Every company wants to retain the employees, thats why the perks. Chipotle recently added a great benefit for its employees. It will provide the employees with the opportunity to earn a degree. The degree can be obtained in any of the 75 different business and technology fields.
The benefit is 100% free which makes it debt free for all the eligible employees. But the perk is only applicable to the eligible ones. The employees who worked for 120 days are eligible. And employees who work at least 15 hours which is approximately two or three shifts per week are eligible for the education programs. With this opportunity, employees can earn associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in many fields. The fields range from cybersecurity to supply chain logistics at multiple universities. And the University of Arizona, Bellevue University, Brandman University, Southern New Hampshire University and Wilmington University offer the degrees.
Chipotle is following the steps of Walmart which also did something similar last year. In 2018, Walmart partnered but with Guild education to give its employees opportunities to get bachelor’s and associate’s degree.
The chief people officer at Chipotle, Mariska Andrada, said that they now offer highly curated degrees. They only focus on business and technology degrees. This way it benefits the growth plan of the company as well the employees. It is indeed a wise step on the part of the company which has a high employee retention rate of around 90%.
An economist Daniel Zhao said that employees stay because of Healthcare and retirement plans but education plans are also a contributing factor. It helps with employee retention. He also said that by taking the technical degrees employees can take on higher jobs, mostly jobs that need more expertise and even get promoted.
Just increments won’t keep the employees in the company. The added benefits like education degrees help too. Andrada said that paying enough is important but companies also need to invest on the growth and development of the workforce.
