TuitionManager Blog / best-practices

3 Big Benefits of Tuition Reimbursement Software

Offering a tuition reimbursement program doesn't only affect participating employees, it can greatly affect your human resources team - and not necessarily in the same positive manner.

While tuition reimbursement programs are an enticing way to attract the best job applicants on the market, they can also be detrimental to HR management in a variety of ways. (Many of which are due to the right tools not being in place to help administrators implement and manage the program effectively.)

Take a look at the three big benefits of investing in tuition reimbursement software below.

1. Keep Productivity Levels From Falling

When you introduce a new program, especially something as entailed as tuition reimbursement, you have to take into account how this will affect your staff's productivity levels.

Can they easily handle the additional workload or will it cause them to lose focus/feel overwhelmed/affect other areas of their job/cause performance to suffer?

It can be hard to stay engaged with current daily tasks, let alone effectively take on more work if your HR administrators are not given tools and software to help them implement and manage a large, ongoing program like tuition reimbursement.

According to Talent Culture in an article regarding employee engagement statistics, "Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by 202%." Tuition reimbursement software will help keep HR management engaged with their jobs and decrease the risk that they will feel overwhelmed with manual administration, causing their performance levels to drop.

The Talent Culture article went on to say, "Increasing employee engagement investments by 10% can increase profits by $2,400 per employee, per year."

If HR administrators are expected to manage the program manually, and everything that comes with it, from inputting applicants by hand to keeping track of any specifications your program has, productivity, and quite possibly even job satisfaction levels, are likely to suffer.

But by using tuition reimbursement software, your HR team will easily be able to set your program's specific parameters and use the technology to accurately keep track of applicants, process those who have been approved, and keep precise records.

2. Minimize Risk of Errors

According to Ungerboeck Software, there is an average 1% error rate that goes along with manual data entry.

"Human ability to catch or avoid errors within data sets is inherently flawed. In a controlled study in 2009 at UNLV, 215 students were given 30 data sheets that contained six types of data to process. With only visual confirmation of data correctness the students made an average of 10.23 errors. However, when double entries were automatically checked for matches by an automated system, that average dropped to 0.38 mistakes," quotes Ungerboeck Software.

The argument in favor of using tuition reimbursement software seems obvious here - if you want to avoid costly errors, using an automated program is the way to go. Not only will it save HR administrators valuable time, but it will keep your program, and all the financial parameters you set around it, at a much greater level of accuracy than you'd see with manual administration.

3. Easily Measure ROI

In an article on the Society for Human Resource Management, it's stated that, "Despite significant financial outlay, few organizations formally measure the effectiveness or return on value of their tuition assistance programs."

But why is this? Most likely because they either simply don't know how or are not able to easily track it without causing HR administrators to manually input and track more data.

Yet, the article goes on to state that, "Understanding the perceived value of such programs can help organizations communicate the value and maximize the advantage of employee participation. Then, measuring employees' perceived value of the program can help identify adjustments to improve program effectiveness and ROI."

Time and cost savings are two of the most obvious benefits of using tuition reimbursement software - but how can you track this?

Calculate the time savings you will see using tuition reimbursement software vs. manually managing your program:

• Calculate the cost of manual administration by # of hours/per year it takes to administer (x) that person's hourly rate.
• Calculate the cost of software administration by # of hours/per year it takes to administer (x) that person's hourly rate

You can read more about tracking and calculating ROI here.

Implementing Tuition Reimbursement Software

A successful tuition reimbursement program is made up of many components, one of which includes software to help HR manage all of it successfully.

From providing employees with a seamless application process to keeping HR workflow levels running smoothly, the benefits of tuition reimbursement software are well worth the initial investment.