From Advisory Boards to Action Teams: Reimagining Employer Engagement

“We met once a quarter, shared some updates, and left with donuts. No one knew what happened after.”

That’s how one employer described their local CTE advisory board. It wasn’t malicious. It was familiar. And it reflects a deeper issue in our workforce and education systems: we mistake presence for partnership.

It’s time to rethink employer engagement—not as a compliance box, but as a governance structure that actually drives outcomes.

Why Advisory Boards Fall Flat

Let’s be honest—most advisory boards are polite, underpowered, and largely symbolic.

They suffer from:

Vague roles
Irregular participation
No decision-making authority
Minimal follow-up

And yet, we use these boards to “check the box” for employer involvement in youth apprenticeship, dual credit, or career pathways. The result? Shallow engagement and disconnected design.

The Shift: From Inform to Empower

What students need—and what systems need—is employer engagement that sticks, that shares power, and that builds competence-based trust over time.

That means moving from advisory boards to action-oriented, decision-capable governance teams.

We call is Cross-Sector Collaboration: professional learning communities where employers, educators, and intermediaries don’t just discuss—they co-design.

What Real Employer Engagement Looks Like

When you build the structure right, employer engagement looks very different:

Employers help design the competencies students will master
Programs are aligned to real job roles and certifications
Industry partners help evaluate student work and validate learning outcomes
Shared goals and progress metrics are built into the system—not tracked as an afterthought

This is what it means to co-own student success.

How to Build It: Four Essentials

Shared Governance: Define clear roles, authority, and commitments for every partner—employers included.
Outcome Alignment: Make sure every meeting ties back to student skills, credentials, and employment pathways.
Competency Mapping: Let employers shape what “career-ready” actually means—then design backward from that.
Equity Lens: Ensure that employer participation reflects your community, and that outcomes close gaps rather than widen them.

Final Thought: The Donuts Aren’t the Problem

There’s nothing wrong with snacks and quarterly meetings. But if that’s the extent of your employer engagement, don’t be surprised when your CTE system lacks relevance, rigor, or retention.

The shift we’re calling for isn’t radical. It’s overdue.

We need to stop treating employers as guests in the system and start treating them as co-architects. Because when you build structures that support shared power, trust follows. And when trust shows up, students win.