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Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
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Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
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Does your organization have a policy that requires employees to repay certification training costs (e.g., Project Management Professional certification) if they voluntarily leave the organization with
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Forums » Topic Forums » General Forum » Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
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Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
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Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
posted at 4/18/2013 8:55 AM EDT
on Workforce Management
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Posts: 3
First: 4/18/2013 Last: 4/24/2013 |
Does your organization have a policy that requires employees to repay certification training costs (e.g., Project Management Professional certification) if they voluntarily leave the organization within a certain time frame? If so, what is your policy? How large (# of employees) is your organization? Thanks! |
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Re: Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
posted at 4/18/2013 10:15 AM EDT
on Workforce Management
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Posts: 180
First: 9/21/2011 Last: 5/14/2013 |
We researched it and in the end came up with two choices: (1)have the cost be a loan that is forgiven over time -- that way if the employee leaves, you have loan documentation that he/she still owes a partial amount, what the payment is, when it is due, etc. Make this documentation as if this were a regular loan from a bank to an individual. Otherwise, you might have a hard time retrieving any of the money. However, you need to talk with a tax accountant on what and when is this forgiveness taxable. (2) reimburse the cost back over time -- we've had more success doing it this way; then there is never anything to recover Otherwise you might as well kiss any reimbursement costs goodbye. eta: I have between 75-100 employees at any given time. |
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Re: Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
posted at 4/19/2013 4:37 AM EDT
on Workforce Management
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Posts: 3
First: 4/18/2013 Last: 4/24/2013 |
I should clarify that I'm looking for information about policies for reimbursing the cost of internal training for certifications. |
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Re: Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
posted at 4/19/2013 9:20 AM EDT
on Workforce Management
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Posts: 180
First: 9/21/2011 Last: 5/14/2013 |
Just my thoughts....brainstorming a bit.... I've never seen any reimbursements for internal training time and/or cost, just external. Back in the olden days when I was working at one of the big 3 HR consulting firms taking actuarial exams and CEBS exams, we were given a specified # of paid hours to study. There was no expectation of any payback. The training time was meant to encourage and honestly we had very little turnover. As a matter of fact, wages increased each time you passed a test. Can you put a value on the time/cost of the internal training? What would it cost to attend the same kind of program externally? If so, then you could just treat it as a cost such as I stated above by forgiving over time or setting the cost up as a loan. I can't think of anything that keeps you from doing so. If you did put a cost on it, would the employees be willing to take it knowing they have to "pay" for it through service and/or repayment? You would still have to pay at least minimum wage for those training hours unless it meets all 4 criteria for unpaid training (and i doubt it does if the employer cares enough to set up internal training in the first place). And the employee would have to be notified in advance of the lower pay during that time should you have to try to recover the cost - minimum wage later. If you don't the employee could claim a higher wage during the time, so you could recover less. and I would only consider this for training on things like PMP, CPA, etc where it is a benefit to the employee that they would be able to carry over to another job. I would never consider it on Internal training on employer processes/policies that wouldn't explicitly carry over. If you are having large enough turnover after employees are doing the training and being certified, I would research why they are leaving? Are you not paying high enough wages for the employee with the cert? Are your employees getting hired just to get the free training that other more sought after employers aren't? Are you being used? Is it really helping your company to offer internal cert training? Just my thoughts... I do have one subsidiary that has high turnover so honestly we offer no paid training (either internal or external). And it's in an industry where most employees need at least one certificate. |
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Re: Reimbursement of Certification Training Costs for Separating Employees
posted at 4/19/2013 6:12 PM EDT
on Workforce Management
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Posts: 221
First: 9/29/2011 Last: 5/2/2013 |
Did you as the employer benefit from the employee receiving the training? Did the employee have a choice to attend the training or not? Did the employee's supervisor suggest that the employee attend the training? If the answer to any of those questions is "yes", you will have a very difficult time recovering the costs. And even if you do, then I think you'll have a difficult time filling your internal classes in the future. I'm with rrupert on this one. If there's a pattern of employees doing this, your problem isn't recovering the costs of training. It's the costs you're incurring by the turnover. Finding out why people are leaving and fixing that issue would be a better focus.
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