VET News

Effective RTO-Employer Partnerships are the Key to a Robust VET Sector

Focusing on the basics helps create successful partnerships between registered training organisations (RTOs) and employers, according to the latest research released  by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER).

The Building effective RTO-employer partnerships report found that quality training and service delivery, having a customer focus, working together, and forming longer-term, mutually beneficial relationships are the four main elements that promote effective partnerships between RTOs and employers.

A key aspect of quality training and service delivery highlighted in the report is listening to employers’ needs and understanding the nature of their businesses. This results in RTOs better supporting employers’ current and future training needs.

Flexibility for training delivery was another key priority for employers, with workplace-based delivery preferred because being on-site provides opportunities for creating more meaningful relationships with employers and their workers.

The report also found that strong communication between RTOs and employers supports collaboration, a key component in transforming a simple transactional arrangement of training delivery into a longer-term, trust-based partnership with deeper benefits for all involved.

In addition to the report, the Building effective RTO-employer partnerships: Good Practice Guide provides examples from the case studies of what the four elements look like in practice.

NCVER Managing Director Simon Walker said, “Effective RTO-employer partnerships are vital for a strong vocational education and training (VET) sector. The Good Practice Guide outlines the key elements for successful RTO-employer partnerships, which may assist VET stakeholders with improving their current partnerships and support industry to build a strong and capable workforce”.

In one case study featured in the Good Practice Guide, a business development manager from an RTO in partnership with a meat-processing organisation, said that the key to effective RTO-employer partnership is about building a trusted relationship.

“I think that if you can be there to listen and then to act promptly and accordingly, and then more than anything, deliver on what they’re needing in terms of training, that’s the basis of a very, very good industry–RTO, employer–RTO relationship.”

“If you work with that customer for long enough… and you keep going back to them and offering your support and your help then they know - they get to a stage pretty quickly - that they can just come to you and keep coming to you. Through that you’ve got the trusted relationship but then you can actually deliver quality training as well. That’s it, it’s pretty simple.”

• Download the report: Building effective RTO-employer partnerships.
• Download good practice guide: Building effective RTO-employer partnerships: good practice guide

Date posted Sep 21, 2023