Herding Cats in Search of Employability Skills
- Bridging the Employer Engagement Gap
In This Session...
•
Some context…why are we here, for example?
•
Employability Issues in Higher Education
•
Outline of an employability project (
WITH HEALTH
WARNINGS!
)
–
2012-13…
–
HE in FE…
–
Down the road…
–
I’m New here…
•
I’m just after your ideas
•
A bit o’ science / theory
•
You do some of the WORK..
K?
Darn it!…I should’ve
stuck with teaching…
OK, What’s Wrong With This Equation?
Our Employability Context
•
North West Region*
–
2
ndhighest population density (490/KM
2)
–
10% of UK GVA (13% of UK manufacturing GVA)
–
3
rdlargest expenditure on R&D by business in UK
–
Highest UK (pc) number of start up businesses
–
15 Major HEIs and 29 HE in FE Centres
•
All seeking to develop links with local communities
•
All facing the same economic and political challenges
•
All competing for the same students and employers!
Background & Context
–
Industry-driven
origins
–
The vocational /
academic
continuum
–
Proximity to
local
community
–
Why do our
Our Educational Imperatives
•
Develop links with ‘industry’
•
Embed ‘employability’ into the curriculum
•
Equip graduates with ‘employability skills’
•
Match these skills to Employer Needs
•
Deliver value as defined by:
–
National comparators (KIS)
–
Students at the heart of the (education) system
–
Employers
Benefits of ‘Community Embedding’
•
Integrating employer based research into the curriculum enhances the
overall learning experience
–
Shah & Treby (2006)
•
Collaborative Partnerships between HE and employers provide benefits
including:
–
Widening Participation
–
Workforce Development (Foskett, 2005)
•
Students learn better when allowed to apply their learning in
collaboration within ‘applied’ settings
–
Harker, M and Harker, D (2007)
•
Enhances development of creative problem solving strategies in
undergraduates
Some questions…
-
Does our proximity to local
communities give us any
advantage when seeking to match
students with organisations in
How Do We Connect to
Local Communities?
•
Do outside organisations know we are here?
•
Do they know what we (i.e. our students) do?
•
Does TIRI mean anything to them (yet)?
•
Do they know how to access us / engage?
•
Do we engage effectively?
What do we know?
“..as we know, there are
known knowns
; there
are things we know we know. We also know
there are
known
unknowns
; that is to say we
know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also
unknown unknowns
-- the
ones we don't know we don't know.
Employability Models
What we do to Install Employability
•
Academic / teaching
–
Embed in curriculum
•
Refinement Opportunities
–
Essays
–
Reports
–
Examinations
–
In-class activities
–
Research activity on & off campus
•
Opportunities to Apply Skills
–
Placements
–
Year out
However:
If our teaching & learning strategies for
‘employability’ are really working....
•
Shouldn’t we expect students to know how to
engage employers / organisations in terms of
their studies?
Why isn’t there a student queue looking for
project opportunities?*
Em
plo
What Happens if…
You ask undergraduates:
(maybe from any discipline):
“If you could research
anything within your
subject area, what would
you choose?”
What Happens if…
You ask undergraduates
:
“What kind of organisation
would you like to work with
for your final year project /
dissertation?”
Typical Student Responses
(to prev.
questions)
•
Thud
–
“Eh?”
•
FUD
–
“I’m worried I might not be able to make a
difference”
–
“I’ll just end up making the tea..”
•
What’s Gud?
–
“What are employers looking for?”
–
“Can’t you just tell me what I should do.?”
•
I’m ok, Bud..
Academic Issues
•
Normal Distribution of abilities
–
‘Thud’ to Critical Faculty continuum
–
Should we issue ‘Health Warnings’ for employers?
•
Ensure expectations set & managed
•
Student Engagement
–
Getting students to:
•
Listen!
•
Attend all key sessions
•
Read the instructions!
•
Read around their subject(s)
Issues in Employability
•
A lack of consistent and effective mechanisms to
bring students and employers together
•
Students don’t always know what they don’t know,
especially adding value to a potential employer
•
Employers often aren’t aware that they can engage
undergraduates on bounded / low risk tasks (or that
we would really like them to do this!)
•
Success looks different from every student /
employer perspective
An Alternative Approach
Alternative Science
“Thin Slicing”
•
There is evidence that humans can make reliable
judgments about complex propositions based
upon very little information (Gladwell, 2005)
•
The concept of ‘thin slicing’ underpins the premise
behind ‘speed dating’ and appears to have
Speed Dating ???
For Students AND Employers??
•
Multiple ‘engagement opportunities’
•
Themed, streamed and facilitated
•
Lots of data to validate the concept
•
Health warnings (both sides of the table!)
•
Expectations managed prior to event
Precedents -
(Business)
Speed Dating
The pilot (2012-13)
The Event
•
November 2012
•
‘Topped & tailed’ with informal Networking
•
1pm-3.30pm inclusive ish..
•
44 employer representatives from East Lancs
–
SME
–
Public & Third Sector
–
Large employers (manufacturing, services)
Speed Networking for Students - Prep
For Employers
•
Recruited via personal network
and ‘Employer Engagement
Unit’
•
Pre-event online
questionnaire / registration
•
Asked to consider potential
project areas and prepare a
short pitch for each
•
Briefed pre-event about the
Speed Networking for Students – Prep(ii)
For Students
•
Part of research methods
module
•
In-class workshops to
identify initial areas of
interest
•
Students completed online
streaming tool to narrow
focus
•
Used outputs to create a
Results
•
Too late in academic year to impact most Y3 students
–
Only 2 Y3 potential projects scoped
•
27/48 Year 2 business students identified potential
projects with local organisations
•
14/27 (52%) ‘matches’ taken forward as basis for final
year project
•
10 projects completed per original TOR
•
5 additional projects from ongoing conversations
between students and local organisations
Learning?
•
Better than ‘traditional’ approach (i.e. assignment driven
employer engagement)
•
Created effective and enduring links to potential employers
•
Employer engagement needs to be early in the academic
year
•
Created significant additional overhead (work) for module
team
•
Worth a try!
•
Next time, involve students more in the organisation and
Selected References
• Ambady, N., Bernieri, F. and Richeson, J. (2001) “Advances in Experimental Social Psychology”
(p201-272 Elsevier, 2000)
• Foskett, R. (2005) “Collaborative partnership between HE and employers: a study of workforce
development” Journal of Further and Higher Education. Vol 29, No 3 pp 251-264
• Gladwell, M. (2005) Blink! The Power of Thinking without Thinking. Penguin Psychology Publishing
• Kaplan, M. (2008) “Love: You have 4 minutes to choose your perfect mate.” Nature. Vol. 451 Issue
7180, p760-762.
• Sewell, P. and Dacre-Pool, L. (2010) ‘Moving from conceptual ambiguity to operational clarity –
Employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship in higher education’. Education and Training. Vol 52 No.1 pp88-94
• Shah, A. and Treby, E. (2006) Using a Community Based Project to Link Teaching and Research: The
Bourne Stream Partnership. Journal of Geography in Higher Education. Vol 30 No 1 pp 22-48
• Wood, D. And Bilsborow, C. (2013) Enhancing Creative Problem Solving in the Higher Education
The Workshop Bit…
•
Working in PAIRS:
–
Ask the other person to explain about one
employability initiative in their area that
either
:
•
Worked (….why / how?)
OR
•
Didn’t Work (…. why not?)
–
2-3 minutes each (max) – make some notes
–
Be prepared to share what you have learned
•
OR
If you can’t find an initiative, talk about issues
you’ve encountered around the Employability
OK.. What have we got?
•
What works ?
•
What doesn’t work?
•
Impacts?
•
Issues around