On June 25, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable designed to offer social impact leaders a chance to dig into some of the most important aspects of developing and implementing a successful skills-based employee engagement program.

Some of the key takeaways from that discussion appear below:

Key takeaways:

1. Embed skills-based volunteering into talent development strategy. Volunteering is a structured learning experience for employees. Employees that participate in skills-based volunteerism report increased pride and engagement, with the opportunity to share expertise and develop soft skills like communication and mentorship.

2. Secure cross-functional leadership buy-in early. Senior leaders can be not only sponsors but active contributors to program design and refinement. Their involvement should send a  strong internal signal that the skills-based volunteerism initiative is strategic, not just philanthropic. 

3. Align initiatives with business strategy to deepen impact. Skills-based initiatives should be designed with a dual purpose: supporting community workforce development while helping address internal skills gaps in key markets. This alignment helps secure both funding and sustained engagement. 

4. Co-create curriculum that reflects real-world demands. In skills-based programs,  training content can be directly informed by operational experts and frontline managers. This ensures emphasis on skills like systems thinking, logistics processes, and real-time decision-making – elements not typically covered in standard curricula. Additionally, curriculum should be reviewed periodically to include new trends like AI, digital skills, and climate consciousness. Feedback loops with operations and HR help ensure the content remains market-relevant.

5. Measure what matters: outcomes, not just outputs. Programs should move beyond basic metrics to track employment outcomes, increased income, and career progression of learners. Data can be shared with internal stakeholders to demonstrate ROI and inform future investment decisions. 

6. Prioritize inclusive workforce pipelines through program design. Curriculum can be deliberately designed to include students from traditionally lower-paid administrative tracks, such as young women, helping them transition into higher-paying roles and contributing to equity in the sector where you work. 

7. Leverage internal data to guide geographic targeting. While being cautious of self-dealing, consider talent development efforts focused on regions with the greatest talent shortages for your market. Internal HR leaders can map workforce needs to help prioritize cities and states where the program would have the most strategic impact.

Many workforce programs focus on training individuals, often with powerful results for participants. But given the complexities of workforce development — an interplay of stakeholders, evolving needs, access, and policy – investments that target the individual often come up short in terms of their durability and scalability.

In the second installment of our Impact X Talent event series, cohosted with the International Youth Foundation, leaders set out to explore how companies are leveraging cross-sector collaboration, policy engagement, and new models to drive scale and sustainability.

Some of the most salient insights that emerged from the discussion appear below:

Key takeaways

Trust local partners to adapt programs for context and relevance. Scaling successfully often requires decentralizing control and placing trust in local implementing partners. Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all model, impactful programs empower grantees and on-the-ground leaders to adapt and design approaches that meet specific community needs. 

Pilot locally to build scalable, system-ready solutions. Scalable programs often begin with focused pilots that expose ground-level challenges, like limited access to prep time for teachers or infrastructure deficits in public schools. These pilots provide valuable insight into institutional realities and learner behavior, such as gender-based disparities in classroom engagement. Using this intelligence, programs can design more inclusive and effective strategies before expanding across regions or countries.

Encourage policy reform to modernize curriculum approval processes. Rigid compliance and outdated approval mechanisms in public education systems often delay or block the integration of relevant, skills-based content. There is a need for joint advocacy to streamline these processes, noting that long curriculum approval timelines can render programs obsolete by the time they’re approved. Cross-sector collaboration is important for unlocking more responsive, future-ready learning systems.

Ensure curriculum is agile enough to keep pace with industry. In fields like IT, the pace of technological change outstrips traditional curriculum cycles. Successful programs update content quarterly and maintain alignment with industry certifications. Because formal education systems may take years to approve new curricula, programs can work around this by focusing on enduring protocols rather than transient tools. 

Design flexible programs that meet learners where they are. Programs should serve learners across life stages and environments: high school students in rural areas, adults seeking career transitions, and employees needing upskilling in emerging fields like AI. A dual-delivery model, both formal (institution-based) and informal (open-access), helps learners access content at their own pace, regardless of setting or circumstance. 

Build trust through vendor neutrality and clear social value. Programs that teach universal skills, such as protocols over products, avoid being seen as commercial or self-serving. This neutrality opens doors to collaboration with public institutions and helps dispel concerns about ulterior motives. It also reassures skeptical educators and officials that the primary goal is talent development, not market capture. Clarity of mission and transparency of methods are foundational to long-term adoption. 

Empower educators to champion the program. Teachers are often the linchpin of success, especially in under-resourced environments. Programs can support them through ongoing training, easy access to help (e.g., real-time group messaging), and pathways to gain credentials that advance their careers. Their enthusiasm can drive both institutional buy-in and student participation.

Frame initiatives around shared value. Programs that serve a shared purpose for talent and business (e.g. equipping students for future jobs, providing employers with qualified talent, and enriching public education) are more resilient. Consider how a shared value approach can embed programs as integral to both business and workforce strategy. 

Track outcomes that matter, and use them to adapt. Effective programs go beyond measuring enrollment or access. They track engagement, course completion, and post-program outcomes such as employment or further education. Data can be used not just for reporting, but for real-time course correction, such as identifying when only certain student groups are engaging and intervening quickly.

As political turbulence converges with new return-to-office mandates, AI-driven labor disruption, and shifting workplace power dynamics, now is a good time to ask: are the employees alright? Data shows employee engagement is at a 10-year low, and impact leaders may have an important role to play in creating a positive inflection. 

On May 1, NationSwell brought together cross-sector leaders to explore strategies for fostering authentic employee connection, sustaining momentum on social impact, and navigating changing internal expectations in an era of heightened scrutiny. Some of the key takeaways from the event appear below:

Takeaways:

Anchor employee engagement in business-critical priorities. Programs that connect directly to strategic business goals are more likely to endure through organizational change. At one company, engagement efforts were preserved during a leadership transition by aligning volunteerism with learning, development, and belonging. A measurement framework built in collaboration with people analytics helped secure executive support.

Use measurement as a lever for influence. Data creates the language leaders listen to. One company links employee voting on grant recipients to follow-up participation, showing that 75% of those who vote go on to volunteer. Another organization uses data to understand volunteer participation, and found that 80% of promoted employees were active volunteers. By surfacing these data points and aligning them with talent outcomes, leaders are better positioned to communicate the ROI of engagement programs.

Earn employee trust through transparency. Employees crave clear, consistent communication, especially in uncertain times. Multiple participants emphasized the value of regular, authentic updates, both from leadership and peer-driven campaigns. “Unmute yourself” emerged as a motto: don’t wait for perfect messaging; lead with openness and frame updates with “this is what we know right now.”

Model the behavior your culture aspires to. Culture is shaped by visible actions at the top. Regular leadership communications about personal boundaries, time off, and volunteerism can help normalize healthier habits across an organization. Creating regular forums for open dialogue – modeling transparency and presence, even without perfect answers – can build trust and empathy across teams.

Design with accessibility in mind. Reaching frontline and distributed employees requires intentional design and policy choices. One company adapted their engagement communications for workers in warehouses and on the road, using QR codes, mobile-friendly newsletters, and on-site leadership champions. These adjustments helped employees without company email or office connect with impact opportunities.

Create intentional space for human connection. Structured time for reflection, learning, and emotional engagement is beneficial for employees, especially in remote-first cultures. One organization holds monthly no-meeting “Endays” with rotating themes like sustainability and wellness. These experiences foster shared culture across offices and time zones, reinforcing purpose beyond the to-do list.

Programs scale more effectively when employees are trusted to lead them. Empowering individuals to shape initiatives builds long-term engagement. One organization trained nearly 100 social impact champions across global offices – employees who volunteered to activate colleagues in local offices and remote settings. These champions received in-person training, face time with senior leaders, and resources to launch programs aligned with company values. 

Adapt messaging to meet the moment. In highly regulated or politically sensitive environments, traditional engagement strategies may need recalibration. When constraints limit what can be said or supported publicly, reframing programs to tap into current employee curiosity about what the organization’s plans are for addressing uncertainty can drive participation. 

On April 3rd, NationSwell hosted a virtual leader roundtable in collaboration with the International Youth Foundation (IYF) on Impact x Talent: Updating Talent Development Systems for the Workforce of the Future.

Focused on existing social impact programs that bridge the skills gap by leveraging the scale of traditional talent development systems, the conversation revealed a host of insights into how we can work together to address workforce challenges. Some of those insights appear below:

Insights:

Future skills are being shaped by emerging megatrends
Economic megatrends like artificial intelligence, nearshoring, and energy transition are reshaping workforce needs across geographies and industries. Employers and workforce development partners must address the growing importance of blending technical skills with higher-order thinking and human capabilities, such as adaptability, critical thinking, and collaboration.

Adapting skills-based training to regional demands is critical to program sustainability Industry gaps and requirements vary based on location. Cross-sector partnerships—between funders, employers, and workforce developers—are often most effective when they co-design place-based solutions that respond to local labor market needs. A flexible, iterative approach rooted in deep listening and local stakeholder engagement is critical to long-term impact. 

Employers and workforce development partners can help education systems increase speed and adaptability
Traditional education systems often can’t keep pace with the speed of industry change. Creating “room to maneuver” within public systems, like supporting the development of new curricula, can accelerate the integration of in-demand skills and shorten the time from design to deployment.

On-the-job training is valuable but is difficult to scale; simulation-based learning can help
While hands-on experience is essential for many roles, challenges in matching students with high-quality, relevant placements persist. In response, some workforce development partners are bringing real-world case studies into the classroom to simulate work-based learning in more scalable ways. Group practice, internships, and mentorships can give students the chance to learn through experience in real-world scenarios. 

As AI skill demand increases, workforce development initiatives must create equitable pathways for all learners to meet that demand
As demand for artificial intelligence skills and capabilities continues to grow, so too do critical questions around how to ensure all learners, particularly those from under-resourced communities, can access the skills and opportunities needed to thrive. As the pace of change accelerates, there’s a shared imperative to design inclusive pathways that help all talent succeed, not just those with the opportunity to attend elite educational institutions. 

Community colleges are essential partners for responsive, regional workforce development

Unlike traditional four-year institutions, community colleges are often better equipped to quickly adapt curriculum in response to changing employer demands. Their regional focus, flexibility, and emphasis on practical skill development make them valuable partners in co-creating training programs that align with local industry needs.