It's 6am. Kids wake up, get ready for school and hop on the bus a few blocks from home. Mom left the house at 5:30am because she works at a tortilleria and dad left the house years ago and never came back. Kids get out of school. Mom gets out of work. Kids do their homework. Mom makes food, pays bills with money she doesn't have, fills orders for her pan dulce side hustle and misses the financial aid meeting at school for her oldest- because sometimes meeting the needs of today have to take precedence over the future.
She could take half the day off tomorrow to attend the presentation during the school day. In fact her manager said if she ever needed time off she could take it. The problem: taking time off as an hourly, perhaps part-time, worker means less money for her family right now. But what if her manager, what if workplaces everywhere, reached out to their local school district or community college and scheduled a time for a financial aid representative to come in and present to their employees while paying their employee that hour to learn- better yet, pay them to learn and pay for their lunch since we all know hourly workers shoulder the success of a company anyway!
With over 82 million employees in America being hourly workers, that's 55% of American workers (and 1/4 of those being parents) it behooves companies and small businesses to offer the benefit of "getting paid to learn and level up." Companies, small businesses, government and educational institutions must begin to intentionally create opportunities that will give their employees equal access to information and empower them to make informed decisions, especially access to critical information that has the potential to lead to prosperity including understanding systems of education, general investing, and best practices in health and wellness.
Is paying employees to learn on the job a novel idea? Nope. But what I'm proposing takes on a new purpose, a more people centric focus and less about employees learning in order to implement their knowledge for use in the workplace kinda focus.
Jack Flynn, with Zippia.com , recently reported on the findings of minimum wage and the hourly worker proving that the opportunity for upward mobility continues to get further and further out of reach for so many families that have full time jobs and a side hustle to meet the needs of today.
In short: most American workers cannot afford to take time off to learn and make informed decisions for the future and most quite literally do not have the time without compromising their family's well-being thus substantially decreasing their chances at upward mobility.
But what if a less obvious part of the solution of increasing American's chances of a more prosperous future could be found within the workday? What if employers have the ability to remove the conflict many employees have- choosing to get paid now to survive versus taking steps to achieve prosperity in the future.
Implementation is simple for the employer
1. This must be a selfless endeavor and valuable for the company. If it's not, every excuse will be made for this not to work. Productivity does not have to be compromised if planned correctly. Willingness is key.
2. Get an intern or someone in HR to call and set up presentations and follow up opportunities with non-profits, educational institutions, the medical community, etc and then advertise to employees that they will be getting paid to learn something that will benefit themselves and their families! (Also, it's key that presentations happen in the workplace as it lessens the barrier of hesitancy for participation since employees have "home field advantage" and will feel more comfortable.) Note: do not compromise on the paid part. In order for this benefit to work it must be paid personal development.
3. Lastly, get ready to receive feedback and follow up with your employees that attended!
4. As the process continues throughout the year employers should consider surveying their teams to see what they want to learn about. Every year my team wants to learn about financial literacy and, most recently, specifically how to invest using robo-advising.
Is this going to solve equal access to upward mobility in one fell swoop- nope- because that problem is super complex and systematic but, if done correctly, this employee benefit, mixed with other great benefits like paid time off and quality affordable health insurance, can be part of the greater solution!
Check out Jack Flynn minimum wage and hourly research article (pay special attention to his references at the end) here:
Dalinda is a wife, mom, CEO, national leader in youth development and serves as a trustee for South Texas College on the southern border of Texas.
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