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Outreach Strategy: Execute

Unit 2: Outreach Strategy for Powerful Partnerships, Part 2: Execute

Outreach Strategy for Powerful Partnerships

Part 2 - Execute your outreach plan

Once you have completed section 1 – ‘prepare your outreach plan’ you are ready to execute your outreach strategy. This section and the downloadable overview (also linked at the bottom of this page) are planning tools to help you execute your outreach plan with helpful resources to start you in the process. (You may also find some of the information you have already collected in your ‘Recruit and Assess’ step will help you at this stage).

PP_Wheel

In this section you will cover:

  1. Prepare for Your First Outreach Meeting and Prep Checklist
  2. Questions to ask Employer Partners
  3. Sample Questions to Ask an Employer Partner
  4. Partnership Agreements
  5. Anticipating Barriers
  6. Maximizing Partnerships

The diagram above, from Ford Next Generation Learning, shows the process you will need to follow to ensure you build and retain powerful partnerships. This unit covers the ‘Execute’ element of the process.

1. Prepare for Your First Outreach Meeting with an Employer

Firstly...

Before you meet your employer do your research, and consider the following steps and questions. Doing so will help you better understand your potential partner. This information will also make your conversations easier and demonstrate your sincere interest in their operations and priorities. You could also use the information you have gained from you ‘Recruit and Assess’ step to inform your preparation.

  • Check out the employer’s social media. What kinds of information do they share? What’s important to them that they share with the social world? What publications or journals do they read, follow, or publish? Are they members of any trade or other industry related associations?
  • Check out their website! What is an employer’s mission, vision, values, and priorities? What products do they develop? How is the company organised (departments, leadership)? Who’s who in the company?
  • Does the employer have a volunteer program that supports community involvement?
  • Does the employer have community engagement priorities? Have their efforts been covered in local or national media?
  • What can you find out or have you already heard (or know) that is a motivator(s) for this organisation to partner with education? (Is it to benefit community prosperity? Is it because engagement with schools is the right thing to do? Is it focused on their future workforce?

Many questions can be answered by simply a web search of the company.

Secondly...

Ensure you have a good understanding of the roles and functions that everyone will be asked to do and the potential benefits to both partners. Begin with a review of required structures and roles. Then be ready to discuss the scope of time commitment and their capacity to deliver. You can also use your menu of opportunities from the previous unit to steer the conversation and match the opportunity to the employer’s commitment level.

When you know the motivators of your target audience member you will have a great success rate of linking those motivations with the benefits of powerful partnerships. If any organisation is going to develop (or sustain) a strategic partnership they will want to know the return on investment (ROI) - what’s in it for my organisation? What impact will this make on our bottom line?

It’s important to remember the following motivators that you can point out in your discussion with an employer:

  • Future employees seldom arrive at their first job with such experience and preparation.
  • Partnerships provide the employer an opportunity to observe and identify candidates for consideration as future employees.
  • Employers see first-hand how their engagement impacts the professional development of teachers and the knowledge and skills acquired by the students.
  • Students provide perspectives on the employer’s challenge and ideas for solutions that might not be found within the employer’s organisation.
  • Employers have the opportunity to raise awareness of their sector and address skills gaps.

The dynamics of a powerful partnership can result in a deep and life changing learning experience for students and teachers. Committed partners see their engagement with students and teachers not only as giving back or good citizenship, but as true stakeholders in the future workforce and betterment of the community at large.

Meeting for the First Time Checklist

Please download the overview for a checklist that outlines what you should do before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting. It can also be used in the 'recruit and assess' step. It is a good checklist for any meeting you arrange at any stage of your outreach programme.

2. Sample Questions to Ask an Employer Partner

The following sample questions provide a steer for both new and existing partners.

  • What is your primary interest in partnering with our school/college?
  • What do you know about our school/college in terms of pathways and our educational offer?
  • What specific outreach activities are you currently doing?
  • What impact do you see those activities having on the students and your company? If you are new to outreach what impact would you like to achieve?
  • For any business, we know return on investment (ROI) is key. When it comes to engagement with education, how would you define meaningful ROI for your organisation and for you personally? For example, is it to fulfil your corporate social responsibility, to address the skills gap in your sector or are looking to recruit new staff.
  • How would you define effective engagement between education and employers?
  • How much time are you able to commit and do you have an outreach team who will be part of the partnership or will it be an individual who is point of contact?

Provide an overview of powerful partnerships.

You MUST:

  • Always start with the why! Why is powerful partnerships the core talent development strategy and what benefits will it provide the employers.
  • Then move into the what (features): what one might expect, incorporate the influential factors here.
  • Lastly, share the How (roles, support, structure): Share & discuss what roles and structures are needed within an organisation to support and actively engage in powerful partnership teams. Weave in readiness indicators throughout (this is part of the assessment process and why you would want to reflect immediately following the meeting so you can capture what you heard).

Next steps and follow-up

  • What did you all hear and discuss today that really resonates with the direction of your organisation’s talent development strategy?
  • What do you see as next steps to keep the momentum moving forward?
  • What additional information would be useful for you to have by the next meeting?
  • Recap what you heard and agreed and thank everyone!

3. Partnership Agreements

Once an employer has agreed to partner it is sensible to gain a ‘Partnerships Letter of Commitment’.

This will just keep your partnership on track and act as a reminder to the commitment you are both agreeing to as part of your partnership.

Sample outline of what to include in the commitment letter:

1. Powerful Partnership Vision

  • The intent of the partnership is to...
  • Describe how this partnership addresses the school/
    college goals and the employer’s goals.

2. Who’s who?

  • Main Point of Contacts: School/ college and employer
  • Profile of employer
  • Profile of school/college

3. Powerful Partnership Activities

  • List each activity the partnership team is agreeing to do.
  • Include each member’s responsibility
  • Resources needed
  • Identify who is the lead, team members, and contributors

4. Measuring Progress

  • Include metrics for activities
  • Tool to use for partnership evaluation.

What other components would you add to your commitment letter?

4. Anticipating Barriers

You may hit barriers along the way. In any meaningful endeavour there is bound to be some resistance or outright objections along the way. That’s why it’s important to prepare, this will help you avoid or recover from barriers which may present themselves. Take a look at some common barriers that impede school-business partnerships. Consider how you might address and prevent these from becoming a barrier in your outreach message and/or meetings? It’s important to at least be aware of these as you move forward to secure powerful partnerships. Remember too, one of the best sales strategies for dealing with objections is to anticipate and defuse them before they become a roadblock to your objectives.

COMMON BARRIERS INCLUDE

Teachers asking partners for money

Limited vision or failure to inspire

Resource and time commitments outweigh potential benefits

Lack of clear purpose or inconsistent understanding of purpose

Unequal and/or unacceptable balance of power and control

Lack of support from organizations with decision-making power in the partnership

Key stakeholders missing from the partnership

Lack of commitment and unwilling participants

Differences in philosophies or work styles

Inadequate understanding of roles and responsibilities

Hidden agendas, failure to communicate, failure to learn

Lack of evaluation or monitoring systems

5. Maximizing Partnerships

For some DO's and DON'T's when creating partnerships, please download the overview.

Powerful Partnerships Overcoming challenges

While building partnerships you will experience challenges and barriers from both employers and school/college staff. The best way to overcome challenges is to anticipate and plan for them. The overview document provides some examples of challenges and potential options to help manage and overcome typical barriers. Read through each one and think about how you might respond. What challenges have you experienced? Keep an internal list of your own barriers you have experienced and the actions you have taken to address them. Use the spaces provided at the end of the examples to detail the challenge; brainstorm options for managing it; and maintain field notes on actions taken and possible next steps.

Documents