Beth Knight |
Across many industries, there’s a growing skills gap. But there’s also a speed gap: It’s the difference between the urgency of a skills need and how fast the company can move to close it. That gap is significant regardless of region, industry, company size, or strategic emphasis. Organizations fearful of losing their competitive advantage spend much time and many resources looking for ways to upskill their people as efficiently and effectively as possible.
One solution lies in strategic partnerships with learning providers. These providers include both traditional colleges and universities (particularly those with online offerings), as well as educational organizations that provide short-form, credentialed learning.
Many of these learning institutions are confronting the same technological change and market disruption as companies facing urgent talent shortages and skills gaps, often with the same agile approach. They design programs based on insights directly from the organizations with whom they partner, and the result is relevance and effectiveness of learning — at speed, and with long-term impact.
Creating a virtuous cycle of innovation
The most innovative learning partners create a virtuous cycle in which more relevant programs create more learner demand, more learner demand feeds more data into models, and more data is converted into the privileged insights that are needed to inform the more impactful learning experiences. Industries like healthcare, retail, and manufacturing offer compelling examples of innovative skilling partnerships that deliver speed and efficacy. From their experiences emerge four key lessons for HR leaders.
4 lessons for HR lessons on strategic partnerships with learning providers
1. Hands-on learning can be more accessible than you think.
Traditionally, fields like healthcare and manufacturing have strict, hands-on training requirements that can limit entry and participation in learning programs. But new stackable, work-compatible models are expanding access — especially for mid-career working adults.
In healthcare, Rio Salado College and Guild partnered to create Nursing Start, a two-phase program offering an exploratory on-ramp to a degree that fulfills nursing school prerequisites. It allows individuals to explore the field while acclimating to college coursework and building confidence in the meantime. Learners can then move on to nursing school or other healthcare careers such as behavioral health, social work, and healthcare administration.
The model helps expand talent pipelines because it’s designed to work for nontraditional learners — 40% had no prior college experience, and the average age was 34 — and is proving popular: 75% of Guild’s healthcare partners now offer Nursing Start.
Similarly, to address a steep drop in pharmacy school applicants, Guild partnered with leading pharmacy schools to develop three employer-aligned PharmD programs. These programs are structured to allow pharmacy technicians to earn a degree while continuing to work — offering extended, work-compatible learning schedules — while maintaining high educational standards through partnerships with the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE).
Manufacturing has adopted similar approaches. A partnership between Purdue Global and Guild produced stackable programs for entry-level production workers, combining online coursework with simulations and transferable credits. Indiana Tech even offers engineering courses with at-home lab kits, while Purdue’s graduate-level engineering modules let professionals gain new expertise without enrolling in full degree programs.
The lesson: even hands-on roles can be made accessible through hybrid learning, stackable credentials, and creative tech use — opening new talent pools for HR leaders.
2. The best learning partners aren’t always who you’d expect.
The most effective skilling initiatives can come from unconventional partnerships. Instead of relying solely on traditional universities, some companies are teaming up with online institutions, community colleges, and specialized platforms.
Nursing Start was designed by a community college (Rio Salado College) with input from a talent development company (Guild) — not a top-tier nursing school. Similarly, the new pharmacy degree pathways were developed with external partners that ensured both industry alignment and flexibility.
Retail offers another example. Developing team leads and store managers is a persistent challenge — so a major retail partner of Guild’s worked to find new ways to build pathways to this in-demand role, which requires a unique blend of operational expertise, HR knowledge, and leadership skills. They began by adding an online leadership certificate from Bellevue University to their education benefits, and as demand grew, Guild realized there was a broader need for scalable frontline leadership training.
In response, Guild collaborated with the University of Denver (DU) to develop the Frontline Manager Leadership Program, a tailored training initiative for first-time and aspiring store managers. Designed with input from employers and working adult expertise from Guild, the result was a scalable, high-impact solution that equipped employees with tactical and strategic capabilities.
The lesson: By casting a wider net for learning partnerships, organizations can gain access to curricula and delivery models tailored to their workforce, helping them build new skills faster.
3. Learning investments can solve multiple talent challenges at once.
Investments in strategic skilling and learning don’t just close skills gaps — they also improve retention, internal mobility, and workforce adaptability.
The Frontline Manager Leadership Program, for example, filled key roles while boosting morale. It achieved a 70% completion rate, well above industry averages for online programs, and 100% of participants said they gained valuable skills and would recommend the program. This signals more than learning success — it builds loyalty and engagement in a high-turnover sector.
In manufacturing, Purdue Global’s pathways help entry-level workers grow into higher-skilled roles while staying with the company. These programs address both skills obsolescence and employee retention, aligning training with industry evolution and providing clear advancement paths.
Even healthcare’s flexible on-ramps support broader goals. They diversify the talent pool and give existing employees — like pharmacy techs — a chance to advance. This fosters loyalty in fields prone to burnout and high turnover.
The lesson: education programs that serve business needs can also strengthen the talent lifecycle — improving satisfaction, reducing attrition, and increasing internal mobility. HR leaders should view them as long-term investments, not just training expenses.
4. Learning innovation drives transformation.
Building a future-ready workforce often requires rethinking the learning process itself. Leading employers are co-creating new solutions with educational partners — reshaping how talent is developed.
Consider manufacturing: Purdue University has started offering graduate-level engineering courses as standalone modules that don’t require enrolling in a full master’s program. This means an engineer can gain expertise in new technology including robotics or data analytics through a short course, without the rigid commitment of a multi-year degree. This kind of approach makes advanced, hands-on learning more feasible for working professionals and their employers — and allows workers to upskill faster as new technology emerges and evolves.
When HR leaders champion innovative learning pathways — whether it’s a new credentialing program, a flexible online curriculum, or a skills-based career framework – they set in motion deeper organizational change. Co-designing a program with a university, for example, forces clarity on what skills truly matter for the future, and it creates a shared language between businesses and educators. Offering flexible upskilling options (like short modules or stackable certificates) encourages a culture of continuous learning, where employees continually adapt and bring new capabilities to the business.
The lesson: While these practices deliver quick wins, they also build a resilient, adaptable workforce and a culture that can handle change over the long term.
The future belongs to organizations that take an innovative approach to learning.
With talent shortages growing and skill requirements evolving, learning innovation is no longer optional — it’s a business imperative. The experiences in healthcare, retail, and manufacturing show the power of investing in employer-aligned, flexible skilling programs.
HR leaders can start by expanding access through stackable and hybrid learning, co-creating programs with new types of partners, and positioning learning as a lever for broader talent and business transformation.
The result? A stronger pipeline, better retention, and a workforce ready to meet whatever comes next.
