Whether you call it “The Great Resignation,” “The Big Quit,” or “The Great Reshuffle,” millions of Americans left their jobs in 2021, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept through the country, causing workers in every sector of the economy to rethink their jobs, their lifestyles and their values. More than 4.5 million Americans voluntarily left their jobs last November alone, the highest monthly number in the two decades that the figure has been tracked.
Labor markets have been turned upside down, and employers have had to scramble to hire and retain workers. From retail to hospitality, healthcare to industrials, major companies have been offering more generous benefits, higher wages and other perks in an attempt to lure and retain employees in what’s become one of the tightest job markets in history.
One of those benefits has been employer-provided education and upskilling, where a company offers to pay for the additional education and training that it and its workers desire.
An increasing number of major employers such as Starbucks, Uber, Walmart, and Adidas are now paying for their employees to pursue various educational pathways as part of a strategy to improve their workforce and drive desired business results.
Can company-provided educational programs and pathways help overcome the unprecedented workforce problems now facing American businesses?
Can “The Great Resignation” be converted to “The Great Retention”?
I recently interviewed Vivek Sharma, the co-founder and CEO of InStride, one of the nation’s leading platforms providing strategic workforce education, and asked him what it will take for companies to tackle today’s workforce crisis.
Q How many companies does InStride currently partner with to provide some form of employer-paid educational benefit?
Sharma: We currently have more than 40 corporate partners, including firms such as Labcorp, Banner Health, Aramark, Banfield Pet Hospitals, Magna and Intermountain Healthcare. On the educational side, our U.S. partners include Arizona State University, the University of Memphis, City University of New York, the University of Virginia, and the University of Wisconsin.
Q Employer-provided educational benefits have been around for a long time, and historically the “take up” rate has been only 1-2%. Can that participation rate be improved?
Sharma: American businesses spend about $180 billion each year on tuition assistance and other company-sponsored training programs. However, the vast majority of CEOs are dissatisfied that these programs don’t produce the desired business results.
You’re correct - only 1-2% of eligible employees participate, and most of them never finish the program they started.
We founded InStride to solve this problem. Our “take up” rate is about 20%, and up to 92% of participants in our education programs are retained by their employers, compared to about 62% with traditional tuition-reimbursement programs.
The three key ingredients to our success are 1) tying the program to the CEO’s business goals and lifting employees’ career trajectories, 2) partnering with leading universities that focus on driving outcomes, and 3) delivering a frictionless end-to-end experience for the learners.
Q How should CEOs think about today’s workforce challenges, and is there a model they can look to that’s been successful in the past?
Sharma: Here’s a provocative question for CEOs: Imagine a scenario where your business success is critically dependent on your ability to retain valued employees for 20-40 years and, after entry level, you cannot hire workers from outside your organization. Faced with that challenge, most CEO’s will say. “It can’t be done.”
But that would be incorrect. The U.S. Military has shown the way to do this successfully for more than 200 years. It emphasizes three factors that CEOs could emulate.
- First, it’s mission-driven. By 2025, 75% of the nation’s workforce will be millennials, and one quality that most millennials desire in their employers is a commitment to a mission they value.
- Second, the military emphasizes identification with a unit. There’s a constant appeal to “my team” and “my unit.” Engagement is prized at all levels.
- And third, the military puts a premium on investing in lifelong learning. Education, certification and training - it’s a way of life across the military, and, in fact, military veterans dot the C-level and senior leadership of the Fortune 500.
Q Does the enterprise educational strategy vary depending on the business sector?
Sharma: Absolutely, different industries need different types of programs. In healthcare, there’s an emphasis on addressing the severe shortage of nurses and building digital literacy for telehealth. In the financial and technology sectors, where many employees may already have a college degree, there’s an emphasis on targeted upskilling. In retail and hospitality, there’s a retention focus by offering high school completion or associate/baccalureate degrees.
The key is to “meet learners where they are,” tailoring programs to both company goals and employee needs. That philosophy translates into some interesting developments in a Great Retention strategy.
For example, Uber allows its eligible drivers to transfer their eduction benefit to a family member. I think we will see that kind of flexibility and investment in employee well-being become more common in company-provided education programs.
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February 20, 2022 at 06:00PM
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Can There Be A Great Retention? An Interview With InStride CEO Vivek Sharma - Forbes
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