Ideas to Innovate Workforce Tuition Assistance

Ideas to Innovate Workforce Tuition AssistanceFor companies who want to launch a new tuition assistance program (TAP)—or revamp an existing one—it’s hard to know where to begin. While programs vary from one organization to the next, however, their success is largely dependent on business leaders’ ability to manage investments in employee education in a way that maximizes returns. Furthermore, not only does a TAP need to encourage the development of specific skills in your workforce, it also needs to empower employees to pursue their educational goals.

To that end, I connected with John Zappa, CEO of EdLink to identify a few key steps to get you started. Note: EdLink recently conducted a research study Innovative Approaches to Manage Your Tuition Program Spending.

1. Identify Goals, Support with Investments Work with your senior management team to set quantifiable, measurable goals. Address the question of cost early on, using your goals as a guiding compass. The more critical a goal, the larger your investment in a TAP. Alternatively, you can follow industry standards. You might consider breaking qualifying coursework into groups. Here is an example:

2. Establish Guidelines, Communicate Expectations and Opportunities Clear guidelines and qualifications will help to ensure a TAP supports your business goals. As such, they should address what skills are valuable to the employer, and why. Make it easy for employees to understand your business needs and how to make education choices that support those needs. Talk to employees about your tuition program in the onboarding process and periodically hold Q&A sessions to bolster interest and adoption.

3. Balance Guidelines with Flexibility and Opportunity While guidelines are important, you should also offer employees an opportunity to pursue their personal goals is also important. By being flexible, and offering assistance for four-year degrees, continuous learning, applied learning coursework, employees can pursue educational goals in whatever time frame suits their needs. Furthermore, courses unrelated to an employee’s current position shouldn’t be outright excluded. These provide opportunities for employees to acquire new skills and knowledge beyond the boundaries of their current role. This can improve employee satisfaction (which aids in retention) and create more rounded employees.

4. Measure Program Outcomes, Adjust Accordingly For your program to have the greatest impact (and lasting success), it should be treated as an investment in a larger talent management strategy. To that end, measuring program outcomes–and how they affect other business initiatives–is essential. Track changes in retention and engagement, and compare data against nonparticipants. And cross reference this data with things like customer satisfaction or changes in sales numbers for hard data on the value of the program. If the program is driving desired outcomes, consider allocating more resources to allow more employees to participate. If not, survey employees to identify the reasons. Were guidelines and qualifications too rigid? Was course completion an issue? Were work schedules an obstacle?

Effective TAPs are Smart—Not All-Encompassing Investing in employee education is a great way to foster higher retention rates and improve employee performance, but at the end of the day you’re working with limited resources. Whether you’re creating a new TAP or revamping an old one, remember that an effective plan doesn’t have to be a large plan. It has to be smart.

By matching company needs with employee goals, you can encourage workforce learning without a big budget. That beings with business strategy and proactive program management. The rest is up to your employees.

image credit: maryville.edu

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4 Things The Apple Store Can Teach Us About StaffingKyle Lagunas is an HR Analyst at Software Advice, an online resource for HR and talent management software buyers guides, demos and more. He reports on trends and best practices in human resources technology.

Kyle Lagunas

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