For several employers, their involvement with courses of sub-Bachelor higher education was focused not on recruitment but on the continuing professional education of the
workforce. The policy in several of these enterprises was to recruit part of the workforce at the lower qualification levels and, through in-house and external programmes, support their education and training through to the higher levels. Although the way the employer sample was generated was likely to privilege relationships with colleges over universities, only a minority of organisations used further education institutions (12 out of 101) as sole providers of CPD programmes. Most either worked equally with colleges and universities or undertook programmes mainly with universities or mainly with colleges. Only a small number of organisations worked exclusively with universities (Table 6.12).
Table 6.12: Use of colleges or universities or both for CPD
N=101 Responses Percentage Mainly colleges 20 19.8 Only colleges 12 11.9 Mainly universities 7 6.9 Only universities 6 5.9 Both equally 27 28.1 Other 22 21.8 Don’t know 2 2.0 No response 5 5.0 Total 101 100.0
There were also a significant number of organisations (just under one-quarter) that relied on their own provision of education and training or looked to private providers for this purpose. Where they went outside, they might use a professional body, a specialist training centre (or network of training providers) or private providers of services, including vendor qualifications.
As in the case of recruitment at the sub-Bachelor levels, almost all the employers using colleges and universities for CPD indicated their willingness to work with any college or university that could offer programmes matched to their workforce development needs. Their experience was of working with specific institutions to meet specific employment and training needs. Occasionally, a preference was indicated for the practical skills that were likely to be fostered by higher education in a further education setting. That colleges might be closer to the world of work or more responsive to the needs of employers was a view that featured less frequently in the interviews.
We like working with colleges who offer specialist courses. They are used to dealing with employers. They provide the right environment for our employees – discipline, uniforms, things like that – so we have fewer problems. When we use universities they often forget that their ‘students’ are actually our ‘employees’.
The university has a responsibility to provide a service to the employee but they sometimes forget, or fail to understand this.
Colleges are quicker on the uptake than universities when developing
relationships with employers. Colleges tend to more business-focused, more commercial.
Colleges are more proactive in seeking input and marketing their services to businesses than are universities. Universities tend to be slower at building relationships. They are also more interested in research relationships than commercial contracts.
More evident was a general scepticism about the claims of colleges and universities to be strongly business-facing or commercially-minded.
Training is expensive. It isn’t just the cost of course fees or travel. If an
employee is out on a course I’ve got to pay someone else to do their job while they are away. So really I’m paying double. Colleges and universities never take this into account. When they talk about costs to employers they only think about the fee they are charging.
I look to work with institutions that have skilled academic staff with commercial experience. I want to know who my employees will be coming into contact with. Academic staff must ensure that they maintain their occupational competence – and I don’t just mean through reading books.
Just because a university or college has worked with other businesses in the same sector and knows what they want it doesn’t mean that we want the same thing. I want academics I work with to understand my business.
Some collaboration built on earlier activities, including with colleges where work with employers had also been at the further education levels and where relationships centred on recruitment. Others were more recent ventures. Again, the introduction of the work- focused Foundation Degree had been influential in forging partnerships between colleges, universities and employers. Although some organisations did not recruit higher education students with these types of qualification, they were nevertheless strong supporters of qualifications at these levels and used them to develop their own employees.
On the other hand, there were employers that did not find or secure the kind of provision they wanted. For them, it was more cost effective to do their own CPD and a way of ensuring that the training was up-to-date. All the same, there were signs of change.
Universities and colleges used to tell us what they offered and that was it. They basically offered lots of courses that weren’t of any use to us, so I allocated a lot of CPD to private providers. Now they’ve come to realise that they need to offer courses that align with jobs. They’ve become more realistic.
We have a good rapport with colleges. The colleges know what we want because the lecturers have worked in our industry. The colleges want our
business. We are the customer, so if we have problems the colleges solve them. This works well.
Several organisations put their workforce development contracts out to tender. While some colleges and universities submitted what were considered to be reasonable bids, there were others that were excluded from the process at the first stage: either because they were insufficiently competitive or because they failed to match the specification. Some organisations were surprised by the number of institutions (including some with well-known business schools) that were less than adept in dealing with employers and at operating in a commercial environment. Difficulties had been experienced as well in the lines of
communication with higher education providers, be they colleges or universities.
Collaboration can be hard work. I spend a lot of time chasing the college I’m working with. I would like them to be more open and communicate more. I would perhaps like weekly updates from a key contact. There have certainly been some issues with timescales. The college and business environments are very different when it comes to timescales.
We do have a big issue when working with our local college. The college lacks any employer focus. They just concentrate on educating the individual
regardless of who pays the fees. In fact, they aren’t in any way concerned about where the money comes from. When my employees are on site I know what they are doing and how well they are doing it. When they are out at the college I don’t know what they are doing. I don’t know whether they are turning up, what they are doing or how well they are doing it. I struggle to get any feedback. I would definitely appreciate more communication.
The universities that I deal with are used to working with students who pay their own fees. They aren’t used to working with employers. They are slow to
respond to us and hide behind layers of red tape. For example, if we ask for information about our employees’ progress they tell us they can’t provide it because of the data protection act. However, colleges have arrangements in place that let them communicate with us. Colleges understand they are
providing a service, they know what we need and they find a way of delivering it.
Among the small and medium size enterprises in the sample, a number had struggled to find an appropriate vehicle, collaborative or otherwise, for addressing their training needs. They could not offer sufficient numbers for bespoke training and they found it difficult to identify existing programmes that aligned with their requirements and budgets.
A key consideration was proximity or, rather, travel time which – for the employer – was an important element in costing. Depending on the scale and range of services required, alongside the local and regional pattern of higher education provision, an organisation might have partnerships with several providers. Most employers in the sample had relationships with one, two or three further education colleges. A smaller proportion had partnerships with one, two and three universities. It was common for organisations with multiple partnerships to be linked both to colleges and universities. Among the large employers, there were examples of collaborations with six or more institutions.
Employers commented frequently on the pluralism of higher education providers and their courses. This was among the reasons given for collaboration with more than one provider of higher education. Some providers were more committed to working with employers than others but these were not associated with a type of institution. Several organisations attributed successful partnerships to the enthusiasm and actions of individuals rather than to the institution as a whole.
When I initially worked with the university the pace of their response and the language they used was all wrong. If it wasn’t for the actions of their business manager the whole partnership would have been very difficult. The actions of just one person changed things. Collaboration and partnerships are often about the actions of individuals.
This included individuals on the employer side. A high degree of dependence on individuals was recognised as a potential difficulty and it was highlighted in employer interviews where the arrival of a new manager resulted in more limited responses to the schedule of questions.