If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
The Research Analyst will support WGU's Academic Portfolio Management by providing critical data-driven insights to guide strategic program development and workforce alignment. This role analyzes real-time labor market trends, employer feedback, and national alumni pathways to ensure WGU's academic offerings are relevant and competitive. Responsibilities include developing comprehensive Workforce Intelligence Reports highlighting high-demand skills, workforce trends, and qualitative employer insights, including executive-level focus groups.
The analyst collaborates with academic leaders, portfolio teams, and workforce development experts to integrate these insights into program decision-making and discussions with Program Advisory Councils. Additionally, the role involves establishing and tracking performance metrics to measure the impact of workforce alignment on program success, presenting findings to senior leadership, and contributing to best practices for incorporating workforce intelligence into academic strategies.
This position is critical in ensuring WGU's programs align with evolving workforce demands, directly influencing student success and program relevance.
Essential Functions and Responsibilities:
- Extract and manipulate data using SQL. Develop database objects.
- Code and perform unit testing of developed code.
- Proficient analytical skill set and experience with creating, cleaning, and analyzing large data sets.
- Develop and deploy complex reports and dashboards.
- Create data-informed processes to resolve business problems and use analytical methods to produce actionable insights.
- Manage change requests and troubleshoot data issues.
- Complete root cause analysis on KPIs.
- Collaborate in the forecasting of key business drivers and KPIs.
- Present findings to technical and non-technical audiences, including executive staff.
- Design process and business audits for data quality.
- Ability to attend to detail, manage multiple tasks and meet deadlines.
- Work closely and communicate effectively with business users and stakeholders. Requirements gathering and documentation from stakeholders.
- Meet and consult with the project stakeholders to determine the scope, requirements, final product, and, if needed, ongoing maintenance support.
- Represent Institutional Research at meetings and other coordinating events to provide IR insights, perspective, and results.
- Assist, train, and guide less experienced members of the team in technical processes.
- Perform other related duties as assigned.
Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:
- Advanced Excel and SQL skills.
- Understanding of inferential statistics and predictive modeling.
- Understanding of time-series forecasting.
- Proficiency in visual display of data.
Western Governors University is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation or any other classification protected by federal, state or local law.
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