Business U Blog

CRM Technology Challenges in Business Engagement

The preliminary findings of Business U’s National Study: Current Business Engagement Practices under WIOA highlights challenges workforce development professionals and their system partners (economic development, education, chambers and other business-facing organizations) experience delivering both transactional and transformational relationship building practices in various markets.

The demand-side focus of WIOA provides an expanded role with respect to business engagement for Workforce Development Boards (WDBs) that includes:

• Regional coordination with sector strategies, as well as delivery of workforce services based on data (e.g., labor market information) to inform decision making and workforce investments.
• Greater alignment with economic development and education to drive a collective response to labor market challenges.
• Prioritization of an employer-centric system to reinforce business services.

This focus also provides key opportunities to strategically strengthen business relationships nationally—to not only learn the language of business, but gain a deeper understanding of its market-responsive cycles so that employer needs are anticipated and met, even when these needs fall outside the realm of workforce development programs and funding sources.

Are business engagement teams ready to take advantage of these opportunities? The study's preliminary findings, coupled with data that Business U gathered and analyzed during its fieldwork across the country in 2016, found that the number one challenge that resonated across all segments surveyed is the lack of coordination among regional partners.

One of the issues that Business U has identified is that while WDBs may initially serve as a backbone organization for sector strategies, very few have taken on the role as the backbone for business engagement efforts.

Exceptions do exist such as the Centralina Workforce Development Board in North Carolina, which has designated staff to coordinate efforts across verticals, including education, economic development, and chambers to use CRM technology for efficiencies, operations, and outreach.

CRM technology can be a major contributor to help align regional teams and coordinate outreach, however, both cultural and operational disconnects have to be addressed first. CRM technology alone will not solve coordination issues. Business U approaches the integration of CRM technology from the perspective that establishing a solid business engagement plan and standardizing processes and protocols among partners is paramount to success.

Test drive Business U’s CRM-B2B Engage^® and see for yourself why organizations find it superior on all levels to the “big name” CRMs (like Saleforce) that have to be highly adapted from a private sector model of selling and sales, to one that the workforce system needs to build long lasting partnerships, and coordination among partner organizations.

Business U has developed, what has been referred to as, the "Rolls Royce" training and support model for implementing CRM technology using a “crawl, walk, run” approach resulting in high adoption rates. If your technology isn’t working for you and not being adopted by your stakeholders as you planned, or you are considering CRM for your region, contact us to learn more and to take a test drive of B2B Engage^®.

Fact Check: Transactional and Transformational Approaches

Three years ago, the term “business engagement” was not prevalent in the nation’s discussion about engaging employers which is why Business U created its tagline, Maximizing Business Engagement^®. And thus began our educational journey with workforce development and education organizations espousing the differences in demand driven and market responsive approaches and their application to building transformational relationships.

From our publications, thought leadership webinars, and the army of Business Engagement Boot Camp^® graduates across the nation, we see the needle moving in practitioners and leaderships’ understanding that they can’t sell their way to building long-term relationships with business and industry. The results have yielded a growing perception about the fundamental differences in business engagement strategies between a transactional and transformational relationship and how both are of value to employers.

This perception shift is exactly what will change our engagement tactics. However, as we continue to review how engagement terms are applied in the field, there are some lingering concepts floating about that need further clarification such as positioning “transactional” approaches as “less than.” In fact, perfecting our transactional approach is needed to help meet mandated metrics by our funding streams.

Fact Check: When you see the terms transactional VS transformational — STOP

Take a moment to reflect about this: if “verses” means “against,” then why in workforce development do we need both approaches?

To help bridge the skills gaps and meet the goals we’ve set for ourselves in sector initiatives, workforce development organizations need to go beyond simply meeting businesses’ immediate wants. It’s important to remember that people often do not know what they consciously want. Steve Jobs was once quoted in Business Week saying, “It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.”

Likewise, businesses may not know exactly what type of workers they want. They may ask for employees with digital skills when in fact what they are searching for are individuals with entrepreneurial skills that support the business in adapting effectively to economic changes.

While we must continuously engage with industry to build trust in order to validate workforce needs (transformational), it doesn’t mean that your transactional relationships are not relevant or of value. It’s not a continuum from transactional to transformational (aka good to better). What is important here is knowing the differences in the strategies and tactics that support each approach, and how their application is aligning with engagement and recruitment efforts and ultimately with training needs to anticipate the future needs of industry.

Keep in mind that transactional relationships are motivated by specific conditions with the aim of filling an immediate employer need and providing customer satisfaction in that moment. For example, a job order fulfilled successfully with a satisfied customer is transactional. We need these interactions!

Why CRM Can Shift your Business Engagement Practice

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools have been used widely in the private sector to track sales opportunities and to manage the sales process. Modern CRM platforms date back to the mid 80s when direct marketing evolved into database marketing so that organizations could design more tailored campaign messages by organizing contacts in the database. Data was used to build consumer profiles and identify purchasing behaviors. Fast forward to today, statistics reveal that organizations that have embraced these technologies have seen a major improvement in both the adoption of CRM software by their employees and the meeting of sales quotas.

But what do sales and profit margins have to do with business engagement strategies for workforce development and education? Nothing. However, public sector and nonprofit organizations need CRM technology to help build long-term relationships with industry and regional partners to efficiently manage, monitor and measure business engagement.

The issue is that private sector CRM tools are built as “one-size fits all,” and are not specifically developed to meet the nuances of the business engagement objectives of workforce and education organizations. While these private sector tools can be customized, they are modular-based, making them expensive to configure.

This is why Business U has invested in the development of its state-of-the art CRM platform (B2B Engage®) that manages business engagement workflow processes, matches job seeker and student talent with employers, automates communications and outreach, and supports collaboration within and among workforce development, education and economic development markets—it is the “operational glue” for business engagement strategies.

What have been the results of organizations to date that have used B2B Engage®? Business U measured the rates at which regional, coordinated business engagement teams expanded their business contacts in 2016. The regions that were trained in transformational relationship approaches and the B2B Engage® platform increased their reach of new business contacts more than five-fold from their baseline.

Click here to learn more about our technology approaches at Business U, or contact us for more information.

Business U Announces Workforce Development Mystery Shopping Services

Good customer satisfaction scores have long been a goal, and a key funding metric, of workforce organizations that provide employment and training services across the country. However, customer satisfaction is just a single snapshot in time of a customer’s organic experience that is captured through either focus groups or surveys.

On the other hand, mystery shopping is a purposeful, orchestrated effort which evaluates the expected outcomes of a customer interaction. Mystery shopping is a tool to independently evaluate, measure and provide objective and prescriptive quantitative and qualitative feedback about the customer experience, the quality of service, and/or compliance with regulations, policies and procedures. It provides a comprehensive overview of how an organization is performing to expectations and puts the customers’ needs at the center of service delivery, processes and customer flow.

These elements are particularly important for organizations funded by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) which outlines service delivery expectations such as the following:

• Improve the structure and delivery of services at the local level to better address the needs of businesses and workers to drive workforce solutions.
• Emphasize individuals with barriers to employment.
• Coordinate center and community-partner resources to provide high quality services that are aligned to data-driven needs.
• Provide excellent customer services to employers and job seekers with a focus on continuous improvement.

Mystery shopping helps to identify issues and challenges within these WIOA-focused areas. The key to a successful mystery shopping program is developing simple and believable scenarios that align with defined scripts for the shoppers to follow; coupled with professional training to conduct the “shop” successfully, a standardized rubric to accurately capture data, and an outcomes-driven plan for professional development.

Let Business U design and deploy an effective mystery shopping program that consistently measures the true customer experience of your organization’s culture. Results are used to develop tailored curriculum and deliver professional development to support organizations in aligning their service delivery and customer service expectations.

Contact us to discuss your organization’s key sticking points that get in the way of providing outstanding customer service to your job seekers and employers.

Are Businesses Engaged with the Workforce System?

National Business Engagement Study Shares Preliminary Findings

Business U, Inc. recently released the preliminary findings of its national study that reveals the methods that workforce development system stakeholders and system partners are using to meet the requirements and expectations for business engagement as articulated through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). WIOA funds a system of some 550 private-sector led workforce development boards (WDBs) that invest in employment and training solutions through a network of 2000+ American Job Centers for employers, job seekers and youth.

In November 2016, Business U launched an online survey developed to capture quantitative data from WDBs and American Job Center supervisors and staff, community-based workforce organizations and regional workforce partners including economic development, education, chambers, and small business development centers. The sample size consisted of 407 respondents across 38 states. In February 2017, Business U performed a first-phase survey cutoff date to begin the process of analyzing the data to identify and examine key business engagement trends.

Business U Co-founder/CEO, Dr. Christine Bosworth said, “Our research discovered that while there are definite practices with promise occurring throughout the nation such as a focus on sector strategies and self-reporting of transformational relationship building approaches, up to 72% of those surveyed indicated that businesses are not giving them the buy-in needed to move their workforce missions forward whether that includes engaging them as a customer of government-funded business services, as a partner in sector strategies, or as a funder.”

What are some of the disconnects for these low engagement levels? The number one challenge that resonated across all segments surveyed in this study was the lack of coordinated business engagement efforts. A major challenge is that while workforce development boards may serve as a backbone organization for sector strategies, few have taken on the role as the backbone for business engagement efforts. This creates an operational vacuum to get the required partners to standardize procedures and protocols, which many times results in unmet workforce development needs and communication fatigue among employers.

However, exceptions do exist that Business U discovered in its 2016 fieldwork. For example, the Centralina Workforce Development Board in North Carolina has designated staff to coordinate efforts across vertical partners, including education, economic development, and chambers, and uses CRM technology for efficiencies, operations, and outreach. As a result, this regional coordinated effort can measure market penetration and expanded reach to engage business as a customer of government-funded services, as a partner in sector strategies, career pathways and work-based learning, and as a funder through in-kind contributions.

Throughout 2017, Business U will continue to capture data via its fieldwork and online survey instrument and make those findings public. The instrument is also available free of charge to states that want to develop a baseline of their business engagement efforts for planning and professional development purposes. To learn more about how to use the business engagement survey instrument for your specific state, please contact Shayne Nelson at Shayne@business-u.net.

To request a copy of Business U’s Business Engagement Study, please click on Preliminary Findings.