The Corporate University concept came into picture in the late 1980s and has been evolving ever since. This has been the advancement of creating a learning organization, in line with company vision, mission and strategy. It is very useful in creating a workforce equipped with skills and competencies necessary for their job roles in the organization. This provides a great employee experience since the organization is providing opportunities for career growth for the employees which inline gains trust and enthusiasm of employees, while achieving the organization's objectives.
Advantages of this approach include:
- Provides learning opportunities across the hierarchy
- Strategically align employees with company goals
- Decreases turnover since employees tend to be motivated for long term commitments with the organization
- Creates an adaptable workforce to meet up with the rapid environmental and technological changes
- Creates brand enhancement
The inevitable Disadvantages include:
- Is an added expense and can be facilitated only by large scale organizations
- May not always include "Real World" scenarios thus the quality may be questionable
- Solely based on the parent company procedures, thus the learning outcome may not create employability in other organizations
Some Examples of the World Re-known Corporate Universities
In a nutshell Corporate Universities are a great approach in creating a learning organization resulting in employee motivation and retention. But it also contains the inevitable drawbacks which should be very carefully avoided where possible in order to achieve the expected benefits.
References:
Jonah(2010) Corporate Universities [online] Available from http://maytheforcebewithu.blogspot.com/2010/09/corporate-universities.html[Accessed 4 November 2017]Staff, S(2002) Cooperate Universities: A Powerful model for Learning[online] Available from http://www.clomedia.com/2002/11/01/corporate-universities-a-powerful-model-for-learning/[Accessed 4 November 2017]
Tyler, K(2012) Advantages
of Cooperate Universities [online] Available from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0412tyler3.aspx
[Accessed 4 November 2017]
The best corporate universities are strategic,mission driven and designed to achieve specific business objectives(Pfeiffer,2007).
ReplyDeleteAlot can be accomplished in an organisation through the powerful model of a corporate university. Customers and shareholders also benefit from corporate universities. Provides a powerful model for people to embrace. Offers a unique branding opportunity. Meantime, there are disadvantages also such as it is an added expenses.
Hi Indika,
DeleteOther than the great experience employees gain through corporate universities, I agree with you on the point that customers and shareholders also benefit from corporate universities. Customers benefit through quality and state of the art products and services delivered by a well-equipped workforce and stakeholders of all other aspects through increased business for the organization.