A new phenomenon is emerging: companies are diverging from human capital theory by providing employees a general education in addition to specific training at the workplace. Blue collar workers often do not pursue higher education due to perceived lack of opportunities. If an employer provides educational opportunities, blue collar workers may experience a shift in mind and attitudinal change. Vroom's expectancy-valence theory explains workers' participation in education opportunities at the workplace: they believe participation will have certain desirable consequences (expectancy) and they conceive of participation as a means to satisfy their needs (valence). Evidence suggests that providing blue collar workers with opportunities for a general education at the workplace will reduce workers' perceived barriers for participation and provide a rationale for participation with expected outcomes. Innovative education and industry partnerships have implications for enterprises as they strive to correlate workplace learning to performance and production. Such workplace strategies include the following: tuition reimbursement; onsite professional education for engineers and management; Honeywell (Canada) Ltd.'s partnership with a community college that launched a lifelong learning initiative to enhance self-directed work teams, empowerment, global competitiveness, and a high performance workplace; and Ford Motor Company's program for life enhancement opportunities. (Contains 33 references.) (YLB)