Consulting and Facilitation

The first step toward developing a set of worker centered learning services can be the most difficult. CAEL’s team of consultants can help your union take that step by listening to the needs of your members and helping you design a comprehensive learning system that builds upon your existing strengths.

As an organization that believes adults know what they seek from education, we incorporate their needs when designing bargained learning programs. Moreover, our non-profit mission to improve access to education for adults enables us to take a fair approach in designing negotiated learning benefits during contract discussions.

Building Bargained Learning Programs

Now more than ever, worker education is in the best interest of union, company and worker. CAEL believes that, by working to meet the educational needs of each party, security and success for the future can be achieved.

Our experience at the bargaining table during contract negotiations is an invaluable tool for building company-sponsored learning programs. As an organization that provides learning services directly to companies in a variety of industries, CAEL can help sell a company on the benefits of worker education. This means a greater chance of success in providing your workers with education and training that they can actually use.

Some of the educational benefits CAEL has helped negotiate include:

• Expanded education assistance benefits (such as prepaid tuition, books or other fees)
• Company sponsored learning programs
• Company paid career or educational advising
• Expanded choices in educational providers
• Job retraining benefits for displaced workers
• Industry sponsored degree programs

By working together with CAEL, unions, workers and their companies can build a better tomorrow for people, organizations and communities.

Industry Specific Degree Programs

Education has never played a bigger role in the economic vitality of people and organizations than it does today. In many cases, the increased demand for skilled workers has affected entire industries. In response, CAEL has been at the forefront of uniting labor and business in collaboration to address this need, by designing, coordinating and implementing industry sponsored degree programs. These programs encourage participation in intensive, industry-specific skills training, both among current industry workers and those individuals wishing to enter the field.

Labor unions are uniquely positioned to lead this cause, based on their industry-specific base of members and interaction with the leading companies in that field. For a union, encouraging joint sponsorship of such a program with industry leaders brings untold benefits to all parties. The union assures itself of a growing and skilled base of potential members, industry businesses obtain a new source of skilled workers, and the existing level of knowledge within the industry increases. This leads to a more competitive, secure and productive workforce.

One shining example of such an industry specific degree program is the highly successful NACTEL (National Advisory Coalition for Telecommunications Education and Learning) project, a consortium of labor, business and higher education sponsoring an online Associates’ degree program. Delivered online through Pace University, the program has granted hundreds of Associates’ Degrees in Telecommunications since its inception in July 1997.

As the only educational services organization of its kind, CAEL facilitates the program design and facilitation process through our strong relationships with labor, higher education, business, and state and local governments.

Training Program Management

Building a worker-centered learning environment means more than just establishing an education program. At CAEL, we believe that access to education must be paired with guidance and awareness of the opportunities for growth. Therefore, CAEL’s Training Program Management services help mobilize and support individuals as they pursue an education, through such tools as:

• Promotion and orientation
• Registration and course scheduling
• Advising and assessment services
• Coordination and training of instructors
• Program evaluation and data analysis

By working in collaboration with the union and/or company, CAEL strives to deliver program management that is process and results oriented, focusing on developing the unique skills of the worker and strengthening their worth to the union and company.

Tuition Assistance Management Services

The skills of a union worker are the most valuable asset of any company. Therefore, developing those skills is vital to the success of the union, the worker, and the company. Thanks to CAEL’s Education Assistance Benefits Management service, developing those skills has never been easier.

CAEL provides comprehensive benefits management for educational initiatives of the union or company, through customized software and customer service solutions that remove the red tape often found in benefits processing. Our system aids the worker with 24/7 customer service through phone (English/Spanish speaking representatives), Web or Interactive Voice Response (IVR), simplified application and approval processes for college level or other educational courses, and faster reimbursement or pre-payment of tuition funds.

CAEL’s education assistance benefits management service also reduces many of the time consuming paperwork processes (such as those required by Taft-Hartley and ERISA funds) for the worker and union benefits representative, enabling workers to focus more on their education. In addition, time and program costs are drastically reduced. Finally, CAEL introduces, promotes and supports the program, encouraging workers to take action and improve their skills – a benefit to individual, union and company alike.

If your union has bargained-for training and education funds or is planning to include them in your upcoming negotiations, CAEL’s Education Assistance Benefits Management service can help your workers enhance their lives through education.

Advising Services for Workers

The future is what one makes of it – and CAEL’s Advising Services can help make it clearer and more promising for the individual worker. Whether as part of a bargained-for company benefits package or through union membership, our professional advisors can provide guidance and support to the worker as they move through their education and career. Advising gives workers ownership of their career or educational direction, empowering them and their union. Through the advising process, workers also become more trusting, open, and responsive to change, skills critical for a successful future in today’s evolving workplace. It all begins through CAEL’s unique approach to advising.

The process begins in a personal session with an advisor that helps the worker determine his or her own needs and goals. This process of discovery can be a motivating factor for the worker, as they begin to realize their own potential for success and become empowered to take action through work, education or personal activities. Our advisors then provide the worker with options for achieving his or her goals, and give guidance and ongoing support as the worker pursues these opportunities for growth.

Every worker has a different goal. Some want to pursue a degree or further their skills through education. Others want to work within the company or union system, using the skills they already possess to advance their position. Based on CAEL’s unique approach to advising, we provide personalized guidance and direction to the individual worker, helping them map the path to their own success through internal or external development opportunities.

CAEL employs an expansive network of advisors across the country. We require our advisors to have a Master’s Degree in counseling (or equivalent experience in adult education or career counseling) and to undergo an intensive two-day training period followed by job pairing with an experienced advisor. CAEL also carefully monitors the work of its advisors through regularly scheduled meetings, required submission of advising schedules, and activity logs.

Prior Learning Assessment

CAEL believes that learning takes place every moment of every day, whether on the job, at home, through a hobby, military service, union work or other activities. Therefore, CAEL is a strong supporter of Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), a method whereby a worker can receive college-level credit for a variety of learning experiences.
While there are a number of methods of PLA, one of the most popular is the portfolio method, which enables the worker to document their own experience and personally relate it to the courses or program for which they seek credit. For example, a worker who has been operating or servicing numerous types of machinery throughout their career may be able to show that this experience counts as learning toward a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

As a pioneer in developing the guidelines and procedures for conducting PLA, CAEL has helped colleges and universities focus on the adult learner, thereby giving the worker a fair and reasonable opportunity to show how their learning experiences apply as college credit. In fact, many of the institutions offering PLA are Adult Learning Focused Institutions, a designation offered by CAEL to those schools or programs that have met a set of Principles of Effectiveness for Serving Adult Learners.

Prior Learning Assessment can give your members the credit they need for the experience they’ve earned.

Employee Potential Profile

Many workers possess untapped potential for personal and professional growth of which they are unaware. The Employee Potential Profile (EPP) can help enable those workers to grasp their potential and achieve that growth, by exposing their hidden inner strengths and helping them to apply them to their jobs.

Administered by a trained CAEL advisor, the EPP follows a series of questions designed to get the individual thinking about their own personal or work experiences, goals and abilities. The process helps identify ‘soft’ skills - such as confidence, creativity and leadership capability - not usually uncovered in other traditional profile exercises designed to determine only task-oriented or ‘hard’ skills.

In many cases, the outcome of the EPP astounds the worker. They often discover previously unrealized personal characteristics such as leadership, willingness to take on greater responsibilities, and problem solving skills. Upon learning of these personal capabilities, many workers become energized with a new attitude toward themselves and their work environment.

By using the EPP, workers and union alike can now discover a unified picture of the skills and strengths they possess, inspiring and arming them with newfound confidence and security in their occupations.