CAEL F&N, Filling the Gaps

BJC Healthcare is one of the largest non-profit healthcare organizations in the country, serving primarily residents of the greater St. Louis area, as well as southern Illinois and mid-Missouri. BJC consists of 13 hospitals and several community health locations, and its services range from acute care to mental health, primary care to long-term care and hospice.

BJC has long provided generous tuition benefits to its employees. However, BJC has recognized that many of its employees want or need training programs that either are not covered by the standard Tuition Assistance Policy (e.g., certain certificates, basic skills, etc.) or that take them over the cap. Last year, the company introduced Learning Accounts as a new tuition benefit to supplement the existing offerings.

JoAnn Shaw, Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at BJC—and CAEL Trustee since 2005—recently spoke with CAEL's Amy Sherman and the Forum and News' Becky Klein-Collins about the BJC Learning Accounts. The conversation focused on why the Learning Accounts were offered, what the experience has been, and what the lessons are for CAEL as we continue to advocate for public policies that support a similar strategy: Lifelong Learning Accounts (LiLAs).

JoAnn, BJC Healthcare recently began offering Learning Accounts to its employees. How did this new program come about?

BJC is an organization made up of exceptional people taking exceptional care of patients. We want to provide our employees the tools they need to succeed.

With this philosophy, BJC has a strong commitment to adult learning. Although our employees are very diverse in terms of educational level and achievement, our goal is to make sure we have options and opportunities for every employee in the organization. Our CEO, Steven Lipstein, has said that he wants every one of our 26,000 employees to engage in learning opportunities each year.

Our Center for Lifelong Learning therefore boasts an extensive curriculum of learning opportunities, and we are continuously looking for ways to expand our offerings.

The Learning Accounts idea actually came from one of my first CAEL board meetings. As I heard Amy Sherman talk about Lifelong Learning Accounts, or LiLAs, I thought to myself, What a great additional benefit to complement existing tuition programs. I thought it would be particularly attractive to our entry level employees, many of whom are single parents working full time who typically cannot afford the high cost of tuition on their own.

JoAnn left that meeting really excited about LiLAs and immediately introduced CAEL to policy leaders in Missouri. They viewed LiLAs as a promising component of their overall economic development strategy and were interested in making them available to Missouri's workforce and employers. LiLAs have since been adopted by regional leaders in the Kansas City area—both in Missouri and Kansas—who are in the process of launching a LiLA pilot with funding from a Department of Labor WIRED grant.

While it has been interesting to watch the idea evolve in Missouri, we knew that policy change would take time. BJC decided that it wanted to offer a LiLA-like benefit immediately, with or without state support and tax benefits. And so we borrowed some of the design elements from LiLAs and developed our own Learning Account program.

How are the BJC Learning Accounts structured?

Employees who open Learning Accounts can make contributions of after-tax dollars through a payroll deduction. Up to $500 annually is matched by BJC, dollar for dollar. Employees can use the combined contributions for a wide range of educational activities and expenses, although not for hobbies, purchasing a computer, nor for indirect expenses such as food, travel and childcare. They can also use the accounts in conjunction with our other tuition benefits.

One of the components of the program is that the maximum amount that can be in the account at any time is $1,000. This is to encourage employees to use their account and not end up perpetually saving.

What's been the experience with the Learning Accounts so far? How many employees have signed up, and how are they using their accounts?

The program is hugely successful. It has been available for one year, and as of today, we have 1,149 employees participating. We are very pleased with these enrollment numbers and see them as an indication that we have hit on a need.

Employees are using the account for expenses that are not covered under the other tuition benefits we offer. They are using it for GED and remedial classes, Spanish classes, CPR training, and certifications not covered by other tuition programs.

Interestingly, we have learned that most of the employees using this benefit are in entry level positions, earning less than $35,000 per year. When we took a close look at who was enrolling in the learning accounts, we were very pleased because many of the employees have not utilized the program in the past.

The fact that so many people at BJC see this as a great opportunity speaks well for how LiLAs are likely to be received when offered to the broader workforce. BJC has done a great job promoting Learning Accounts to their employees, which we know is key to a strong take up rate. It is also very telling that so many frontline workers are signing up. We saw that in our own demonstration, and we are pleased to see that the BJC Learning Account program is reaching frontline workers as well.

I should also add that we have had a tremendous amount of positive feedback from our employees-not just on the Learning Accounts but also on our overall commitment to learning. We are very pleased to receive these responses because we feel this is one of our best strategies for attracting and retaining exceptional employees and supporters of our healthcare mission.

Was the concept of Learning Accounts difficult to sell internally?

No, not at all. As I mentioned earlier, our CEO is very committed to lifelong learning, and that kind of support is critical for making a program like this happen. If you asked him, "Can you afford to offer these kinds of learning benefits?", his response would invariably be, "Can we afford not to?" He believes that we need to do more to help our workforce, "grow our own" high-skilled workers, and do everything we can to make sure that talent doesn't walk out the door.

I need to point out that while BJC is a huge operation, we are a non-profit health system and we do not have money to burn. When people outside of our organization see all that we provide, they assume that we have a huge budget for administering it. In reality, we do not have a big budget, but we are still able to create some incredible opportunities for our employees.

Amy, what do you see as the lessons for CAEL from the BJC Learning Account experience?

BJC has shown remarkable leadership in lifelong learning, and it has been of great interest to CAEL to see how a learning account system could be adopted by a single employer and be such a great success.

For me, the BJC example—particularly its high take-up rate from frontline workers—shows that CAEL is on the right track in our efforts to promote LiLAs with states and at the federal level. And if it were available more broadly, then features such as portability of the accounts could start to come into play, which would be important for workers at risk of downsizing or who need to change employers in order to advance in their fields. The policy effort is also important, I think, because although CAEL works with a number of employers like BJC who are committed to employee learning and development, we know that extra incentives of tax credits proposed in recently introduced federal legislation will move other employers in offering them to their workforce.

JoAnn Shaw is Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at BJC Healthcare and has been a member of the CAEL Board of Trustees since Feburary 2005. Amy Sherman is CAEL's Associate Vice President for Policy and Strategic Alliances and has overseen CAEL's LiLA initiative since 2002.