Frequently Asked Questions about Corporate Universities

By Kevin Wheeler
© 2005, Global Learning Resources, Inc.

1. Don't I have a corporate university as long as my training activities are directly tied to achieving overall corporate goals and objectives?
This is a common misperception. Almost all training and development is somehow connected to business goals. Even a course which is really focused on improving a personal weakness such as presentation skills can be construed to ultimately be helping the company make a sale or improve customer relations.

1. A major, direct connection to the business goals.
1. Example: an organization is pursuing a number of mergers. The CU would be focused on finding best practices, identifying the skills required, assessing current staff against those skills, and building development activities to bridge the gaps.
2. CEO-level awareness and support, if not direct involvement.
1. Example: at Motorola, General Electric and other organizations with strong corporate universities, the CEO has taken a role in teaching classes and often serving as a member of the governance system.
3. Very little emphasis or focus on providing courses or curricula that only focus on building or improving professional skills of individuals.
1. For example, a basic sales training class might be available for individual to take, but the CU would usually not make that a major aspect of its business. Rather, the CU would focus on working with sales people to increase sales, to understand the customer better, and to understand the products better. The learning would be directly converted into action.

2. Corporate universities have to have a dedicated building and a large staff.
On the contrary, many corporate universities are virtual or largely so. Organizations such as IBM, Dell and Cisco have avoided the large corporate university building and, instead, have taken pains to use technology and e-learning to make education available globally. The trend is actually toward smaller staffs, more involvement of management and employees in general in coaching and sharing knowledge, and in the use of e-learning.

3. Can I simply take the classes that we are now offering, add some material to them to tie them more closely with the overall organizational objectives, and call ourselves a corporate university?
This is commonly done, but it is not the most effective way to make a CU that has impact. Read the answer to the first question above, as well. Effective CUs carefully blend classroom material and theory with practical development. Am effective CU offers much more than just classes and courses.

4. How can I get upper management to understand how a corporate university can help our organization and provide a budget?
This is a not an easy task. It will require that you develop a short and powerful argument for the corporate university by showing how it is different from a training and development function, and by being willing to commit to specific outcomes. For example, commit to improving the average sale per sales person by 10% in one year. But also insist on a level of budget and managerial support that will help make this happen.

One of the weaknesses of many arguments for the CU is a lack of willingness onm the part of the CU staff to commit to achieving objective targets and goals. Often it is hard to do so with leadership issues, but even then certain criteria (e.g. turnover, employee complaints, and department productivity) can be measured and tracked.

All managers respond to quantitative measures and will usually agree to invest budget dollars when they see a return is likely.