As companies continue to focus on improving diversity and inclusion efforts, there’s one often-overlooked strategy that can help them achieve real results: education benefits.
The U.S. has a pretty serious education gap among its population. About 74% of Black Americans and 81% of Hispanic Americans aged 25 and older don’t have a four-year degree, according to data from the Census Bureau, compared to the 59% of white Americans aged 25 and older without a college degree.
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Employer-provided education benefits can offer support to underserved employees, helping them to overcome systemic barriers to higher education. Most job listings require a four-year degree, but having that diploma doesn’t necessarily mean someone is the perfect fit for that position. Someone with all the skills but no degree might not bother applying because of the prohibitive education requirement — and then both the prospective employee and the employer are missing out.
“Over the last couple of years the importance of DEI as a corporate priority has skyrocketed,” says Patrick Donovan, senior vice president of emerging services at Bright Horizons. “As companies are looking at the various ways to impact DEI results, one of the [key] components of that is workforce education programs.”
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Bright Horizons partners with employers across the country to provide flexible and inclusive workforce education programs. Some of the company's clients have utilized these programs to invest in their people and create a more diverse workplace.
Ohio Health, a not-for-profit system of hospitals and healthcare providers, offered a prepaid tuition option that eliminated out-of-pocket payments for employees; participation among Black and female employees jumped.
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In a recent one-on-one interview, Donovan shared his thoughts on how education benefits can be used to improve diversity and inclusion efforts.
How can education benefits improve employers’ DEI efforts?
Look at the financial burdens that exist and that education gap that exists. If you want to have really robust DEI initiatives, you have to address that and ideally develop folks from within. Almost all employers today want to increase the amount of underrepresented minorities in their leadership ranks, but it’s really hard to hire. To do that from the inside means you really have to think through your education programs and define that opportunity and make sure folks understand the value of going after this and what kind of job they can then go after.
What is a critical factor in designing an education benefit?
It’s really important to construct the tuition program so that it’s low cost and something that you can finance as the employer, so there is no out of pocket expense for the employee. We have clients who have done and seen really significant increases in participation rates from both a Black and female employees.
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Besides the financial barrier, employers need to include other supports like adding additional coaching. This can come both at the front of the process, before they commit to a particular program, so they understand how it works. And then during the program, so to make sure that they can stay on track, that they're getting support they need along the way.
How should employers redesign their job postings so they don’t exclude certain groups?
The more requirements you put on a job, the less diverse candidates you're going to get and diversity is defined as both gender and race. Unless a woman feels like she meets 80% or higher of the requirements, she's generally not going to apply, as compared to a man who meets 50% of the requirements. Employers need to look at that and realize that you're not going to hire someone if they don’t apply. So it’s really being thoughtful about what are the true requirements for the position. Also, really promoting how you're going to develop as a company is a big part of the job posting. Make sure someone understands that this is a company that is going to invest in them and show them a career path over time and let them advance within that company.
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Not every job requires a four year degree. Certainly some of the more leadership positions may, but if you're trying to grow your overall base of employees, taking a fresh look at your job descriptions to see does this really require that degree. Get someone into that position where they can start with the company and they can learn your culture, and then they can be developed towards those positions that you want them to eventually apply for.
