The common mistakes companies make when implementing programs, and the way they might leverage technology, what other suggestions might you have for the organization in this scenario? Have your views (I am asking you to think outside the immediate issue of the potential loss of one employee and assess the overall approach to training. Have they missed steps they should have taken before putting the educational reimbursement plan in place? Are there other options they could present to Jane that would allow her to use her new skills in ways that are not necessarily a promotion but that might make her feel engaged? Does the company seem to be effectively using training as a tool within the organization? Why or why not? There are multiple avenues to explore here.)

Scenario:

Your organization, a software development firm, holds a core value of promoting individual employees in professional growth. Your benefits have been expanded to include a generous educational reimbursement program. Employees seeking an undergraduate degree or trade certification receive reimbursement for tuition, books, and miscellaneous expenses. Additionally, employees are supported in their efforts to advance their education with 2 additional days of paid time off for test prep during midterms and finals. The focus of the current program is to support employees in obtaining an undergraduate or trade degree. However, the program is also offered to employees who wish to pursue a graduate degree, as long as the degree is directly related to their current jobs.

The engineering department has a high rate of participation in the educational reimbursement program. Metrics on program effectiveness suggest this high rate is due to the above-average aptitudes of the personnel in the department. Additionally, the department has an internal library of training courses along with managers who actively seek out seminars in which the team may participate. The department director sees all these programs as making the employee significantly more valuable to both the department and the organization overall. Her team has a solid history of increasingly positive performance metrics to back up this point of view. One of these metrics demonstrates to the organization how much they are saving in taxes since each employee who participates in the program triggers a tax break for the Company.

Unfortunately, however, it seems the system may have backfired in regard to one employee. Jane Doe, a bright young software engineer for whom management had high hopes, has tendered her resignation. She recently completed her undergraduate degree through the program. Upon graduating, she found the combination of the extensive training she had received from the organization, her work experience, and a newly awarded college diploma made her a desirable hire for your organization's competitors. Jane had expressed a desire to stay, but she was told that there were no anticipated openings in the direction she wanted to move her career.

Loss of Jane means a ten-month setback for the project she was working on. During conversations with her manager, she also expressed that she felt that the capabilities she developed through the training she had received at the company's expense was not going to be utilized effectively within the organization. However, Engineering Director's greatest concern was that Jane was the first in wave of employees who were scheduled to graduate from college under company's reimbursement program this year. What if they all left after graduating on the company's dime?