Communication, responsiveness key to successful partnerships between business and education, leaders say

As schools search for ways to harness the power of partnerships with local businesses eager to develop and attract the future workforce, representatives from area companies, schools and internship programs, say clear, responsive communication and adaptability are key.

The representatives shared their advice during two different panels at BizTimes Media’s Milwaukee Education Spotlight event this week at the Italian Community Center.

The panelists included Hank Kohl, president and CEO of Milwaukee-based medical device manufacturer MPE Inc.; Amy Levek, principal of Whitefish Bay High School; Danny McCormick, director of career programs and partnerships at Carmen Schools of Science & Technology; Kari Conradt, president of West Allis-based Amplify Graphics & Branding; Andy Stith, president of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School; Angie Sandoval, community involvement analyst at Johnson Controls; Blanca Gonzales, executive director of i.c.stars; and Sarah Dollhausen-Clark, assistant director of talent partnerships and pipelines at Northwestern Mutual.

Many of the speakers also noted the importance of having strong relationships within their respective organizations, whether that be an intern’s immediate supervisors, or a point person at the business who is well suited to working with high school students – someone a student can reach out to with a question or frustration if they don’t feel comfortable about going to their supervisor.

For Kohl, who works with Levek, and students at Whitefish Bay High School, to implement the GPS Education Partners program at MPE, an ancillary, but important goal of the program, which offers work-based learning for students, is showing those students that there are more pathways to success than going to a four-year college. Kohl said he spends a lot of time talking to the students about the rapid growth of technology, and how workplaces often keep pace with that growth better than educational institutions.

Conversely, it’s important to make sure his entire organization is aware of what the interns can bring to the company, he said, and that the company is working on better educating its existing employees on how to be gracious ambassadors for the company and the industry.

“One of the things we’ve found we need to do is educate our organization about what we’re doing, so that we can better align mentors for our interns,” Kohl said.

Honest communication

For Levek, mentorship is key to a student’s ability to be successful in a workplace setting, but so is “really strong communication” between school and company officials. And strong communication means being honest about what is working and what is not, especially during the early stages of an internship program.

“Any partnership is going to have a couple bumps in the road, so it’s just learning from those,” Levek said.

That’s especially true when working with high school kids, she said, who often have certain ideas for what a job or field might actually be like, that can turn out to be different once they are actually on the job.

“I think always having a site visit, being really honest with them about expectations and keeping those expectations really high for students is important,” Levek added.

For Gonzeles, who helps place students into intensive technology internships at companies like Northwestern Mutual through her leadership role at i.c.stars, having honest and transparent conversations is critical.

“We need to figure out: What are the needs of the company? What are the needs of our interns of our program at that point? And be able to say, ‘where does this fit in with the company?’ We want to make sure that when it’s all said and done that the placement is a wonderful thing,” she said.

From a corporate/employer perspective, Dollhausen-Clark who led i.c.stars prior to joining Northwestern Mutual, said having that clear communication with a company is key, especially when it comes to understanding what “restrictions they might have, but also how they can partner with you.”

Building relationships

The panelists also stressed the importance of building and maintaining strong relationships – for the staff running the programs as well as the students they serve.

“From the student perspective at least, the biggest thing to remember is that at the end of the day we’re building these relationships to see where it’s going to lead our student,” said Sandoval a Cristo Rey alum, who serves as the point person for Cristo Rey students at Johnson Controls. “It’s really important to build that relationship of trust – of getting to know more about your student (than just their career aspirations). Maybe ask them about their soccer game and give the student that comfort to then be able to make mistakes and then ask you a question. Bridge that relationship for that student, even if at the end of the day you weren’t the perfect match … Sometimes it’s about what the student gets out of it, and not so much what you or your department is getting out of it.”

At Cristo Rey, where students participate in work study programs starting their freshman year at one of dozens of corporate partners, Stith said he’s learned that the single most important person in an internship program is each student’s immediate supervisor.

“That’s the person who’s going to be that touch point for that student’s experience on a daily basis. The CEO can think it’s a great idea and CEOs are used to thinking about the big picture. But when it gets passed down through the organization, sometimes that can lose a little steam and support. So, I would say the supervisor becomes really, really critical in ensuring the success of the relationship. And if that supervisor doesn’t understand that or thinks it’s a burden or (they don’t) believe in kids, then it’s not going to work,” Stith said.

McCormick, who oversees the internship program at Carmen Schools of Science & Technology, also stressed the importance of having a strong point person at the companies where students intern.

“Having that primary point of contact is definitely a best practice and also one of the biggest barriers, right? Not every company has someone who can dedicate that capacity to internship partnerships with schools and vice versa,” he said.

It’s also important that students have a sense about all of the different roles at a company they may end up serving, said Conradt at Amplify, a large-format printing company that has worked with Carmen Schools students.

“We’re fortunate enough to have the capability to open up all of our positions basically,” she said. “So, with our intern in particular, he’s been working with every single facet of our company, from our delivery driver to sales to production, and it just kind of gives them the background of all the different possibilities out there.”

When it works

With all the hiccups that can happen when working with teenagers, Stith said it’s remarkable to see what happen when an internship really clicks.

“We’re starting to see students who were sophomores and juniors with us when they started in the high school internship program who are now college interns at those same organizations and are all set up for a job when they graduate,” he said.

“I believe we have to think about workforce development and talent development very differently in this community,” Stith said. “I walk into corporate offices across the community, and I hear we need diverse talent. We need diverse college educated talent for our offices. And yet we don’t know where to find that. And it just confounds me because I look out my window at our school on 18th and National and I see it walking in and out of our building every day. This city is full of talent. We have to learn how to look at it differently if we’re going to thrive in the future.”