Co-op launches 'renewal framework'

Peggy Jarvie, executive director of Co-operative Education and Career Services, introduces an Employment Process Review report that has just been completed. The public version of the report, 24 pages in length, is available online.

UW has a deserved reputation as a leader in co-operative education; as the first in Canada, and the largest (in numbers of students and programs) post-secondary program in the world, it has a rich history of partnership between academic institution and the world of work. After years of rapid organic growth in co-op, the approach of the 50th anniversary of UW and of co-operative education in Canada was the ideal opportunity to make the first systematic examination of the operations of the co-operative education program at UW. And who better to conduct that examination than our own Faculty of Engineering? With co-op a mandatory element of all engineering programs, engineering has both the expertise and the vested interest in ensuring UW co-op operations are the best of the best. I am deeply grateful for the excellent work of Professors Kenneth McKay and Miguel Anjos, who devoted endless hours and enormous energy and expertise to this study.

Our academic partners in the six faculties design and deliver the programs that educate co-op students in their chosen disciplines, and employers partner with us to provide work experiences that enhance students’ learning and deliver good value in the workplace. The Department of Cooperative Education and Career Services operates the “dating service” that matches students and job openings. This “dating service,” the employment process, is CECS’s core business process. This is the subject of the review.

In my first few months at UW as CECS’s new Executive Director, I began to realize that a process that seems relatively simple is surprisingly complex, due to the wide variety of often conflicting needs and desires within and between both our key constituent groups: students and employers. Add the extremely high numbers in a whirlwind four-month cycle, and the complexity begins to be evident. All this is in the context of partnering with our academic colleagues to ensure educational experiences for students on work terms. What makes the co-op employment process work is the tremendous energy and commitment of CECS staff.

Professors McKay and Anjos developed many important recommendations, ranging from the tactical and relatively easily implemented to such profound changes as the length of work terms, which requires substantial and carefully considered change in at least some of our faculties. Within CECS, fundamental practices such as data-based decision making have been hampered by a system not designed to capture decision-support data, and a volume and variety of data that can only be cost-effectively analyzed with new tools, and cost-effectively managed with new practices in continuous process improvement, among others.

This study and “Learning from Experience,” the report on co-operative education and career services submitted in 2005, have been the basis for a framework for co-op renewal within CECS. The framework focuses on three key areas: business process improvement; the development of a new business model for co-op; and partnering with faculties on academic structure issues. Underlying and enabling these three focus areas are a new information technology platform and a new capability for performance measurement and data analysis.

The Co-op Renewal Framework has taken shape over the past few months, and initial projects, resources and success measures are being defined, acquired and assigned. Extensive stakeholder engagement and disciplined project management will help lead to the desired outcomes. The immediate co-op renewal work will span up to 3 years, establishing a new foundation for UW’s continued leadership in co-operative education.

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. . . to improve the job 'dating process'

From the Executive Summary of the report

More than 100 structured interviews took place with employers and 650 employers responded to a detailed survey. The team, which included five research assistants, also surveyed 2,000 students and conducted student focus groups. A six-member task force from CECS staff was active in the review, and the team conducted 15 focus groups with CECS personnel.

Anjos and McKay concluded there were seven main areas where the co-operative education experience could be improved or enhanced). For Waterloo to confirm its leadership in co-operative education and to deliver a high-quality service to all of the major stakeholders, it will be necessary to address all of the seven areas. There is no single “silver bullet” to improve co-op at Waterloo.

In a single year at Waterloo there are 11,500 students obtaining jobs; 3,500 active employers; 2,000 new employers; 14,000 postings processed; 11,000 interview room bookings (with multiple student interviews scheduled per booking). The best analogy is to consider co-op as a large-scale dating service, including not only the two people seeking a date, but also chaperones and potential parents-in-law, with all of them having potentially conflicting objectives, and no two of them being alike in desires. To top it off, 80 per cent of the dating is done away from one partner’s location; the dating couple gets on-site visits; and there are strict criteria and expectations about what will happen on the date. Just one of these complications would make the situation unwieldy. Having them all together makes the resulting process very complicated, and complex to manage.

Whereas many other institutions screen their students for employability and only send their top students, or more advanced students, out on co-op, UW sends a majority of its students (and in engineering, all its students) out on co-op. This is done even though a significant proportion of the students have had no work experience prior to coming to UW. For example, among the first-year engineering students in fall 2006, nearly 17 per cent had never had a job.

In terms of operational factors, UW’s co-operative program is twice as large as the largest programs in the United States (i.e., Drexel, Northeastern). Engineering alone is larger than the next closest university in terms of students being interviewed and employed per year.

The study identified major areas of concern for both employers and students. For employers, they are length of work term (two-thirds would prefer a longer term); junior students lacking experience for today’s workforce (many former junior jobs have been automated, eliminated, or outsourced overseas). For students, they are unmatched expectations (one-third of students surveyed believed they should have five to six different employers during their UW co-op career); frustration and disappointment with the process of job matching.

The researchers recommend three fundamental changes to how Waterloo conducts the co-op “dating service”:

• The very nature of the employment process, i.e. how students and employers “sell” themselves to each other, should be changed. This includes the types of information shared, how the information is shared, when it is shared, what employers and students do, and how they do it.

• The level of control, intervention and inefficiency imposed on stakeholders by CECS/UW policies, procedures, and practices should change: the process can be more client-driven and self-serve.

• The internal processes of CECS should change: there should be a focus on customer-relationship management, value-added services, and an effective change-control process.

In addition, the researchers recommend two changes related to UW’s academic units: The processes dealing with incoming and junior students should change: preparation, support, and creating alternatives to work terms should be a priority and facilitated in a proactive fashion in the academic structure and programs. And the number of work terms, timing of the first work term, and length of work terms as defined by the academic units should be reviewed in light of the business reality of our employers.

The information infrastructure (i.e., IT system) is tightly linked to the internal and external performance of the UW co-operative program. There are significant amounts of information gathered, shared, analyzed, and manipulated.

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. . . and the work term experience

Selections from other parts of the report

Junior students: Of the incoming students planning to do co-op, UW has nearly half going out after their first or second first year (1A or 1B) academic terms. However, only 32 per cent of co-op employers frequently or always hire junior students. Two-thirds of the employers do not seek or desire junior students.

There are some areas where junior students do not have great difficulty. For example, accounting firms regularly hire junior students and keep them for many work terms, and camp and recreation-type jobs are also suitable. Employers will seek junior students in computer science or engineering if they have done extra work or acquired additional skills in their high school years. Junior programming jobs are still available, although many of these positions are being outsourced to offshore locations. Unfortunately, some firms that had historically hired junior students are not willing to do so now. For example, in the food or science areas there used to be opportunities for testing and process-related work. Today, most such tasks are automated and the jobs just do not exist anymore.

Employers also noted the difference in maturity and experience with the younger students since Grade 13 was dropped in Ontario and students enter university after only four years of high school study. The extra year not only meant one more year of learning, but it also reflected one more year of maturity and the possibility of one more year of summer work or part-time work during high school.

Length of work term: During the interviews with employers in the earlier part of 2006, approximately two-thirds expressed a strong desire for a longer work term. While the longer work terms are of benefit to employers, the greater benefit from longer work terms is actually accrued by co-op students. Many employers noted that project-related tasks suitable for students often exceed four months, but could be addressed in eight months. As well, the changing nature of modern work — with more outsourcing of basic services, and the increasing sophistication and complexity of products and services being offered — means there are fewer jobs in North America with short, rapid learning curves.

JobMine: The current JobMine software is the only UW-developed software system with which the public highly interacts. Employers use the software. Employers might be parents or relatives of potential students. Parents might also see the software as their children use it. Employers interviewed for this study made it clear that JobMine is seen as being a representative demonstration of UW’s capabilities. Developing a more useful and leading-edge program to manage co-op’s complex information and matching needs would improve employers’ perceptions of the quality of UW teaching, UW students, and UW’s technological reputation.

Ranking procedure: The review team recommends the following: Review the ranking and matching process: at present, students see how they are ranked by employers, but the reverse is not true. Having rankings open on both sides should result in better matches.

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