Chief Learning Officer - December 2007 - (Page 83) case study V erizon Wireless: Getting ROI From TAP Dorothy Martin and Rebecca Klein-Collins When Bonnie first came to work at Verizon Wireless, her manager was impressed with her enthusiasm on the job but thought that she lacked business experience. She noted, “Bonnie would often make decisions based on how she felt about someone or something, rather than seeing the bigger picture.” Yet, after taking advantage of the LearningLINK tuition assistance program at Verizon Wireless to take some business classes, the manager noticed a change: “Bonnie began to use her newly learned critical thinking skills to think outside of herself and make decisions based on business impact.” Bonnie’s work performance — and contributions to the company — improved so much that she has now assumed an acting supervisor role. Bonnie’s story is not unusual — at least not at Verizon Wireless, which has taken concrete steps to ensure LearningLINK helps the company as much as it does the individual employee. This may come as a surprise to some learning and HR professionals. Unlike company-sponsored training, tuition-assistance programs (TAPs) are usually viewed as little more than an employee benefit — a benefit that gives workers the opportunity to earn degrees and credentials that make them more valuable in the labor market. But if done right, companies can benefit from TAPs too. or probably a factor in their decision to accept employment at the company. Participation data shows that these claims are likely true, as 42 percent of LearningLINK participants have been with the company two years or less. Retention Turnover is a costly problem for many employers. Verizon is particularly affected by this issue, given that 80 percent of its workforce is in customer service and retail sales, areas that traditionally experience very high turnover rates. Isolating the direct cause of improved retention is a tricky proposition — there are often complex reasons why an employee chooses to stay — but Verizon suspects that LearningLINK may be one important factor. A striking finding for Martin was that the general workforce is more than twice as likely to leave the company than are LearningLINK participants. This is reinforced by survey data showing that 96 percent of LearningLINK participants said they intended to stay with Verizon for at least two years after completing their degrees. When factoring in the cost to the company to hire new people, LearningLINK’s role in contributing to employee retention demonstrates that it likely pays for itself while also reducing overall rehire costs. Measuring the Benefits Dorothy Martin, the national program manager for LearningLINK at Verizon, offered an explanation of the advantages of TAPs. “For years, I had been hearing from individual LearningLINK participants and from supervisors about the ways in which participants had become better employees,” she said. “Not only were they more committed to the company, but they had greater skills and knowledge that allowed them to contribute to the company in new ways.” Recently, Martin has quantified these results. Through the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning’s (CAEL) Tuition Assistance Management Service (TAMS), Martin obtains monthly reports on program participation. By linking this data with employee data and data obtained from surveys of the LearningLINK participants and their supervisors, Martin examined business impact in four key areas: recruitment, retention, career mobility and job performance. Career Mobility Martin found that employees who participated in LearningLINK in 2006 had a slightly higher incidence of promotions and lateral moves (28 percent) within the company than did the general workforce (26 percent). The incidence increased to 35 percent for employees who earned degrees through the program. A similar pattern was also found for 2005. Job Performance In a follow-up survey of managers and supervisors at Verizon, Martin learned that 37 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents saw positive changes in employee job performance as a result of their participation in LearningLINK. The most common changes cited were: • Improved employee satisfaction/retention (15 percent). • Improved decision making (15 percent). • Improved leadership/management skills (13 percent). • Improved productivity (13 percent). • Improved computer skills (10 percent). Recruitment Verizon’s survey data showed that more than half of LearningLINK participants said that the program was definitely 83 December 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer http://www.clomedia.com
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