Dive Brief:
- Finally, learning organizations in corporate America are getting to know American universities, according to an article at Chief Learning Officer.
- Author Michael E. Echols, vice president of strategic initiatives at Bellevue University and author of "ROI on Human Capital Investment," wrote that recent developments are rich with significant potential, and there are reasons both groups are finally acknowledging each other.
- For one, the market for colleges has changed, with the majority of potential students now being nontraditional adults engaged in the lifelong learning activities. Corporate learning organizations must do more with less and they are largely unable to tap into the vast sea of cash liquidity sloshing around the global economy, Echols writes.
Dive Insight:
For universities, the new market of reinvesting adults demands that learning come to the customer rather than have learners go to a fixed, traditional campus.
On the other hand, corporate learning organizations are starved for new resources. Unable to secure them from their own organizations, underutilized resources are available in a few willing colleges and universities. Why? There is a market of lifelong learners readily identifiable — within corporate America, Echols writes.
He concludes by saying that suddenly, these two communities need each other, noting that the mutual benefits start with engaged exploration of collaborative possibilities, which begin with honest dialogue centered on mutual interests.
