The ultimate guide to education benefits that attract, retain, and engage employees

Good education benefits are more than table stakes — they transform business and talent outcomes.

Instead of simply being seen as a benefit, education is now a strategic investment in a company’s talent strategy — and a competitive advantage.

Major employers like Walmart and Chipotle started the transformation years ago. Both companies were among the early innovators who noticed that standard tuition reimbursement programs were doing the opposite of what was intended.

The programs were inequitable, saw low adoption rates, and ultimately proved ineffective.

In 2018, Walmart launched an education program to directly pay for education — via tuition assistance — so their associates could enroll in learning programs ranging from high school completion to degrees and certificates.

As they saw increased retention and promotion rates, the retailer continued to invest in the program, and in 2021, they made education available — completely tuition-free — to all 1.5 million employees.

Chipotle redesigned its tuition reimbursement program in 2016 to be tuition-free and found that crew members with less than 6 months of tenure were 2.1x more likely to retain if they were participating in Guild programs vs. non-engaged crew members1.

They’ve also seen a 46% increase in applicants when marketing education to prospective employees.2

Now, more and more companies are seizing the moment. Since 2021, organizations including Target, Waste Management, Sunrun, Macy’s, and more have launched new programs to reskill their workforces through education.

But to see the gains of this kind of program — whether that’s attracting, retaining, or developing talent — organizations must structure them accordingly.

These next-generation education programs are more than a blanket benefit.

They’re driving transformational outcomes that lead to opportunity with an intentional approach to payment, policy, and learning options. This ultimate guide provides an outline to this intentional approach.

We’ll cover best practices for structuring an effective employee education program, including how to rethink:

• Payment

• Policy

• Learning providers

• Bonus differentiators that set a program apart

The 3 key elements of an effective education program

Education programs that actually receive engagement and drive outcomes (such as talent acquisition and retention) have three fundamental elements:

• Proper payment structures

• Accessible policies

• A marketplace of high-quality learning providers

We'll dive into each.

1. Payment

The method of payment matters. Tuition reimbursement is often the baseline payment option  for education benefit programs, but requiring upfront payment from employees creates a significant – and inequitable –  barrier to entry, a key reason why it’s estimated only 2% of employees actually participate in tuition reimbursement benefits.

As companies have expanded employee education beyond their corporate workforce to include the front line, providing more payment options has become the foundational element of equity and access.

What’s the difference between “tuition reimbursement” and “tuition assistance”?

Tuition reimbursement programs require employees to pay for their courses upfront and apply for reimbursement after completion.

In contrast, tuition assistance programs allow employers to directly pay for either part or all of an employee’s tuition expenses. In other words, this model effectively reduces or eliminates the need for employees to pay out of pocket.

What does “tuition-free” mean?

The most ideal option is a fully funded tuition assistance model where the employer covers the complete cost of education — including tuition, books, fees, and more  — to ensure wherever possible that the employee doesn’t pay out of pocket for any education-related expense.

Previous models of employee education fail to meet the needs of all workers.

Tuition reimbursement was designed primarily for corporate workers, who are more financially equipped to pay for school upfront while waiting for reimbursement.

Frontline employees often do not have that luxury.

Offering tuition assistance and removing the barrier of upfront tuition cost is an important first step in opening access to education and effectively delivering professional development to your entire workforce.

According to a Guild survey, 3 out of 4 employees who do not hold an undergraduate degree select tuition assistance over tuition reimbursement programs when their employers offer both funding options, increasing to 9 out of 10 for employees with no college experience.3

Providing program options that are directly funded by employers is essential to creating an equitable, effective program. Nearly 100% of Guild employer partners offer some form of tuition-free program to its workforce4, and more than 90% of Learning Marketplace learners incur no expenses from tuition, textbooks or fees.5

Streamlined, tuition assistance programs drive ROI

It’s also important to remember that programs that adhere to payment best practices see a higher return on their investment in education — including improvement in talent attraction, retention, and benefit adoption.

• Talent Attraction: In one example, 50% of surveyed applicants in a Waste Management hiring campaign cited their tuition-free college offering as a reason for applying.6

• Talent Retention: On average, Guild learners participating in Learning Marketplace programs were 2.3x less likely to leave their employer in the last 12 months relative to non-members.7

• Benefit Adoption: 4 out of 5 healthcare employees with no college experience select tuition assistance programs when their employers offer both TA and TR funding options.8 For the 3.6M entry-level healthcare aides in the US with a median pay of only $14.15/hour, tuition assistance removes a key financial barrier to career advancement.9

Payment best practice recommendation

To maximize program success, companies should remove financial barriers and implement a tuition assistance program that provides a seamless experience for both employees and employers.

For companies still committed to also offering tuition reimbursement, beware of limited visibility into employee enrollment in programs and related reimbursement costs. This can make it difficult to track completion and attrition rates, skill development and internal talent pipelines, alignment to business goals, job mobility, or overall ROI.

2. Policy

Prohibitive policies like tuition clawbacks and grade requirements can discourage program adoption and create a negative employee experience that detracts from an organization’s employer brand.

Best-in-class programs should focus on policies that are both equitable and accessible.

An education program is only effective when employees actually use it — which means policy that encourages adoption has a huge impact on outcomes.

Tuition reimbursement programs often have requirements and restrictions that are intended to instill accountability in employees.

The theory is that by putting workers on the hook for grade requirements, manager approval, tuition clawbacks, or certain tenure periods, employers will incentivize employees to complete their programs and stay with the company.

Policies like clawbacks and grade requirements often dissuade employees from participating in the first place.

Some of the most common examples include:

• Tuition clawbacks: Employers that require their money be returned if an employee leaves the organization end up impeding program adoption and creating a negative experience by forcing workers to take on debt.

• Manager approval: Team leadership can change often and unpredictably — and employees may not feel comfortable asking their manager in the first place. Manager approval can also introduce biases, such as similarity bias, which occurs when managers are preferential towards employees who are similar to them. That means underrepresented employees experience outsized discomfort when requesting approval for education.

• Grade requirements: While most employees are more than capable of college courses, working adults who have been out of school for years may be anxious about returning to school and find these policies discouraging.

The result of these outdated policies is that the employer sees no substantial gains from a program while the employee has a more negative experience — which detracts from the employer brand.

Best practice policy recommendation

Accessible and equitable policy supports an inclusive program.

To encourage employees to enroll and persist through programs, employers should not implement strict tenure requirements, tuition clawbacks, grade requirements, or manager approval.

3. Marketplace of learning providers

Learning options should be as diverse as the workforce they empower and prepared to serve working adult learners.

A best-in-class education program serves the whole workforce — which means it should account for different educational journeys.

While MBAs have historically been a common focus of tuition reimbursement programs, today’s education and skilling initiatives need to account for more learning options to support diverse workforces while also aligning to the skills and jobs of the future.

Schools that have experience serving diverse groups can also be particularly effective — such as HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, military-friendly schools, and more.

Frontline workers have different backgrounds than their corporate counterparts, and educational programming should account for these different starting points.

For example, many employees would benefit from high school completion or language learning, while college prep courses can also be valuable for working adults who’ve been out of school for a number of years.

Associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees should be available as well.

Short-form learning has entered the new normal

In addition to foundational learning and degrees, businesses should consider skills-based, short-form learning, such as certificates, career diplomas, bootcamps, and beyond.

These programs can help workers build skills that align with the future of work while also promoting internal career mobility.

Many of these options can also stack together over time to provide value in the short term while allowing employees to build to a full degree over time.