer Perspectives Study describes strong employer-community college partnerships. It draws insights from employers identified by colleges as partners that have contributed to their programs. Abt Associates and the Urban Institute, with their partners Capital Research Corporation and the George Washington University, (the research team) interviewed 41 employers to better understand their perspective of what constitutes a strong partnership with a college. In doing so, the study provides community colleges, future grantees of federal workforce initiatives including other training providers and the public workforce system, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other policymakers, and other stakeholders with insights about how to approach, build, and sustain strong partnerships with business.

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• Resource Publication Date: 2019
• Posted by: Erica Acevedo
• Posted in: College Connections