Heading Back To School? Convince Your Boss To Pay For Your Education

By Xccelerate

​If you are questioning your career decisions or feel disengaged at work, learning a new set of skills has the ability of moving you towards career fulfilment and enabling you to unleash your potential. Learning more about the next big thing in your industry can make you more efficient at your job and the achievement of self-improvement can be an enriching experience.

Whatever your reasons to learn a new skill, the important question is “who should pay?”.  You or your company?  It’s always worth having a conversation with your boss about the possibility of an employer sponsored education, especially if allows the company to leverage your talent more effectively.  Here are some talking points for you to use if you want to upskill and think that your company should pay.

​Recurring ROI to Boost Business Performance

The Return on Investment of your new skills goes beyond the potential for you to “work smarter and faster”. Opening your mind to new ways of doing things is like opening doors of opportunity for both you and your company.

You’ll be equipped to critically think about new ways of problem solving, unlocking new opportunities and revenue streams that may not only go deeper into your current role, but open up new channels for other teams in your company or even in areas that don’t exist within the organisation. 

​Retaining vs. Hiring New Talent

It’s no secret that it costs a company more to replace talent than to keep it.  Recruitment can cost a business anywhere between 30-400% of an annual salary, even when re-training or upskilling is involved.  Investing in employees not only generates loyalty and morale within a team, it keeps costs down.

​Accountability: Learning and Retaining

While a growth mindset of always pursuing new knowledge is critical for staying relevant and competitive (for both an individual and company culture), not all methods of learning are equal.  It is important that before you approach your manager about further study, you know which method will work for you.  

Did you know that the completion rates for online courses are just 13%?  This is due to a lack of accountability and inadequate time management on both the content creator and learner side.  If time management or self-discipline might be an issue for you, consider an in-person teaching method.  Let your manager know that you’ll choose a learning platform that is not only affordable but will render results, fast.

​Impact company culture

Your education will not only reflect you, but inspire your whole team. At best, everyone will be asking you to share your knowledge, making you look great. At worst, it will make your teammates want to pursue new skills on their own, bringing up the competitive edge of your department or organisation in general.
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According to globoforce, one of the key elements of keeping employees happy is offering training or ways to develop mastery in new or existing skills. I’m sure as we all know, a happy employee is more likely (way more) to be a productive employee.

​Build a network/community

Many people pursue continuing education, like MBA’s, not only to learn and sharpen skills but to build a network as well.  Remind your manager that opening the door to investing in your education will give you new talking points to expand your network, which can benefit the company in many ways —it’s always good to have connections to for future partnership opportunities.

Be a life-long learner... for you

The first step to improving as an individual is wanting to do it for yourself.  If you have made this decision but would like to see if your company will support your effort, particularly if it will benefit them, have a conversation with your manager (or key decision maker) using the points above as conversation pieces.

This post was previously published at Xccelerate.co

Xccelerate

Xccelerate enables students and companies to acquire the skills they need in Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Software Engineering.  With campuses in Hong Kong and Singapore, Accelerate has trained 700+ professionals and boasts a 91% hiring success rate in their immersive programs.