This CEO Will Send Your KidsTo School, If You Work For His Company
Thechief ｅxecutive of online wholesaler Boxed isoffering workers an extremely unusual benefit: full college tuition for theirchildren.“If you are the child of someone who works at Boxed, it’s not the lackof money that is going to prevent you from going to college,” CEO Chieh Huangtold Forbes writer Miguel Helft. “We’re building a long term business and ifyou are along for the ride, we are going to invest in you.”
Headquartered in New York, Boxed is anonline wholesale shopping site basically the Web-only version of Costco.Right now the company has only about 100 employees. It is growing quickly,hiring 20 workers since January, spokesman David Taft said.
And these aren’t just high-paid tech workers.Two-thirds of Boxed’s employees work in warehouses in Atlanta, Las Vegas, andEdison, New Jersey. Many of them make between $13-$17 an hour, noted Taft. Someare salaried and earning around $70,000 a year. The rest of Boxed’s workforceis based at the company’s New York headquarters, where they occupy mainlywhite-collar positions in marketing, legal and tech.
While some companies offer topay tuition for workers, funding workers’ kids is pretty rare outside ofacademia. Starbucks and Chrysler recentlyannounced programs to cover workers' college tuition bills, but those benefitsare far more restrictive, and both companies will only foot the bill at hand-pickedschools.
Boxed’s announcement comes ata time when income inequality in the tech industry is getting a lot ofattention. Other companies also have started to address the big disparitiesbetween white-collar tech workers and those who support them warehouseworkers, janitors, cooks, etc. Earlier this month Facebook announced it was upping pay and benefits for itscontract workers, following on a similar announcement from Microsoft earlier this year. The CEO of apayments processing company just took a huge pay cut so he could pay all his workers aliving wage.
Right now there are 12 kidsthat would qualify for Boxed’s new benefit though only one who’s old enoughto take advantage of it. The son of the company's vice president oftransportation is now saved from taking out loans for his stint at a state schoolin Pennsylvania, his father told Forbes.
Huang had been thinking of offering the benefit for awhile, but just pulled the trigger on it about a week and a half ago, accordingto Taft. The CEO told Forbes that he was inspired to do something for hisworkers after the company opened a warehouse in Atlanta. At the time, he askedworkers to come to a party in the evening, but many couldn’t show up becausethey didn’t own cars. According to Forbes:
While the idea of helping them pay for a car crossedhis mind, he quickly realized the impact of such a move would be limited. “Thatwouldn’t solve much,” he says. “The core is education.”
The benefit is not only greatPR for a company you might not have heard of it’s also a relatively low-costway to retain employees. It's unlikely that most workers would takeadvantage of the benefit, either because they don’t have children or their kidsare too young. But it’s the kind of offering worth sticking around for. Theaverage cost of just one year’s tuition at a private school is around $30,000 and rising.
“Nothing has given me more incentive to staywith the company than knowing that I could have major help in funding my kids'education,” said Taft, who has an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old. “I’m just blownaway by this benefit.”
The offering is confined to tuition room and boardaren’t included. And Huang hasn’t worked out all the details yet. Boxed issetting up a nonprofit foundation to distribute the money. The company willalso seek outside investors to pitch in on costs. The foundation wouldpresumably live on even if the company went under.
Taft said that there are no limits on the benefit’ssize public or private tuition would be covered.
Article Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/26/boxed-college-tuition-ben_n_7445644.html?ir=Business
Image Source: https://emarcotty.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/istock_education-cost-121061.jpg
VOCABULARY WORDS:
1. Along for the ride (idiom) ~ involvedonly for the enjoyment
2. Hand-pick (v.) ~ select carefully with aparticular purpose or reason in mind
3. Stint (n.) ~ a set amount of time inwhich you do something
4. Retain (v.) ~ continue to have something
5. Incentive (n.) ~ a thing that motivatesor encourages one to do something
6. Pitch in (idiom/ informal) ~ vigorously joinin to help with a task or activity
QUESTIONS FORDISCUSSION:
1. What benefit is the CEO providing hisemployees?
2. Are there any companies in Korea thatprovide this kind of benefit? If yes, name the company/ies?
3. What benefits are given to the employeesin your company?
4. What kind of benefit would be the mosthelpful to the employees in your company?
