PROVIDENCE – Johnson & Wales University is launching a new program in which the university will partner with local companies and organizations and help provide customized training and development for those companies’ employees and address various workforce needs.
According to JWU’s website, the program, called “JWUpro,” looks to help public and private businesses, professional and industry associations, as well as military and government sectors design and deliver high-impact custom corporate training programs tailored to their learners’ needs and organizational goals. All training courses offered through JWUpro will be non-credited and taught online.
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Kristin Wakefield, the university’s director of professional training, told Providence Business News Monday that JWU recognized that companies were struggling in adequately training their employees. She said the university through the JWUpro program looks to first target small and mid-sized companies that are large enough to need formalized training but might not have the financial resources to spend on getting employees trained in-house.
Unlike most other training programs, Wakefield said JWU will meet with partner companies directly to find out what their workforce development issues are and custom build employee training programs to specifically address those needs and is outside of the normal university student experience. She said the program can offer training in hospitality, culinary arts and customer service – some of JWU’s signature programs – as well as human resources training, online orientations and leadership development.
“We may find out that [a company’s] leader does not get onboarded; they just jump into the company sink or swim. Or, once they are there, there are never any touch bases and just working through the motions,” Wakefield said. “We noticed that they may highlight five or six different problems, and we do our best to provide something that is custom.”
The program’s website, which provides an inquiry form for companies to sign on to the program, launched last week. Courses can range anywhere from a two-hour workshop to a three-month program, Wakefield said, but the university will primarily market a six-module program and customize it to how fast a company and its employees want those skills.
Wakefield also says JWUpro is charging fees to train employees, ranging from $49 to $2,500, depending on the training provided. JWU will offer discounts for nonprofits or front-line personnel employee training, she said.
JWU’s new program just completed at “proof of concept” with Lifespan Corp., Wakefield said. The developmental program, Wakefield said, trained 15 Lifespan employees on customer service, similar to hospitality within the hospital and giving “value-centered care.” Now the university is rolling out an internal pilot program around new manager orientation, she said, and is actively soliciting companies for endorsement for JWUpro, she said.
“We would love to sign on five [companies] and we can give a pretty extensive discount to start for them to soft-launch us,” Wakefield said. “We are ripe for partnership.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
