FAQs from CAEL Webinars
How do you influence your leadership to see this as a financially advantageous employee development option? Where do I start?
In the current economic climate, many managers who are responsible for tuition assistance programs are finding that they need to build the business case for their program. CAEL has experience working with many companies to do this. First, we recommend you look at your tuition policy in relation to your overall talent management strategy. Does your policy support the goals of the company or is it a legacy program that has not been updated for sometime?
Here are some practical examples:
If your company is looking to recruit younger workers who may not have obtained their bachelor’s, are they eligible for tuition assistance at their start date with the company?
If your company has identified critical skill gaps that are not being addressed by internal training, do you allow employees to take individual courses (without matriculating into a degree program) to address their learning needs?
If you feel that your tuition policy does not support the larger talent management goals at your organization, we recommend that you revise your policy before building your business case. Once you have a solid policy in place, you can identify key metrics (i.e. participation rates, degree completions, retention impact, etc.) to share with senior leadership in order to reinforce the value of the program.
Do you see companies moving toward or away from on-line degrees?
The vast majority of company sponsored tuition programs cover on-line degree programs if they are offered by a regionally or nationally accredited institution. In their 2007 study, Corporate University Exchange found that fewer than 5% of companies exclude online courses from coverage under the company tuition plan.
And two separate studies from 2007 and 2008, found that acceptance rates among employers of online degrees had grown from 62% in 2007 to 83% in 2008. (View studies at Diverse Issues in Higher Education and Excelsior College)
Our experience shows that on-line programs are very popular with adult students who have very busy work and family lives. However, not all online programs are of equal quality and not all students are prepared to excel in a distance learning format. CAEL encourages companies to provide employees with criteria to use in evaluating all possible institutions including those that offer their programs online.
How do we deal with the MBA question?
By the “MBA question,” I assume you mean that you find large numbers of employees with their bachelor’s degrees think their next step should be to work towards an MBA. Oftentimes this means, there is more homework to be done by the company and by the employee. Has your company assessed the areas of study that are most important to your business success? Has this information been communicated to employees and their managers? There are a number of areas of study at the graduate level that may be more beneficial to your organization such as management, industrial behavior, finance, accounting, information systems management. Employees should be encouraged to explore the kinds of programs that meet their career development goals and the needs of the company. This may mean that it takes more time to find the right program but it will also help the employee to understand how their choice supports their goals for advancement within the company.
