Corporate Universities

Many companies are taking education of their employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders into their own hands. Many of these efforts are called "corporate universities." The corporate university is a powerful tool for workforce development.

I recently helped Cuyahoga Community College (Cleveland, OH) prepare a business plan for its new Corporate College, which aims to help companies accomplish the same goals through strategic partnerships with employers, including their corporate universities.

Companies around the globe continue to adopt the corporate university concept. The corporate university concept involves a process—not necessarily a place—by which all levels of employees (and sometimes customers and suppliers) participate in learning experiences necessary to improve job performance and enhance business impact.

Although the actual number of corporate universities is difficult to pinpoint, some estimate that more than 2,000 exist in the United States. More importantly, the trend continues to grow. It began in North America and has spread to Europe, Asia,and the rest of the world in a limited manner. Organizations have invested heavily in this concept, sometimes with a price as high as 5 percent of payroll compensation.

Which companies have created corporate universities? Here are just a few:

-A.G. Edwards & Sons
-Accenture
-American Family Insurance
-American Re-Insurance Company
-American Skandia
-AT&T Broadband
-Barclays
-Booz Allen Hamilton
-Defense Acquisition University
-Deloitte Consulting
-Delta Air Lines
-EMC
-Envision Credit Union
-Frank Russell Company
-General Motors
-Grubb & Ellis Company
-Herman Miller
-Iams
-IBM Corporate Learning
-Infosys Technologies Ltd.
-Isvor Fiat
-Kia Motors America
-KPMG Consulting
-Masco
-NCR
-Neumann Homes
-NIIT Ltd.
-Oracle
-Orkin Pest Control
-Randstad North America
-SAP
-Schwan's
-Sprint
-STMicroelectronics
-The Limited
-Thomson Legal and Regulatory
-Wachovia Corporation