How Intermediaries Develop Work-Based Learning Partnerships with Employers

Introduction

Across the state, the Center for the Future of Arizona (CFA) is demonstrating how trusted, long-term employer partnerships translate into practical work-based learning opportunities for young people.

CFA is a nonprofit that brings Arizonans together to build a stronger future by advancing education and workforce initiatives that expand high-quality work-based learning and career pathways. The CFA Pathways to Prosperity Center works across K-12, higher education, and industry to strengthen early career exploration, increase college access and completion, and design and implement work-based learning opportunities ranging from career talks to apprenticeships. Through a current collaboration with the Caterpillar Foundation, CFA is also developing apprenticeship degree programs for careers in the skilled trades.

Accomplishments include:

• 444 students participating in CFA-facilitated virtual internships across the state, with significant participation coming from rural parts of Arizona, where in-person options are more limited.
• Since March 2023, employers have supported more than 28,000 hours of work-based learning and over $430,000 in stipends.
• Several employers have returned to host additional rounds of students, signaling that they see these experiences as valuable inputs to their talent pipeline.

This blog focuses on CFA’s work in Tucson, where staff are building and sustaining employer partnerships that create concrete work-based learning opportunities.

Roles, Strategies, and Employer Engagement Dos and Don’ts

The success of CFA’s programs relies heavily on regional managers to convene the right stakeholders, ask the right questions, and adapt the work to local conditions, while also influencing state-level policy and infrastructure. In practice, regional staff are on-the-ground relationship builders and problem-solvers for employers and educators, carrying local insights back into statewide conversations about systems, funding, and policy.

Drawing on CFA’s experience, intermediaries can use dos and don’ts as a quick reference when engaging employers in work-based learning partnerships.

Tips for Trust-Building: “A Lot of Listening” and Low-Risk Access Points

Across interviews with CFA staff and employer partners, one theme came through clearly: trust is not built through a single ask. It is built over time by understanding what employers need, meeting them where they are, and helping turn interest into action. For other intermediaries, the lesson from Arizona is straightforward: start with listening.

Aaron Ball, CFA’s Director of College and Career Pathways, described employer engagement as beginning with “a lot of listening” and resisting the urge to lead with a solution before understanding employers’ needs. CFA begins with asset-based conversations that help employers recognize what is already working, name their workforce challenges, and explore what kind of engagement feels possible.

Listening also shapes how CFA responds when employers raise concerns about student readiness, time, or capacity. Rather than minimizing those concerns, staff work through them and offer alternatives.

For example, early conversations with hospitals about virtual internships raised immediate questions about HIPAA and privacy. Once CFA and its partners clarified that students could work on public health communication projects rather than patient records, the conversation opened up.

“As soon as we crossed that bridge, it was like a flowering happening,” said Joseph “Sepp” Sprietsma, a regional project manager.

From there, CFA makes the first engagement opportunity for employers easy, transparent, and low-risk. Instead of starting with a significant commitment, the CFA team members begin with lower-lift entry points such as one-hour information sessions. They use an adapted work-based learning matrix to help employers see a range of options that fit different goals and levels of commitment and choose a level that matches their capacity. Employers are more likely to participate when the opportunity feels manageable, and there are no surprises about what participation will require.

Providing ongoing support and being a true community partner

Once interest turns into implementation, employers emphasized that having an intermediary, like CFA, is often what keeps the work moving. They pointed to CFA’s ability to sustain momentum, communicate consistently, identify funding, and provide administrative support that employers often lack the time or know-how to manage on their own.

Tim O’Moore, a shop manager at AGM Container Control and a board member of the Southern Arizona Manufacturing Partners (SAMP), described intermediaries as providing “a crucial part” in helping employers’ work-based learning initiatives move forward, as they are already balancing full-time operational demands. CFA can simplify unfamiliar processes and make them easier for employers to navigate.

CFA also offers a clear lesson about how intermediaries should position themselves in the community. Sepp described the goal as being “a fully engaged community member.” In practice, that means working with chambers of commerce, economic development groups, advisory boards, and other partners and within existing convening structures rather than expecting potential employer partners to attend yet another meeting. Ball put it plainly: “Find places where employers are already going and go there.”

CFA’s approach works because it stays grounded in listening, transparency, practical support, and a willingness to move at the pace the partnership requires—not through rigid models, unrealistic promises, or unnecessary burden.

Work-Based Learning as a Talent Development Strategy

Employer interviews highlighted a clear shift from viewing work-based learning primarily as a youth-focused initiative to treating it as a core talent pipeline strategy. CFA’s intermediary role is central to that shift, helping employers turn good intentions into concrete action and long-term workforce planning.

Jennifer Obeso, Head of Talent Acquisition, Training and Development at Alicat Scientific, described the pressure of supporting rapid growth and the need to build succession pathways over time; her team is creating internship opportunities for both high school students and working adults to develop a sustainable pipeline into the company.

Similarly, Steven Garate, Training and Development Manager at Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative, Inc., a nonprofit electric utility organization, outlined a broader talent strategy that includes pre-apprenticeship, Registered Apprenticeship, mentorship, and college partnerships, all rooted in “investing in the people who stay to have the training that they need.” In both cases, work-based learning is a critical component of long-term talent strategy.

Employers also underscored the value of an intermediary that can keep the work moving and deepen that initial engagement into a lasting partnership. O’Moore emphasized that intermediaries help connect employers and educators who “get on the same page,” maintain communication, and surface funding opportunities that employers might not otherwise see.

Learner progression offers another view into how short-term programs are evolving into longer-term pathways. Sepp highlighted examples of students moving from early lower-lift work-based learning experiences into more sustained opportunities. In one case, a student began with an internship, moved into a pre-apprenticeship, and is now a full-time employee while in college. Employers connected work-based learning to broader youth empowerment and economic development: one stressed the importance of helping more young people see a future for themselves in Tucson and another described success as building a stronger community pipeline into jobs people are excited about without feeling they must leave the region to find a future. Taken together, these early wins do more than generate participation numbers. They build employer confidence, strengthen educator relationships, and create the momentum needed to move from isolated programs to work-based learning as a critical component of an employer’s talent strategy.

Call to Action: Concrete Steps for Intermediaries

JFF’s call to action for intermediaries is to convert employer interest into a durable partnership and a shared talent pipeline strategy. That starts with meeting employers where they are today, designing low-lift entry points that make participation feel manageable, building on their existing strengths, and showing the return on investment that WBL programs can provide to employer partners. At the same time, intermediaries should be explicit that the goal is not a series of standalone activities, but the integration of work-based learning into core hiring, training, and advancement decisions.

Intermediaries can take the following actions to apply CFA’s lessons in their own regions: