How to Help Your Employees Get College Credit for Their Jobs

On the job training is in focus because of the rapid rise of AI technology and a widening gap between management expectations and the actual skill levels of many workers are now required to use AI. Hence there’s lots of talk of “upskilling” or “reskilling” the workforce. But education and work match up in different ways too, as a new report from the University of Phoenix and the Harris Poll reminds us. It turns out that nearly two in three U.S. workers who don’t have a college degree are unaware that their ongoing and former experiences at work can actually count toward earning one.

The gap in understanding on this issue is actually pretty big: the study also found that 45 percent of employed Americans aren’t aware that their on the job training can map into college credits, even though 90 percent of workers are currently developing their skill sets in some way, science news site Phys.org notes. 

More interestingly, the Harris data also show that over seven in 10 workers have turned down options for professional development, with 35 percent saying this was because of cost issues, 32 percent because of schedule issues and nearly one in five people saying their employers weren’t supportive. The scheduling issues marry up with at least one other report that showed recently managers aren’t taking professional development opportunities because they’re just too busy and too tired out to learn new skills — a problem that also likely afflicts many nonmanagerial workers. 

The question of costs is interesting here, especially since the study found over half of workers have paid out of their own funds for training that wasn’t covered by their employers, and 23 percent have done this more than once. At least for the issue of AI training, this aligns with several reports that say workers are sometimes bringing in their own AI tools to the office, partly because their employers don’t offer any and partly because the ones on offer are inadequate—some of this self-propelled AI use probably involves workers covering their own training costs. A recent study pointed out that Gen-Z workers, in particular, would like their employers to spend more on training. 

The study also dug into what experiences people think count as college degree credits, and highlighted some surprising details. For example, 59 percent of the over 2,000 adult respondents to the survey didn’t think life experiences could count as credits, 46 percent doubted professional experience mattered, and 43 percent thought professional training courses weren’t credit-worthy. And while overall a third of respondents didn’t realize previous college coursework could carry forward, Gen-Z (the workers most recently in college) was more likely to think this way than older generations.

Why is this important to your company?

Firstly, it’s a reminder that in-work education is valuable, both to the employers and to employees themselves. And if your workplace training program doesn’t include mention of the fact that it may count as college course credits, it’s probably worth reminding your staff of this fact. The U.S. workforce is constantly training too, the Harris data show, with 90 percent of the survey respondents saying they get some training time every month, and 18 percent saying they spend over 20 hours a month in training. 

Secondly, recent reports highlight a skills gap between recent college grads and the kind of expertise and knowledge that businesses — particularly smaller ones—are looking for in new hires. Offering your workers the chance to further their education with college-level training is a complex issue, since it raises questions of workers taking time off periodically for college studies, or even sabbatical periods. But offering meaningful perks to your workers like this may be more important than ever, studies show, since the workforce’s needs and expectations are evolving, and they may also boost workers’ engagement and efficiency in a period where worker performance may be dipping under many sources of stress.

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