Today is a good day for Walmart workers
The company announced Wednesday that any worker that pursues an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in business or supply chain management will receive a scholarship.
Employees will have to pay $1 per day for their education, and Walmart will cover the rest – tuition, fees, and books. The scholarship will be available to all employees – part-time, full-time, and salaried – after they work for the company for 90 days.
Additionally, Walmart will partner with Guild Education, who will help employees apply to one of the three eligible colleges: University of Florida, Brandman University, or Bellevue University. The company will also help employees decide which degree is best for them; this will become increasingly useful as Walmart allows more majors aside from the two.
This scholarship will be available to 1.4 million Walmart employees, and they anticipate 68,000 to make use of it. This is a massive chunk of cash for Walmart, but they’ve been under pressure to improve their employee perks recently. Further, in February, Walmart raised its minimum wage to $11 and gave out $1,000 bonuses to certain employees.
Moreover, these tuition benefits have been popular among many corporations. McDonald’s, for example, will spend $150 million in the next five years on tuition benefit programs. Also, Starbucks implemented a tuition payment program for its employees in 2015, which is still active today.
The trend of tuition benefits is becoming increasingly popular in big corporations. Although it will increase costs for the firms, it will also increase employee onboarding and satisfaction, which will decrease costs in the long run.
Featured image via Flickr/Mike Mozart
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