In 2019, Chartwells K12 partnered with DeVry University to create a scholarship program for employees to earn an associate degree in business.
Since the program’s start, Chartwells K12 has awarded eight scholarships to employees and welcomed its first cohort of graduates. Based on that success, the foodservice management company realized it could go farther in offering employees a chance to further their education.
“When you think about the people who are on the cusp of management, that is one portion of our workforce, but there are a tremendous amount of committed people in an hourly associate role who may not wish to go into management, who may never have got their high school diploma or who may just want to improve their digital literacy skills and become better at doing things that help them in life,” says Chartwells K12 CEO Belinda Oakley.
This spring, Chartwells K12 partnered with online education platform Guild Education to give its employees a chance to go back to school on the company’s dime.
Focusing on frontline workers
While Guild Education offers a variety of classes and programs, Chartwells K12 focused on introductory courses chosen specifically to help provide frontline staff with more future options in their careers.
Along with high school completion programs, staff can take classes on soft skills and digital literacy to help them keep up with the demands of working in child nutrition in the modern age.
“We have a lot of folks in our business who've been doing this for 20 or 30 years, but we've gone from very paper-based expectations of how you administrate and manage a school foodservice program, to you need to figure out how to manage your Facebook accounts for your own school district and you have to work in Microsoft and Excel,” says Oakley.
Each of the courses can be completed on employees’ own time and does not require them to show up in-person. Guild Education also provides one-on-one coaching services through which a Guild representative can help a Chartwells K12 associate figure out what courses they should take, how they can fill out the paperwork to enroll and how they can balance work and school.
Building excitement
The courses officially launched two weeks ago and already employees have been quick to sign up.
“We have folks who've already enrolled in getting their high school diploma, and every single time this happens, we get feedback from not only the coaches but also the associates,” says Oakley.
Hearing how excited employees are to go back to school has “been wonderfully rewarding,” Oakley says, especially since frontline staff have invested so much of themselves to keep kids fed during the pandemic. And as labor challenges continue, companies that find ways to put employees first and provide them with something more than a job will stand out, Oakley adds.
“At a time where many people are talking about the labor challenges that are being faced in the industry, you know, ultimately, it comes down to what's your value proposition,” she says. “How are you going beyond just a paycheck? How are you doing more for someone than just offering them a job? How are you offering them a career?”