Ten golden rules for developing a corporate university

Citation

(2000), "Ten golden rules for developing a corporate university", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 24 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.2000.00324iab.010

Ten golden rules for developing a corporate university

Ten golden rules for developing a corporate university

Keywords: Universities, Corporate strategy, Europe

Corporate universities (CUs) are having a significant impact on corporate management education. Within the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) CU Learning Group, which consists of 31 large European companies, in-depth exchanges of experience have led to key lessons in the implementation of a corporate university. They are as follows:

• •

  Start by clearly and demonstrably aligning your CU to the corporate vision, strategy and organisational culture.

• •

  The buy-in of your most senior management is crucial – without their financial and moral sponsorship as well as physical presence in the CU concept, the CU is unlikely to succeed.

• •

  Be clear about the scope of your CU clients. Is it just for senior and line managers or will it also include parts of the supply chain or customer base?

• •

  Clearly support innovation in your organisation – be it projects to change the processes and systems of the company, or mechanisms for strong knowledge with direct bottom line impacts.

• •

  The resources you require to make an impact on your customers are a combination of clear strategic thinkers as well as didactic specialists. Your flexibility increases with outsourced specialist providers. Beware of creating an overhead!

• •

  Begin to offer the top of your organisation strategically linked offerings – let them drive learning into the organisation.

• •

  Make individuals responsible for their own learning – create systems to help them to evaluate what they need to meet their personal and business objectives and drive learning as much as possible on the job.

• •

  Help individuals to understand the link between their development and that of the business in which they work. Get teams faced with a business problem to use this as the focus for learning key skills.

• •

  Measure your progress in both non-financial and financial terms. This helps clarify expectations for a variety of stakeholders both internal and external.

• •

  Always be able to give examples of how the CU adds value to your organisation. Remember demonstrable alignment with the vision and strategic goals make the difference!

For further details, contact the European Foundation for Management Development, rue Gachard 88, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Tel: +32 2 629 0829.