Post by kwashburn on Apr 21, 2016 2:16:35 GMT
I think everyone’s thoughts were really interesting and certainly got the wheels spinning in my head. I really liked Amanda’s thoughts on our orientation sessions and how they could take the form of networking events to lay a foundation that emphasizes participation, presentation and the importance of relationships. I think there is something to this. I think it really plays into the engagement of our clients from the very beginning and could set a tone for their future in our programs. Orientations can be so dull and we can lose individuals before we even have them. Well what if we hook them before they even start. I think this is certainly an area we can explore further as an organization.
Roberts’s ideas also got me thinking more, particularly his thoughts on rebranding internships as “workforce boot camp”. I think if we can use internships and WEP in WeCARE as more of a placement platform we will be more successful and more clients will get jobs. Also individuals hired from internships typically have stronger retention outcomes. For the employer it’s allowing them to essentially assess before they invest. The internship also allows us to address issues that come up prior to them becoming an employee. As opposed to individuals losing their jobs because of a mistake it allows us the coaching opportunity to address some of the soft and hard skill issues that could potential result in them losing employment if they hired right off the bat. I’d be interested in exploring the message around this to both potential employer partners and our participants. It’s about changing the mindset and the idea of boot camp could be a way in doing that.
How can Fedcap leverage its business relationships in more effective ways?
I struggled with these last two questions and went back and forth on which one to choose to respond to. I have questions about these things myself and don’t necessarily have the answers, but I can give it a shot here. I chose to respond to how Fedcap can leverage business relationships in a more effective way. One of the things that I thought of was looking at all our business relationships and categorizing them based on the level of relationship we have with them, and the various ways they are engaged with us. We can categorize them based on 4 or 5 levels. The first level would be a new relationship or partnership and a level 4/5 would be a relationship where they are involved in many different aspects of our organization, such as providing job opportunities to our clients, speaking at events, being a donor, etc. This type of engagement model would allow us to look at our relationships more strategically and determine what relationships we want to further develop and leverage based on our need. We actually may do this already. I think that this can be done programmatically and then have the programs come together to look at these relationships bigger picture. Relationships that one program may have may be beneficial to another program and vice versa.