The recent years haven’t been too kind to businesses. Times have been tough and profits have been slim.
Great employee programs have been cut. There are businesses that no longer offer matching 401K, health benefits, and college reimbursement.
Thankfully, many businesses are seeing a rise in profits and are considering reimplementing, or implementing for the first time, these programs.
Today, I want to share with you what I see as the benefits of offering college tuition reimbursement to your employees.
Image by Paul Stainthrop
As a leader, it’s your job to attract key talent to your team. You’re most likely looking for smart, well-educated team members who are hungry to learn.
Yet once they enter the workforce, many find it hard to continue to educate themselves.
There’s many factors including:
Lack of time
Lack of finances
Lack of ambition (Hey, it happens!)
Lack of confidence
Two of these factors can be connected. The lack of time and lack of finances are a huge contributor to people forgoing college education.
You may have people working more hours so they can save up to attend college again. This makes them choose between college, family, and work. Work normally wins out.
However, you can help your team members re-enter college by offering college tuition reimbursement. Not only will you be helping them, you’ll be contributing to the success of your business.
College tuition helps leaders in many ways. Lets take a look at 3 of those today.
College tuition reimbursement programs retain top talent: As an employer, you may think your team members will ditch you once you’ve helped them obtain a college degree. In most cases you’d be wrong.
Programs such as college tuition reimbursement actually creates a loyalty to you, the employer. They feel obligated to stay and help the company succeed. The employees who take advantage of tuition reimbursement programs feel compelled to help the company since you helped them.
College tuition reimbursement programs create better employees: A huge program companies face is attracting star talent. Sometimes it’s even impossible to get the stars to come to your team.
So, what’s the solution? Help build the star talent yourself. Offer to reimburse their college education and help them become the talented employee you know they can be.
You’ll begin to see a marked difference in your team as they progress through college. They’ll gain the skills and abilities they need to excel at their job.
Give them the opportunity to become star talent.
College tuition reimbursement programs expands the possibilities of your company: You’ve seen the two previous reasons for considering tuition reimbursements. These programs help you retain top talent and they also help you create better employees.
This final reason builds on the previous two. Because you’re retaining top talent and building better employees, your company will have expanded possibilities for growth.
Your team members will be smarter, better connected, and willing to offer new ideas.
As you can see, college tuition reimbursement programs make sense. They help retain your best employees, they help create better employees, and they open your company up for new growth.
Question: Does your organization offer college tuition reimbursement? If so, how have you seen it improve your company? If not, what could you do to encourage them to offer such a program? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.