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Class Act
Employers are reaching out to primary schools, helping teachers develop curriculum to meet their workforce needs.
As the manager of onboard services at Alaska Railroad Corp. (ARRC), a full-service railroad that moves freight and passengers between the Alaskan cities of Seward and Fairbanks, Graham Houle's responsibilities include hiring summer tour guides. But he never places a help-wanted ad or contacts recruiting firms. He doesn't need to, because two school districts in the state offer an elective course that prepares high school students for the job. "The railroad gets an incredible product out of these young adults," says Houle, who graduated from the program himself in 2000. "Numerous people in our company who are in their 20s and 30s actually started as tour guides." Companies have been growing talent for years. It's usually an in-house effort, driven by HR. But as the shortage of skilled workers escalates, some employers have reached out to elementary and high schools, forming partnerships to customize school curricula that introduces students to their brands and produces a pipeline of ready-made talent. Although HR can contribute in meaningful ways, the majority of employers contacted for this story -- close to 30 -- consider this effort "community outreach," so HR rarely gets involved. ARRC's program, launched in 1980, is aimed at high school juniors and seniors at two local high schools. The 11-week long course focuses on the history of the railroad and Alaska, current state affairs, local floral and fauna, public speaking, guest relations and career-building skills, ranging from resume-writing to interacting with multiple generations. The program's annual cost is $60,000 -- or $1,200 per student -- which includes teacher salaries, student supplies and field-trip expenses, says Houle, adding that ARRC also agrees to hire at least 75 percent of the program's graduates. Out of the estimated 60 students who apply for the program each year, approximately 45 are chosen. Houle says the railroad applies the same criteria that the school districts use when selecting students for extracurricular activities. For example, they must have a 2.5 grade point average and produce a letter of recommendation from their school counselor. After graduating, students still need to apply for the tour-guide positions. That's where HR steps in -- hiring up to 24 graduates each summer. The local tourism industry usually absorbs the rest. "[The program] does pay off for us," says Houle. "People love the energy that youth bring. It does give gratification to us and the schools that we're [giving] the youth of Anchorage and Fairbanks skills they will use later whether they stay in the industry or not."
Extending HR's Reach School-business partnerships can benefit from HR's support. Consider the program sponsored by Seagate -- Adventures in Technology -- which recently attracted 23 high school students at the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center in Monroeville, Pa. Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Seagate, which employs 52,000 workers worldwide, manufactures computer hard drives. In 2002, its Pittsburgh office was approached by Catalyst Connection, a consultancy for small- and medium-sized manufacturers in southwestern Pennsylvania, to help teachers integrate academic knowledge and technical skills into their information-technology curriculum, says Ed Skalko, Seagate's research director of exploratory technologies. "We're providing technical direction to students on their projects," he says. "So we're just laying the groundwork, introducing them to future science and technology careers." While HR is aware of the program, it is not directly involved, Skalko says, adding that HR representatives did attend initial meetings with school officials and helped select one of Seagate's researchers to interact with students and teachers at the school during the several-month course. The company's liaison developed two technology projects for the 23 participating students, attended several classes, answered questions via e-mail, monitored and guided their progress and offered suggestions for their final presentation, which was made to researchers, HR and Catalyst Connection. Although school-business partnerships can be low-tier projects for HR departments, Skalko welcomes HR's involvement. "HR can be very supportive and helpful in picking people who want to be involved, who are interested in working with students," he says. "HR has a much broader perspective of all the people who work here, sometimes seeing them in a different perspective, and it often hears about issues I sometimes don't hear about." HR officials at Seagate declined to comment for this story. HR can also share information about which positions may be hard to fill in the near future as well as critical skills that may be in short supply, then help schools build curriculum that teaches those skills. That's what prompted the creation of a new competitive program offered by the Cleveland Clinic last year called Literary eXpressions. Like many employers, the Cleveland-based Clinic recognized that many job applicants lack effective writing skills, says Rosalind Strickland, senior director of the Clinic's Office of Civic Education Initiatives. "Medical professionals need to know how to express themselves in written form," she says. According to a 2006 survey conducted by a coalition of business and advocacy groups, including the Conference Board and Corporate Voices for Working Families, more than 70 percent of 431 HR managers who were polled said recently-hired high school students were deficient in basic skills such as grammar and spelling. Literary eXpressions is designed to help ensure that future job applicants at the Clinic and other Cleveland-area employers are properly equipped with those skills. Last fall, high school seniors who participated in the program conducted student presentations about their summer-internship experiences at the research clinic. Then, during class time for the next 10 weeks, they created literary interpretations of how the information inspired them, which could take the form of a short story, poem, haiku, song or video. Teachers also attended a half-day workshop sponsored by the clinic that offered tips for implementing the program and received up to two graduate credit hours from Cleveland State University. Out of 100 submissions, 21 students were honored, each receiving a $25 to $100 stipend. The clinic also published the winning entries in a book that was distributed to parents, other schools and school board members. Likewise, Health eXpressions targets both K-8 and high school students. But instead of producing a literary work, students create an art project over a 10-week period based on the presentation of a health-related topic from one of the clinic's medical professionals. Winning art pieces are displayed for three months at the city's Great Lakes Science Center. This year, at the K-8 level, 200 students from 14 different schools across Ohio submitted projects. Each of the winning 45 students received $25 to $50, while teachers received $100 educational grants. "These programs [help us] get in front of students at an early age," says Strickland. "Critical choices around math and science, which are foundations for health careers, are made when students enter middle school." Meanwhile, the Clinic just added four new high school internships targeting hard-to-fill positions in the fields of pharmacy, respiratory therapy, radiology and medical-lab technology, she says. Strickland's department plans on staying in touch with all of the student participants in both programs, all the way through college. It will track their academic careers, see whether they pursue health careers, and determine how many apply for jobs at the Clinic and if they get hired. "Education has always been part of our mission," Strickland says. "This is an opportunity for us to marry what we're doing inside the walls of the Cleveland Clinic on a day-to-day basis with the education system, bridging that classroom learning to real-world experiences." Reversing Trends
Last year, Stan Smith, national director of next-generation initiatives at Deloitte Services in Greenville, S.C., a division of professional-services firm Deloitte LLC, began researching this country's future labor pool for accountants and consultants. That's when he made a troubling discovery: Of the estimated 16.5 million high school students, only one-third were predicted to earn a college degree within the next six years, according to the U.S. Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics. There was more bad news: Results from a 2007 national survey Deloitte commissioned revealed that young people were skeptical of working for big business and their interest level in accounting and consulting jobs had sunk to an all-time low. "Students aren't going to willingly come into the business world unless we do something to show them that business is trying to help them," says Smith, whose HR job includes developing effective recruiting and retention strategies that target future generations for Deloitte and its clients. The company decided to take action. The Deloitte Foundation recently commissioned author Neale Godfrey to write LIFE, Inc. -- The Ultimate Career Guide for Young People. The curriculum helps middle and high school students map out their personal interests, abilities and business career. It consists of a student journal and career and teachers' guide that contains approximately 10 classroom lessons and a supporting Web site. So far, more than 2,000 schools have integrated it into their curricula. The lessons are designed to help students explore career possibilities, identify their own skills by surveying friends and family members, and then select careers that best fit those skills. They also read role-model questionnaires of professionals in various occupations, learning everything from how they got started to what their job responsibilities are. Meanwhile, more than 1 million students have participated in "Business Smarts" and "Open for Business." Deloitte designed the latter program five years ago. Targeting middle-grade students, it consists of booklets that use cartoons to tell the story of a young woman opening a business. The other program includes a computer-simulation game called "Virtual Team Challenge High School," in which students plan a charity rock concert. This fall, the firm is also launching a Web site for family members of Deloitte employees. Called "Deloitte Insiders Panel," children can learn more about the role of accountants and consultants, play career games and start thinking about their career plans. Smith says only 3 percent of surveyed students are interested in accounting or consulting careers. However, that number jumps to 37 percent if their parents work in those professions. "We're giving them generic information and hope young people will think kindly of Deloitte," says Smith, explaining that many teachers have never stepped foot in the business world and can't teach what they've never learned. Planting the Seeds
Individual employers are far from the only ones reaching out to schools to help grow their future workers. As the economy in many parts of the United States continues to shift from traditional manufacturing to services and healthcare, local governments and nonprofit institutions are launching initiatives designed to help schools and employers get in synch. Pittsburgh is one example. Industries within the metropolitan area are searching for skilled workers in engineering, healthcare, advanced manufacturing and technology, but are having a hard time finding them in the local labor pool. "Employers made this startling revelation and told us what the problem was," says Paul Leger, senior vice president of workforce-quality programs at the Allegheny Conference on Community Development in Pittsburgh, whose funding comes from member contributions, along with state and local foundation grants. "If we could get employers to commit to working with schools to enhance curriculum around job training in their own self-interest, then they could begin to influence that curriculum on how kids came out of school -- prepared to work or to be further trained." So the organization implemented a new economic development program. It signed up more than 80 local employers and 33 school districts to work together on identifying what jobs skills are needed in the workplace, then discuss unique ways to teach those skills. To kick-start the program, it sponsored four breakfasts for superintendents and CEOs. Leger believes his organization is simply planting the seeds, hoping the partnerships take root so it can move on to other economic-development projects. The organization's plan seems to be working. For example, local employers now conduct workplace classroom tours and offer one-day job-shadowing experiences for students. During the summer, a teacher can also spend a few days at a company, learning how to better link their instruction to the real world of work. Still, more needs to be done. Considering the skilled-worker shortage, Leger says HR professionals need to build new, reliable pipelines of talent. He believes elementary and high schools are the best place to start and can be part of an effective recruitment strategy. "Schools and employers are on such divergent paths about how they prepare their workforce," he says. "If they don't begin to go down the same path, employers are not going to have enough bodies and schools are going to continue to pump people out [who] ... can't get jobs."
July 1, 2008 Copyright 2008© LRP Publications |
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