Last year, my job announced that they would be expanding the benefits for our tuition reimbursement program. They added a lot more colleges to this program as well as on-campus and online majors to increase those who would be eligible. When this was announced, we did have a major influx of applicants and some openly admitted that they were interested in working for the company because of our tuition reimbursement program. This was shortly after the height of the pandemic, so there already were a lot of people who were in need of jobs and financial assistance. We did hire a lot of them as we were encouraged to do so, but we now have employees who work the bare minimum to be eligible for these benefits. As a leader of this company, I understand both sides of it. College is very expensive and why not take advantage of these benefits if you only have to work a small number of hours per week. However, at the same time, some employees know they could get away with doing the bare minimum and still have the same benefits compared to those who put in the effort all the time. We’ve also hired people who have admitted they want to work for us because of the benefits, but when they see the colleges and majors are somewhat limited, they end up leaving the company shortly after.

In general, I think it’s a great benefit to have, but it being somewhat limited has negatively impacted our employees both new and old.