Higher Education

Learning as an Incentive:

How Employers Leverage Partnerships with Colleges and Universities to Recruit and Retain Talent

Read the White Paper

Attracting, developing, and retaining employees across the organization has always been difficult; today, the improving economy (and shrinking unemployment rate) makes it one of the toughest challenges large companies face. It is not surprising, therefore, that the HR literature is chock-full of research to better understand the impact of various recruitment, engagement, and retention strategies.

In this paper, we dive deeply into one such HR strategy that (on its face) is not new. Creating a partnership with colleges and universities has long been understood as a strong option for employers who want to fully or partially outsource their professional development mandates. However, what is not well understood is the frequency with which employers use higher education as a workplace benefit with the explicit purpose to attract and retain top talent. And what’s even lesser known is the impact of offering higher education as such a benefit.

Download Whitepaper

Dr. Trent Kaufman

Senior Partner and CEO


Dr. Trent Kaufman is the Chief Executive Officer of Cicero Group. In 2006, he sold to Cicero the education transformation firm he had founded five years earlier. Today, that company, Education Direction (www.eddirection.com) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cicero’s and works with over a thousand schools around the world to measurably improve student learning. Dr. Kaufman is respected globally for developing sophisticated systems to enable the use of performance data to maximize individual and team performance at organizations of varied purpose and form. He is a leading author of two best-selling books surrounding organizational transformation. Prior to becoming a leading thinker in organizational design and transformation, Dr. Kaufman’s first “career” was in public education. He began as a social studies teacher in Washington D.C. before becoming a high school principal in the Bay Area of California. Trent received a bachelor’s degree in Social Science, with an emphasis in Economics from Brigham Young University. He earned a master’s degree in Education and Leadership from the University of California, Berkeley. Trent earned a master’s degree in Policy Management and a doctorate in Performance Management from Harvard University.

Start a Conversation

Thank you for your interest in Cicero Group. Please select from the options below to get in touch with us.