Transcript:
Alyssa Place (00:00):
Welcome to Perk Up, a podcast about workplace culture and benefits brought to you from the team at Employee Benefit News. I'm Alyssa Place, executive editor at EBN. With Perk Up, my colleagues and I are sharing the stories of businesses who have implemented forward thinking, covetable workplace policies and benefits, keeping their employees happy and their company's bottom line thriving. This week, editor in chief, Stephanie Schumer explores how Bank of America's education and tuition reimbursement programs are supporting their employees and their employees' families.
Stephanie Schomer (00:41):
Hi everyone, and welcome to season two of Perk Up. I'm Stephanie Schomer, editor-in-chief of Employee Benefit News, and today, we're going back to school. Typically, you leave school behind once you join the workforce, but the modern employee wants more than just a paycheck from their nine to five. They're looking for personal fulfillment, a supportive community and opportunities to continue learning and to continue growing. Employee benefits that provide additional training. Upskilling and even tuition reimbursement have become increasingly popular in recent years and are now one of the most attractive offerings employers can give to their workers. According to a survey by benefit provider Bright Horizons, 79% of respondents said the existence of a tuition assistance program would factor into their willingness to join a company in the first place. And 60% said they'd take a job with strong development opportunities over one that came with regular compensation raises.
(01:33)
What's more? 81% of respondents said that their employers tuition assistance program made them more likely to stay at the organization. Jenny Rosenberger embodies these data points. Rosenberger is a technology portfolio manager at Bank of America based in Newark, Delaware. Rosenberger has been at the company for 23 years successfully climbing her way up the organizational ladder and growing her skill set along the way. But about a decade into her tenure with the bank, she started craving more, she tells EBN.
Jenny Rosenberger (02:02)
I started in a very entry level role on the phones like many people did back then, and I had a Tuesday through Saturday, 2:00 PM to 11:00 PM shift answering customer phone calls and activating credit cards. I started before I had finished college. I realized very quickly that I did not want to be on in a phone job for an extended period and worked really hard to move into more of a staff position.
(02:28)
And as I continued to grow in the company, I started thinking about maybe about 10 years ago, I really should finish my college degree. I had moved to a role in technology, and I think part of it was maybe a little imposter syndrome where I was wondering, Hey, how did I get end up in tech? I can't code. I realized quickly that there were other characteristics and skills and competencies I had that contributed to my success, but I thought really in order to make it to that next level that I want to get to, I needed a college degree.
Stephanie Schomer (03:00)
Rosenberger remembered hearing whispers of a tuition reimbursement benefit, but started to get better acquainted with Bank of America's offerings once it seemed personally relevant to her goals. She learned that the company provides an annual stipend to support education and started tipping away at her bachelor's degree in 2012, taking two to three business courses a year, starting out at a community college before transferring to Wilmington University in Delaware, all while maintaining her full-time work schedule.
(03:25)
Going back to school, she says, has helped her feel more confident in her future and in her day-to-day work at Bank of America.
Jenny Rosenberger (03:31)
I'm only eight classes away from finishing my bachelor's degree. I'm really excited about that. And the cool thing is that a lot of the classes that I take apply to work, even the class that I'm taking now, we're building control charts and those are all things that I'm, I can use in my day day job right now. So it's just been a wonderful experience.
Stephanie Schomer (03:50)
It's also been completely cost free. Bank of America's reimbursement program and partnership with Bright Horizons offers each employee $7,500 a year to spend on education costs, including tuition, as well as registration fees, labs, books, and additional supplies. Bank of America has been providing this benefit since 2017 and that $7,500 it resets every year with no lifetime maximum. Employees can utilize it at any educational institution they choose, though Bright Horizons does have a collection of over 220 partner schools that come with additional benefits and discounts. Brandt Bennett, a global Human Resources benefits executive at Bank of America is responsible for the organization's financial benefits, and he sees the offering as an investment in the organization's future.
Brandt Bennett (04:35):
I mean, I think it's just our focus of just investing in our teammates and really ensuring that our teammates have the opportunity to grow and develop their careers at Bank of America. Given our size and scope and talking about some of my background, having come in at risk and moving into finance, and now working in HR, you have the great opportunity within the same company to almost change careers, and we want to make sure that we're providing a pathway for our teammates to do so, and by opening up and allowing for our tuition assistance program, teammates can feel like they have that path and we're really helping them along the way to grow and stay with Bank of America over the long haul.
Stephanie Schomer (05:18):
Of course, employees who are enrolled in classes need more than just financial support to find the right balance for Rosenberger. Juggling her course load with work hasn't always been easy, but she's found that with some intentional planning, she can make it happen, and her managers at Bank of America have been integral and empowering her to make time for school.
Jenny Rosenberger (05:36)
The emotional support has been incredible. Every manager I've had over the past couple years are usually surprised that I don't have a college degree and not in a negative way. It's more so like, wow, I'm just really impressed with your career and that you've not had that education. Learning on the job happens, but the emotional support I, I mentioned, Hey, I've got an exam this weekend, so what I might need to have a little bit more of a flexible schedule in terms of making sure the work is done, but I can also step out if I need to.
(06:10)
And really the most support I get is the, keep it up. You can do it. The days can be very long, you know, work all day and you get home and you know, see, you want to cook dinner, you want to do something around the house, and I remember it's Wednesday night and I have to post my discussion board. So it is challenging, but it's also worth it .
Stephanie Schomer:
Just as Rosenberg's managers have helped her feel supported in her previous roles. She's now working to do the same for her team of 10, and she speaks loudly and often about the benefits available to them as Bank of America employees.
Jenny Rosenberger:
When I talk about benefits as a manager now when I talk about benefits, I always mention tuition reimbursement, college coaching, because these aren't things that we talk about enough. Everyone, when employees talk about benefits, I think the immediate assumption as we're talking about medical benefits and we're talking about maybe 401k, but there's so many other, I'll say specialty, almost like boutique style benefits that we get here at the bank that aren't explored. It continuously amazes me when I talk to people about this, the common responses, oh wow, I didn't know you were doing that, and oh, wow, I didn't know the bank did that too.
Stephanie Schomer (07:19)
That College Coach program Rosenberger mentioned? It takes Bank of America's commitment to their employees' education one step further. College Coach is an independent education benefit also provided through Bright Horizons that offers one-on-one admission support and counseling to Bank of America employees and their families. All college coach consultants are former admission and college finance officers, which means that they have a wealth of in-depth and actionable guidance for parents and kids seeking support through the application process added to Bank of America's suite of education focused benefits in 2020, Bennett knows firsthand that College Coach can deliver value to an organization's workforce.
Brandt Bennett (07:56):
I'm a father of a college freshman, so having kind of just recently gone through that realize it can be extremely daunting. How can we continue to help our teammates navigate that? That Bright Horizons offers that out there, that they provide this college assistance and they have on staff professionals that have worked in colleges and college administration offices? It was just a very natural fit.
Stephanie Schomer (08:31):
Rosenberger didn't anticipate needing this kind of support from her employer, but it was ultimately an invaluable resource. Her daughter, Kaydria Boyer, had spent a portion of her high school career attending trade school preparing to be a dental assistant, but when she started working in the field preparing to launch her medical career immediately after high school, Boyer realized that not only was she one of the youngest people on her trade, but she was also one of the best, and her vision for her own future started to evolve.
Kaydria Boyer (08:59):
I really had some influential doctors that I worked for and they were like, don't sell yourself short. Go to college, look into it. There's so many programs out there, but just feeling like was when I was in the trade school program, we didn't have as much knowledge about college, and I was definitely, I feel as though I was a first generational college student. My mom had taken some courses, but no one in my family close to me had graduated college or been to a big school. So once I kind of got the motivation from them, I was like, I'm doing very well at my job now. When I was an assistant and I was like, I could definitely do more, whether it was hygiene become a doctor, I definitely wanted to progress more in the trade and just kind of excel and take the further next steps further. I felt like I needed to do that with college at that point.
Stephanie Schomer (09:40):
Applying to college under any circumstance is a stressful and challenging experience, but for Boyer, who was a junior in high school when COVID brought the world to a halt, it was even more disorienting. The pandemic induced shutdowns prevented Boyer and many of her peers from taking the SAT, which put outsized pressure on their GPAs and essays when it came to applications and as the first person in her family to attend college on a traditional timeline, Boyer and her mom were navigating unfamiliar waters from FAFSA applications to simply sifting through the overwhelming amount of schools and programs available. Boyer soon felt under prepared and overwhelmed.
Kaydria Boyer (10:17):
I kind of felt a little bit defeated and just frustrated because I'd look at it and it was just a large picture that I didn't have any insight on. So for me, I was just looking at something that I had no way to tackle, and I felt like I didn't have the resources initially. I had no clue what I was talking about. All these different schools had many different essay prompt choices along with things that you could kind of take in any direction when it came to writing, and I just needed a little bit more help with that, especially coming from being during covid. Our curriculum wasn't as strong at that time. I didn't have any strong teachers, counselors near me that I felt like I could go to, so it kind of helped me during that time.
Stephanie Schomer (10:55):
College coach helped Boyer and her mom bridge any confusing administrative gaps and provided hands-on support when it came to application materials. In lieu of admission test scores, Rosenberger and Boyer were advised that essays would hold more weight than ever before and likely face more scrutiny. Painting a complete picture of Boyer as a candidate would be vital. Rosenberger explains.
Jenny Rosenberger (11:16)
This was a chance for her to tell her story about here's who I am. Not only am I a highly performing academic student, I'm also on a global competitive cheerleading team where she traveled, I don't know, maybe 20 weeks out of the year to compete. In addition to that, she also held a job as a dental assistant and her first try the essay we submit the essay through the tool and someone who again worked in admissions knows what they're looking for, wrote back feedback, and then we have a phone call to discuss the feedback.
(11:51)
And what I loved about this part of the benefit is that this is not a grammar spelling, punctuation check. This is a, and yes, they'll point those things out, but this is more about the content and how to tell the story so that the person on the other end pauses and really wants to read what you've written and they want to get to know you and they can see you at the school.
Stephanie Schomer:
The program also helped Rosenberger better understand what kind of school would provide the best culture fit for her daughter, which is a task perhaps even more challenging than penning a winning admission essay. It was a piece of the equation the mother daughter duo didn't really know how to solve. College Coach took an effective and analytical approach.
Jenny Rosenberger:
One of the coolest part of this whole process, which I'm still really excited about, is that she completed a survey and I got her set up and I said, you're supposed to complete this survey.
(12:42)
I said, I want you to do it without me. So you're really answering these questions on what you think. And the cool thing about this survey was that as it was explained to me also, when a student chooses a school, they're not just choosing a school on a program, they're choosing where they lived for the next 4, 6, 8 years. So instead of the typical questions of, do you want to go to University of Delaware or do you want to go to this other school? It was, what do you want to, do you want a Saturday? Do you want to go to a big football game? Would you rather be at a museum? Do you see yourself studying at the library? So those types of questions, do you want to be in a warm climate? Do you want to be in a climate where you experience all the seasons?
(13:22)
And that really blew my mind because, academics are important and programs are important. However, it really took her preferences into consideration. So after that survey process in combination with her grades, and we got her list within a couple weeks, and this list included her, you're definitely going to get in schools, the media, you'll probably get in, but one of two of 'em you might not. And then the third one would be a stretch, but would be really cool if you applied to. So what opened our eyes the most about that list is there's schools on here I had never heard of or schools that we never thought she would even be interested in applying to.
Stephanie Schomer (14:06)
Rosenberger's daughter ultimately landed at Louisiana State University, a school she says came as a total surprise as they have no friends or family who went there. But after a school visit, Boyer fell in love with the energy of the big campus, the availability of robust sports programs in a strong medical curriculum. They were certain it was the right fit, and after applying, Boyer wasn't just accepted, but earned a scholarship and she'd go on to complete her first semester with a full course load and straight A's.
Boyer and Rosenberger represent just one family success story when it comes to Bank of America's education focused benefits. But they're far from the only folks embracing these programs. The organization is making a significant investment in these offerings. Bennett explains, before the bank, the ROI is undeniable.
Brandt Bennett (14:50):
Last year we had 22 million in tuition reimbursements that we provided to our teammates, and so I'll say that again, 22 million, which is an extraordinary number that our teammates were able to take advantage of to again continue to further their career. We look at it again, I am going back through is investing in our teammates and watching them be able to develop and grow and take these programs and go onto further a career and whether that's the next step into a new role, whether that's staying in their same role but then taking on more scope. So I think we are looking at it as I said, that investment in teammates who we're developing a much stronger talent base and we're doing that and making people want to stay with Bank of America.
Stephanie Schomer (15:39):
Keeping talent at an organization can have a big impact on the bottom line: studies indicate that the cost of replacing an employee can be as high as two times that worker salary, and it can take up to two years for a new hire to achieve peak productivity for Rosenberger. These benefits are not the only reason she continues to work at Bank of America, but rather they're just one small piece of a much greater culture puzzle that keeps her feeling content and supported at work, and that's a message she wants to share with her colleagues and her team members.
Jenny Rosenberger (16:09)
I think about the person I was when I joined in May of 1999, and I think about the person I am now. And if I could write a letter to myself 23 years ago and say, Hey, you're going to be a manager in technology. You're going to get your college degree.
(16:26)
You're going to have experiences and opportunities. You're going to work really hard. You're going to fail a little bit, and that's okay because you're going to learn, you're going to fail really hard. But it's just such an incredible company. It's the culture, the benefits obviously, and the support of the benefits that just, I can't imagine working anywhere else. I can't imagine people reach out to recruiters and everything, and I don't want to work anywhere else. This is where I'm meant to be. And I think it definitely cascades out into people that I talk to and even my team, I talk about, Hey, have you checked out this benefit? Or, Hey, your kids are approaching college age, how are you planning for it? Because guess what? People pay a lot of money for this, and we get it as a benefit.
Stephanie Schomer (17:17)
I hope this episode has provided a crash course on the power of benefits, especially those that extend beyond employees and support their families too. I'm Stephanie Schomer with Employee Benefit News. Thanks for listening.
Alyssa Place (17:31):
Thanks for joining us for this episode of Perk Up. We'll be back in two weeks with a new episode on how employers are aligning both physical and mental health benefits to promote Total Body Health. This episode was produced by Employee Benefit News with audio production by Kelly Malone. Special thanks this to Bank of America's brand, Bennett and Jenny Rosenberger, as well as Kaydria Boyer. Rate us and review us wherever you get your podcasts and check out more content from the EBN team at www.benefitnews.com.