Alex Cannon
February 16th, 2023
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020 showed that nearly half of all American workers will require reskilling by the year 2025.
At this year’s World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Guild was honored to be featured among innovations and innovators to watch, as the critical link between access to education and opportunity remains abundantly clear and top-of-mind for equity-minded policymakers.
Employer-funded learning – usually through education benefits – is at the center of many discussions and news articles about today’s chaotic labor market. They are needed to address critical talent needs across industries.
Education benefits are needed to address critical talent needs across industries.
What we talk about less often is how it’s done.
For example, comprehensive education benefits are not enough to handle the immense reskilling needs the World Economic Forum highlights. It's the strategy behind funded learning matters.
Employees need education benefits that offer equitable access to employer-funded education programs.
Not only that, but the programs need to be:
- Thoughtfully designed to meet their needs
- Provide meaningful support during their learning journeys
- Offer opportunities to access career mobility
Here's are three ways to structure your education benefits to lead to more career mobility.
1. Broaden access
Although it may not seem immediately obvious which companies are providing education benefits to simply tick a box or to actually create career mobility, looking at who has access to learning opportunities is a strong telling indicator.
At Guild, responsibility for access doesn’t stop with employers.
Learning programs that provide flexible options both in terms of multiple start dates and program delivery.
These flexible options demonstrate that the programs are designed with an awareness of the time poverty — itself a major barrier to access — that working adult students can face in the pursuit of education attainment.
Time poverty can be a major barrier to access for many working adult students.
2. Build career-aligned skills
Education and skilling programs are well aware of the increased pressure and scrutiny to better deliver on career outcomes for students.
Those that design for the lived realities of working adult students and relevance to their career goals have a significant opportunity to have an outsize impact on mobility outcomes for learners.
For more information on this topic, see our complete guide on how to create career mobility for your entire workforce.
3. Grow opportunity
A labor market in constant flux can be particularly challenging in terms of translation into skills in demand.
This can also force learning programs into a reactive position.
We don't do reactive strategies at Guild. Instead, our Learning Partners benefit from insights into the unique needs of working adult learners, as well as the business needs of large, innovative employers.
Guild’s Learning Partners share in learners’ vision for opportunity.
In an interview at Guild’s 2022 Opportunity Summit, Kate Smith, President of Rio Salado College, explained that the impact of individual success has far-reaching potential:
“This is truly about that social and economic mobility. Proving that pathway. These employees having access and being able to start what might have been a dream for them. That affects not only the individual, that affects their entire families, and that affects generations of families. If we’re going to break poverty, this is how we do it.”
Kate Smith, President at Rio Salado College
Equity-focused programs understand the enormous impact they stand to drive for working adult learners.
Ensuring the outcomes students and employers want and expect from their funded learning experience requires a strong understanding of skilling needs within a dynamic labor market, as well as the right mission-aligned partnerships.
About the author
Alex Cannon
As a versatile writer and strategist, Alex is leaning into the productive tension between the future of learning and the future of work.
