Here are the important links and infos on G-ACUA:
http://www.g-acua.org/
Corporate Universities (as explained by DPS Global Experts on CUs ie.GLR Inc USA.)
Corporate education is taking on new dimensions as we move into the 21st century. Over the 20th century, organizational education has moved through technical skills training and vocational training to a greater focus on managerial and leadership education. The focus of much corporate education has been to increase the number of managers, and improve their skills, for a manufacturing-driven business world.
Today’s corporate university is emerging from very different motives and needs. Most organizations do not need more managers, per se, but they do need managers and employees who are better equipped to provide products and services that are compelling and profitable to a diverse community of consumers worldwide. This means employees need to understand the global business market, the trends and pressures that are influencing consumers and governments and they need to develop processes that can respond quickly to rapidly changing tastes and demands. There is a heightened need for better communication in a virtual world, and for more effective ways to organize work and improve productivity.
Employee skills are far more transitory than in the past. A large part of the knowledge an engineer acquires in school is largely obsolete within 5 years of graduation. Most employees find that they are continuously “going to school” or learning throughout their career. Markets are changing rapidly; evolutionary change is no longer as common as is revolutionary or discontinuous change. This means organizations are constantly in flux, and dealing with change, coping with new markets and products, understanding changing consumers, and learning to live in a multiethnic, multi-cultural, world are all drivers of a new way of learning.
This is the driver of the 21st century corporate university.
What is a corporate university?
Very simply put it is a formal entity associated with an organization that is chartered with providing employees with the skills and understanding they need to help the organization achieve its business objectives, both short and long term. It is more broadly and strategically focused than a traditional training and development function, with a direct connection to achieving the organization’s goals. An analogy may be made to bookkeeping as opposed to the function of the chief financial officer. One is short-term, tactical and narrowly focused; the other broader and more strategic.
Here are some ways GLR can help your organization:
- Oversee the strategic design, development and implementation of a corporate university.
- Assist in any stage of the development of a corporate university according to your needs.
- Help define the transition from a training and development function to a corporate university.
- Design and assist to implement an internal communication and marketing plan for the corporate university.
- Act as a facilitator of a process to explore the concept of a corporate university.
- Lead best practice and benchmarking tours to established corporate universities worldwide.
- Conduct best practice research and provide information on the most usual ways various aspects of corporate universities are conducted.
- Conduct seminars and executive briefings about the design and development of corporate universities.
- Help you choose the right systems and software for disseminating e-learning and for record-keeping and course delivery.
- Assist in designing a corporate university facility with state-of-art equipment and resources.
e-Learning allows information to be delivered in a more user-centric, user friendly format than traditional training and education. e-learning solutions allow learners to get the information they need in any location, at any time.
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Corporate education has become a strategic function as we enter this century. In the best organizations, education is no longer the first to be cut back in a downturn. Rather, best-in-class corporate education is making a difference to the bottom line.
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In conjunction with other think tanks and organizations, Global Learning Resources’ Eileen Clegg and Kevin Wheeler have contributed to a broad spectrum of research projects designed to help people think strategically about the future of education.
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Corporate Learning
Big companies are setting up university campuses all over the world to help produce the kinds of employees they most need.
Sending an aspiring scholar off to college is a cherished rite of passage in Western households. But in the global economy, where companies rise or fall on brainpower, higher education has taken on broader meaning and new urgency. Corporate HydroPower University in Moscow teaches plant managers how to wield turbine technology and rotor dynamics to deliver power efficiently to millions of energy-hungry clients. Engineers at the University of Petrobras in Rio de Janeiro must master the secrets of pumping oil buried 7,000 meters beneath the Atlantic. Forget ivy-hung walkways and fratfests; think enterprise incubators, virtual oil rigs, and mobile classes for transport workers in railroad cars. The alma mater isn’t what it used to be.
Today, corporate colleges are considered the fastest-growing sector in higher education. Their numbers have more than doubled in the last decade and now top 4,000, according to Annick Renaud-Coulon, who chairs the Global Council of Corporate Universities. More than 4 million individuals are studying at a company university, where by some estimates enrollments may soon outnumber those of traditional universities. Once a luxury for the Fortune 500 brands, the corporate academy is now standard practice, with every self-respecting business boasting a campus or sharing one with other companies. Unlike traditional universities, corporate campuses generally do not grant degrees (though many partner with traditional colleges that do), concentrating instead on short-term immersion courses tailored to enhancing particular careers and business disciplines. Renaud-Coulon calls them “spaces of applied education to put business strategies into motion.”
The concept is not new. McDonald’s had its budding sous-chefs flipping burgers at Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Illinois, as early as 1961. But as market opportunities have expanded, so have the demands on the workplace. Employees must be able to communicate and work in teams. Moving easily in varied cultures now counts as much as mastery of quantum mechanics. In some countries, where traditional classroom education has failed, companies find themselves teaching reading and writing. Others impart nuances of strategy, logistics, and technology that normally take years of hands-on experience to acquire. Everywhere, an increasingly advanced economy makes the corporate learning curve steeper. “This is no longer a vanity project,” says Michael Stanford of the International School of Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. “Companies are taking much more seriously the idea that learning and development are competitive tools. Businesses that don’t do this are not going to get as much out of their employees.”
Corporate academies are as varied as the brands they represent. Legacy companies like General Electric and Siemens keep schools around the world, shadowing their imperial footprint. Motorola’s international campuses are identical, down to the blackboards and furniture color scheme, whereas GDF-Suez is so radically decentralized that its Paris-based corporate university can simply influence, and not impose, local programs on its worldwide campuses. Russia’s Oboronprom (United Industrial Corporation) is a totally mobile university that dispatches teams of instructors to hold two and three-day seminars to employees at 20 different helicopter and airplane-assembly plants. The Chinese computer-parts giant Huawei hired starchitect Norman Foster to design its four-building university complex in Beijing. Dell University, fittingly, is completely virtual.
Not surprisingly, some of the most striking examples of corporate learning are in emerging Asia, Central Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Few are doing as much as Infosys. With two heliports, a professional cricket stadium, a palm-studded pool, and a three-screen multiplex housed in a mirrored geodesic dome, the Infosys Global Education Center in Delhi looks like a cross between Disney’s Epcot Center and Las Vegas. The $120 million complex already puts Delhi’s new Commonwealth Games venues to shame—and a $150 million expansion is in the works. Each of the 14,000-odd recruits has his own room and computer workstation, an opulence unheard of at the typical tech-starved university campus in the rest of Asia. Much of the coursework and testing are conducted online.
But what really stands out is the curriculum. Young engineers undergo a program equivalent to an advanced computer-science degree. To increase the employability of future recruits, Infosys also trains hundreds of university instructors to teach the basic communication and problem-solving skills essential for working in diverse markets. “What we do is to bridge the gap between what the academic institutions do and what industry requires,” says Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishan, who describes the campus as more like a well-endowed U.S. university than a modestly equipped Indian one.
Not long ago, such elaborate efforts might have seemed superfluous. Big businesses had their pick of the finest minds from world-class universities, scooping young managers, engineers, and IT whizzes straight off the commencement dais. Today, with new technologies and management methods constantly tested and toppled in the crucible of the workplace, businesses have developed learning needs of their own. And some skills simply cannot be bought or outsourced. Every year campuses disgorge engineers, economists, and managers, but few are schooled in the fine points of producing biofuels, assembling aircraft, or moving millions of tons of ore across oceans. Furthermore, a large chunk of the workforce—50 percent of hydropower experts in Sweden and 45 percent of oil engineers at Petrobras—are set to retire, threatening to take with them decades of experience and institutional memory. “You can go to business school and learn about global-supply-chain management and leadership,” says Stanford. “What is not easy is to learn about ways that are applicable to your business.”
The challenge is even more daunting in developing nations, where failing traditional education forces companies to teach the basics. India’s software powerhouse Infosys started its own university in part because of the reality reflected in studies like a recent one by McKinsey & Co. that found that only 25 percent of new engineers, 15 percent of new finance and accounting graduates, and 10 percent of overall college grads were adequately prepared to work for multinational companies. “People in emerging markets, while often talented, suffer from what we could call last-mile employability,” says Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at the Tuck School of Management at Dartmouth. “They lack communications skills, don’t know how to work in teams, are extremely theoretical, and are taught to be overly obedient. These are problems that companies have to correct.”
In Brazil, the skills void is even more dramatic. Often blue-collar laborers at even the biggest corporations lack rudimentary education. “Teaching math and Portuguese is not part of our core business, but because of flaws in the educational system we frequently find ourselves in that role,” says Desiê Ribeiro, education manager at Vale, which gives classes in railway cars along the country’s vast rail network. It’s worse in Vale’s overseas outposts, such as Mozambique and New Caledonia, where the company had to teach miners basic excavation skills and train local suppliers in business management.
In response, some companies are taking their education down the learning chain. Infosys picks bright but often poorly trained recruits and turns them into world-class techies on its own campus. Recruiters at Siemens, the Munich-based tech and energy multinational, go into high schools—and in some cases even grade schools—to generate student interest in science and math.
But the corporate education is also a symptom of progress. In a time when companies are often pioneering technology and innovation, there are things that no school can teach. No engineering school, for instance, can trump Vale’s knowledge of extracting ore from the harsh Amazon rainforest. Likewise, Petrobras is about to probe for oil where no one has before, under 2,000 meters of seawater and another 5,000 meters of rock, sand, and salt. “We need not just petroleum engineers, but professionals versed in microbial carbonate reservoirs,” says Ricardo Salomão, general manager of human resources at Petrobras University. “Not much is known about this anywhere.”
The classroom investments are paying off. Thanks largely to its prowess in offshore oil—now part of the core curriculum at Petrobras University—the Brazilian major currently controls 24 percent of deepwater operations. And as it begins to pump from its new deepwater reserves, it will need to add 8,000 to 9,000 new employees by 2015, far outstripping the supply of university graduates. By reeducating recruits and honing young staff, Infosys’s university is leapfrogging the faulty Indian educational system to create software engineers from graduates in other disciplines, which has in turn propelled the company’s blistering revenue growth of 20 percent to 40 percent a year.
Not everyone is happy about this arrangement. Many traditional academics won’t hear of putting “university” and “corporate” in the same sentence and claim that business is enslaving universities to the profit motive. Academics in Australia complained so bitterly that corporate universities there had to rebrand with names like “leadership centers,” says Renaud-Coulon. There is certainly a case to be made for disinterested scholarship. But in an economy increasingly driven by knowledge, where talent is scarce and corporate universities are outpacing traditional ones, the protests sound increasingly academic.
With Stefan Theil, Jason Overdorf, and Tracy McNicoll
Education in the Workplace:
An Examination of Corporate University Models
©2001 Denise R. Hearn
RETURN
edited 5/10/02
Introduction
According to Jeanne Meister, the phrase “corporate university” can be defined as a”…centralized strategic umbrella for the education and development of employees … [which] is the chief vehicle for disseminating an organization’s culture and fostering the development of not only job skills, but also such core workplace skills as learning-to-learn, leadership, creative thinking, and problem solving,” (1998, Ten, p. 38). Jeanne Meister is the president of a New York consulting firm that specializes in corporate university management called Corporate University Xchange(CUX). She claims that corporate universities are developed by those corporations who have shifted their focus from employee training to employee education as a result of “the emergence of the knowledge economy” (1998, Extending, p. 52). The phrase “knowledge economy” expresses that these corporations have recognized their responsibility to provide employees education that can evolve with changing business needs in order to foster the business’ sustained success. Many corporations believe that through continued employee education, they can “achieve strategic goals and performance improvement” (Meister, 1998, Extending, p. 52).
In 1993, corporate universities existed in only 400 companies. In 2001, this number jumped to 2,000. Nelson Heller states that according to CUX, this number will grow to exceed 3,700 by2010, which is more than the number of private United States universities (2000). In an interview with Lillian Beltaos, dean of the School of Applied Media and Information Technology at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Sandra Dillich found that “companies form corporate universities in order to systemize the training function, maximize the investment in education, drive change in the organization, spread common culture and values, develop the employability of the workforce and remain competitive in the marketplace” (2000, p. 25). Judith Mottl further believes that the primary factor for developing a corporate university is to “improve employee productivity and keep staff in touch with the latest technology” (1999, p. 23). While, Jill Vitiello explains that corporate universities do not only focus their curricula on junior and midlevel employees but often provide leadership and executive development education as well (2001).
With the mission of corporate universities in mind, this paper will examine the models that companies use to establish such programs. Recommendations for developing successful corporate universities will be reviewed. In addition, actual examples of corporate universities will be presented and the technology they use to support these programs will be discussed.
Creating a Corporate University
As established, CUX is “a for-profit education research and consulting firm that’s been helping organizations launch and implement corporate universities since 1997” (Nelson, 2001, p. 1). CUX’s consultation includes an audit of a company’s educational strategy and an implementation of a corporate university program. The educational audit follows a 5-step model developed and tested by CUM This model includes “a full learning audit and assessment, a series of design workshops, the creation of a business case and recommendations to senior management,implementation, and finally, further recommendations and review” (Nelson, 2001, p. 1).
Following the completion of CUX’s 5-steps, there are a variety of methods in which corporate universities can foster the continuing education of their employees. Jeanne Meister explains to her clients that there are ten primary steps to implementing and sustaining a successful corporate university. First, the executives or top management of an organization must form a governing body for the corporate university, much like that of a traditional university, which will establish and profess the organization’s commitment to the program. Secondly, the vision or strategic plan of the corporate university must be crafted; thereby,determining the organization’s goals for the program. The organization must then recommend a funding strategy. Most commonly, corporate universities are either funded through corporate allocations or through charges placed on individual business unit budgets. Next the organization must determine its audience or stakeholders who will use the corporate university service. In addition to determining the audience, the organization must also determine how the needs of the audience will be met while continually pursuing the strategic goal of the corporate university. (Meister, 1998, Ten).
Following the completion of the above tasks, corporate university organizers must develop a template for how products and services will be designed to achieve university goals. The organization must also select suppliers, consultants, traditional universities and for-profit firms who will act as learning partners, if appropriate. The use of technology and resources to be used by the corporate university must then be determined. Additionally, a measurement system should be developed that will allow the organization to continually monitor its progress against the university’s strategic goals. Lastly, the governing body must communicate the vision of the corporate university constantly and consistently. All stakeholders should be made aware of the mission, products and programs that make up their organization’s corporate university. (Meister,1998, Ten).
Meister warns that these ten steps may take eighteen months or more to achieve. In following the CUX model, Meister believes organizations can reach the primary corporate university goal of “preparing an organization’s employees to take full advantage of the emerging opportunity and to institutionalize a culture of continuous learning aligned to core business strategies” (Meister, 1998, Ten, p. 41).
Organizational Models for Corporate Universities
Margaret Kaeter, in her article Virtual Cap and Gown, believes that there are three primary organizational models for Corporate Universities. These models include Classic, Education Portaland Tailored Training. The Classic model refers to tuition support from the employer that allows employees to pursue a degree from a college’s standard curriculum. In this case, students must apply to the college, be accepted and complete required credits to graduate. In some cases, the student’s coursework is done via distance education techniques that may include the Internet, mail and videos. (Kaeter, 2000). The Classic model is also referred to as the Hybrid model. As Meryl Davids explains, using this type of model has encouraged corporate universities to provide their curriculum to non-employees, as well. (Davis, 2000).
Through Education Portals, corporations work with traditional universities or training businesses to provide college courses on-line. These universities may provide the corporation with its own corporate website (portal) which provides students with a virtual campus complete with a company’s logo. This model of the corporate university “offers a seamless blend of courses designed by colleges, commercial training suppliers, and the company’s own training staff’ (Kaeter,2000, p. 119).
Corporate universities may also follow the Tailored Training model which refers to those traditional universities and corporations who are “working in tandem to develop distance learning courses designed to address a company’s specific needs” (Kaeter, 2000 p. 119). In this case, corporations can direct universities on which components of their standard curriculum should be passed on to their employees. Additionally, this partnership allows corporations to add their own input and information into the training materials.
Educational Methods and Materials
Corporate university education is designed and presented in a variety of formats. Most often, curriculum is designed and presented through satellite communication, web based instruction,virtual reality and/or virtual campuses. Through satellite based education, employees from different locations can be brought together in real-time to participate in the course at the same time through video conferencing. Web-based learning is conducted via the Internet or through a corporation’s Intranet. Meister explains that web-based courses allow corporations to “customize learning experiences for individual needs and preferences, and provide the ability to measure performance”(Meister, 1998, Extending, p. 52). Virtual reality offers simulated training that mimics actual employee job duties, while virtual campuses link each of these media components by computers.
Accreditation of Corporate Universities
In 1974, the American Council on Education’s Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored instruction (ACE/PONSI) was founded to evaluate “instructional courses and programs offered by business and industry, labor unions, professional and voluntary associations, and government agencies and makes recommendations for college credit based upon such instruction” (Thompson,2000, p. 323). By 2000, ACE/PONSI recommended that courses from over 250 companies receive college credit. These companies included McDonald’s, Bell Telephone and The Ford Motor company.
Following this lead, Gordon Thompson explains that the Arthur D. Little corporation “has created their own in-house educational institutions that offer accredited degrees” (2000, p. 324). When offering degrees, workplace education programs are referred to as corporate colleges. Thompson explains that he supports the notion that corporate colleges have often been established to offer skills to employees that were not otherwise available. He also found through his research that 14institutions met the definition of corporate colleges in 2000 (2000).
Corporate Effects on Traditional Universities
Gordon Thompson believes that accredited institutions may pose a threat to traditional universities as they compete for students and faculty. Conversely, corporate universities are similar to traditional universities in that they are spawning lifelong learning. Furthermore, many traditional universities have found corporate universities to be a benefit rather than a threat. Gordon Thompson found that corporate funds have become increasingly important to traditional universities, consisting of more than “20% of the voluntary support for higher education in the united States” (2000, p. 327). With universities, corporations are able to customize higher education needs to fit their “just-in time skills development,” as quoted from Bruce Pietrykowksi, by dividing college courses “into sub-units each with its own set of learning outcomes” (2001, p. 299). He continues by stating that “these units can then be combined and recombined to create modules or courses that can lead to certificates that validate a certain type of knowledge or skill set as desired by company or industry standards” (2001, p. 299).
According to Nelson Heller, “about sixteen percent of all corporate education partnerships today are with traditional colleges and universities.” (2001, p. 1). As an example, Intel now offers its employees the opportunity to enroll in a MBA program through Babson College which offers students a degree that primarily focuses on Intel cases. Likewise,Valencia Community College earns between $1.5 to $2 million in revenues by supporting the college education of Walt Disney World and Universal Studio employees. (Heller, 2001).
According to Meryl Davids “corporate university advocates are quick to admit that their program don’t take the place of top-notch universit[ies]” (2000, p. 19). However for those students who can not geographically attend top-notch universities, corporate programs no offer them the opportunity. The true burden of corporate universities on traditional universities may actually be felt in a lowered interest in the graduate business schools that offer executives leadership courses. These courses are offered at a cost of $4,000-7,000 dollars and can now be offered through one’sown corporate university at a minimal cost. (Davids, 2000).
Examining Corporate Universities
To measure the success of the entity of a corporate university, one need not look far to find information on a variety of well-known organizations that have established and sustained successful corporate universities. Several of these organizations have been examined and summaries of their corporate model structures are provided below. In each of these cases, one can recognize the common thread through each organization’s corporate university to be that of technology and its use in providing cooperate education. Motorola
Motorola established Motorola University as its corporate university and was “one of the first learning organizations to institute virtual reality in manufacturing training” (Meister, 1998, p. 53). To provide its employee education, Motorola University uses virtual manufacturing labs to train line workers by modeling the equipment instead of using the actual equipment for training purposes. These labs can be used at any Motorola site via the companyintranet through CD-ROM programs. (Meister, 1998). In addition to serving its own employees,Motorola now provides for-profit Learning and Certification services to outside sources as an independent subsidiary of the parent company. (Nelson, 2001).
The Boeing Company.
The Boeing Company provides education to its employees through the Leadership Center. Jill Vitiello explains that a large component of Boeing’s curricula focuses on executive learning. As she mentions, newly promoted supervisory personnel must complete a web-based curriculum within 30 days. This training includes topics on C6company policies and procedures, finding and using resources, and understanding fiduciary responsibilities” (2001, p. 42). Entry level managers”spend one week at a local training site studying performance management, reviewing organizational structure and learning state and regional laws and regulations that govern [their]industry” (Vitiello, 2001, p. 42). Managers are also “required to take core leadership courses at the center at five specific turning points in their careers: when they receive their first management assignments, become managers of managers, prepare for executive responsibilities, begin their first days as executives and assume the challenges of global leadership” (Vitiello, 2001, p. 42).
Boeing’s primary means of evaluating the success of its Leadership Center is by conducting employee surveys on as annual basis. These surveys have indicated, as Vitiello summarizes, that “executives and managers who have attended programs … are more satisfied in their jobs than those who haven’t yet attended the programs” (200 1, p. 42).
Walt Disney
For those employees hired to work at Disneyland, California, their career begin at the University of Disneyland with an orientation and 40-hour apprenticeship program, most of which takes place on rides. In the classroom, these new hires are given “a very thorough introduction to matters of managerial concern and are tested on their absorption of famous Disneyland fact, lore,and procedure” (Van Maanen, p. 65). Professional Disneyland trainers are responsible for the instructional design, methods and materials they provide in the courses. Course topics include park operations, appearance standards, and Disneyland values. (Van Maanen, p. 68).
For those employees hired to work at Walt Disney World, Florida, they are offered the opportunity to enroll in Valencia Community College. In addition, Disney also trains outside professionals on their successful traits. These three-day professional development programs are designed to provide non-employee executives with Disney “magic” that can be provided in their own industries. This program takes place at the Disney Institute, a 47acre Orlando, Florida campus. The executive program costs $3,000 and includes admission to surrounding Disney parks. Disney is said to offer this program because it believes such an offering enhances their reputation. (Davids,2000). Federal Express
Using exit interviews to determine deficiencies in their business, Federal Express found that many employees left the company because of a lack of career development. As a result, the FederalExpress Quality University was established. This learning strategy allows more than 140,000employees to educate themselves through web-based education. Additionally, Martin Delahoussaye explains that when FedEx employees cannot find a suitable course in the Quality University, they fund up to $2,500 from Federal Express to take courses at outside sources (2001).
United Health/United Technologies Corporation
United Health, a health care provider, offers corporate education through its Learning Institute. Using distance learning technology to offer 24/7 access to course work, United Health partnered with United Technologies Corp. and the Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Distance learning technology is provided by RPI and includes video, nondegree seminars, technical courses and desktop training. These courses are offered from Boston University, Carnegie Mellon,Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to employees at both organizations. (Mottl, 1999). The Learning Institute operates on a tuition basis, even within its own corporation. Like many corporate universities, a hybrid funding model requires those who attend the Learning institute to pay for training form their own business unit budgets. (Davids, 2000). OracleCorporation
Oracle University supports those employees from the Oracle Corporation through web-based learning. Oracle University provides its more than 32,000 employees and partner organizations with up-to-date product knowledge. The university consists of a virtual campus and a network of regional classrooms. This campus is comprised of industry knowledge, sales methods,technical skills, and Oracle-specific processes. (Meister, 1998). The General Motors’ Saturn Corporation
Saturn Consulting Services primarily offers corporate university curriculum to noncompetitive non-General Motors employees. The education is primarily geared towards executives and includes information on leading change, team development, and customer care. Meryl Davis explains that the company also “formed a strategic alliance with $20billion aerospace and defense giant, Raytheon Co…. [and] in this arrangement, one of Raytheon’s training divisions,Door Training acts as the international distraction arm for Saturn’s Consulting service, delivering Saturn’s content to other global organizations” (Davis, 2000, p. 19). Bell Atlantic
Bell Atlantic offered its telecommunications technicians the opportunity to earn an Applied Science degrees in Telecommunications Technology through Bell Atlantic’s Training, Education,and Development department. This opportunity resulted from contract negotiations in 1994. The programs’ curriculum, which was custom designed by Bell Atlantic and its union, was offered through twenty-five community colleges. The curriculum included topics in general studies,electricity and electronics, telecommunications, introduction to voice/data, LANs and WANs, and advance technologies, as well as, leadership and teamwork.
Overall, students were required to earn 60 credits through the four-year program. Classes were held during company time, one day per week for two semesters per year. To enroll in the program, employee seniority and scores on the ASSET Test (standard college entrance exam) were considered. The program was free to employees and included books and fees. In 1998, 92 students were awarded degrees. (Mottl, 1999).
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company calls its corporate university FORDSTAR. FORDSTAR is a”network that enables Ford to provide training, access to experts and product information, and networking opportunities straight to [their more than 6,000] dealerships” (Meister, 1998, Extending, p. 52). This training is conducted via one-way video and two-way audio through a digital worldwide network. FORDSTAR programs are designed for employees in their credit,technical, sales, services and parts departments. Nearly 1, 100 sites can be accessed at the same time, reaching up to 300 employees in a single session. Ford’s satellite system allows employees to obtain the information and training they need when they are available to participate. (Meister, 1998,Extending).
Ford assesses the education it provides employees through various measurement techniques. Primarily, each session requires a progression of steps. If employees are not able to progress through the course, educators can quickly recognize their deficiencies and make changes to curriculum or learning techniques as necessary. FORDSTAR cultivates its educators by providing instructional designers and instructors with their own orientation courses. These”courses focus more on learner’s roles and responsibilities than on the role of the instructor”(Meister, 1998, Extending, p. 52). Dell Computer Corporation
Dell Computer Corporation’s university, Dell University, provides education to its employees via web-based embedded learning. Jeanne Meister explains that embedded learning stems from “the premise that old learning methods are woefully inadequate to keep up with business needs of companies at the forefront of a rapidly changing industry in which knowledge must be constantly updated” (1998, Extending, p. 52). 35-45%of Dell University’s curriculum is delivered via the web. The university’s mission relies on catering to the various learning styles of their employees. (Meister, Extending).
Summary
As stated by Daniel Twomey, et al, “developing a corporate university expresses [an organization’s] commitment to the value of investing in human capital” (1999, p. 340). Companies that develop corporate universities believe that in focusing on employee competencies, skills, and abilities, they are ensuring their competitiveness and future success. Corporate provided education has been found to improve employee satisfaction and employee retention, as well as, provide a competitive advantage for many organizations. (Twomey, et al, 1999).
Conclusion
As Jeanne Meister concludes, corporate universities are built on a system that understands”the chief concern for knowledge workers in nearly every industry and occupation is the short shelf life of their knowledge, causing them to have to constantly retool their schools” (1998, Extending,p. 52). Employees benefit from the corporate university movement in more ways than simply being able to perform their assigned jobs better. They also learn skills and possibly earn degrees that can be carried through their career, making they, themselves, more marketable to the workplace. Corporate universities are the “fastest growing segment of the adult education market” (Meister,1998, Ten, p. ). Additionally, those corporations that provide corporate universities tend to have an advantage over the “eligible employee pool,” in that they are often perceived as “employers of choice” (Meister, 1998, Ten, p. 53).
In closing, corporate universities strive to achieve their mission of developing programs that are clearly linked to business objectives and organizational strategy. These programs are designed to convey corporate culture and focus on learning beyond on-the job training. By doing so, many employees throughout the United States and abroad are offered educational opportunities that might not otherwise be available to them.
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Heller, N. (2001). Changes sees corporate universities on rise. Heller Report on Educational Technology Markets. v12 i8 pl.
Kaeter, A (2000). Virtual cap and gown. Training. v37 n9 p 114-22.
Meister, J. (1998). Extending the short shelf life of knowledge. Training and Development. v52 no6 p52-53.
Meister, J. (1998). Ten steps to creating a corporate university. Training and Development. v52 nl I p38-43.
Mottl, J. (1999). Corporate universities grow: Bell atlantic, motorola, others have elaborate technology, training programs. Internetweek. p23.
Pietrykowski, B. (2001). Information technology and commercialization of knowledge incorporate universities and class dynamics in an era of technological restructuring. Journal of Economic Issues. v35 i2p299.
Thompson, G. (2000). Unfulfilled prophecy: The evolution of corporate colleges. The Journal of Higher Education. v71 n3 p322-4 1.
Twomey, D. and G. Jones, L. Densford, T. Keller and J. Davis. (1999). Corporate universities change and competitive advantage. Global Competitiveness. v7 i I p340.
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