Page 46 - Forbes - USA (December 2019)

Guild Education Cont.

the summer of 2016 when she sent a LinkedIn
message to a Chipotle benefits manager that
The Vault
played up the fast-food chain’s “strong Den-
KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL ver roots and social mission.” With help from
Guild, Chipotle’s $12-an-hour burrito rollers
Before the frenzied dot-com boom would
44 make employees come to expect perks like are now pursuing bachelor’s degrees from Bel-

in-office massages and foosball tables, levue University in Nebraska or taking com-

some old-economy stalwarts—including EDS, puter security courses at Wilmington Universi-
S the Plano, Texas–based infotech company
R founded by Ross Perot—offered old-style ty in Delaware. In October 2019, Carlson per-

U rewards to keep their staffers happy.

E suaded Chipotle to lift its cap on tuition ben-
N “To replace workers’ ‘us versus them’ attitude toward bosses with a spirit of efits above the $5,250 the IRS allows compa-

E
R ‘we,’ motivational incentives that used to be reserved mainly for managers and nies to write off.
P executives are being pushed far down inside the company. At Electronic Data
E Systems, managers are encouraged to get to know their employees’ tastes, Guild’s biggest competitor is a division of
R

T hobbies and interests so deserving staff members can be rewarded with ap- Watertown, Massachusetts-based publicly
N propriate incentives: tickets to a sports event, say, or the opera, or a dinner for traded daycare provider Bright Horizons,
E the family at a fancy restaurant. Molly Edwards, EDS’s manager of recognition

• services, says one employee in Dallas was even given a washer and dryer for a which has offered tuition benefit services since

N particularly good performance. Another employee in Michigan returned from 2009. It works with 210 companies includ-

A vacation to find that her kitchen had been completely remodeled.”
I ing Home Depot and Goldman Sachs. Under
R —“When Money Isn’t Enough,” November 18, 1996
A Bright Horizons’ system, the companies—not
R
T the colleges—pay. Much of the genius of Guild’s
N riding along on his campaign bus when she was business model is that it correctly aligns in-
O
C 6 years old; occasionally she would even speak centives: The colleges are the most financially
at his rallies. When her father, Chris Romer, a motivated party, so they foot the bill. Another
former Colorado state senator, ran unsuccess- competitor, Los Angeles-based InStride,
fully for mayor of Denver in 2011, she served as launched in 2019 with funding from Arizona
his finance director. (“The loss was devastat- State University, and like Bright Horizons it
ing,” she says.) charges the corporations.
Along with politics, the Romers were com- “I see our competition as the status quo,”
mitted to increasing access to education, espe- Carlson says. “Classically, employers have of-
cially for working adults. Roy Romer helped fered tuition-reimbursement programs, but no
start Salt Lake City-based Western Governors one is using those programs.”
University, a pioneer in online adult education. The nonprofit Indianapolis-based Lumina

In the wake of Chris Romer’s mayoral bid, in Foundation has done five case studies showing
2011, he cofounded American Honors, a for- returns on investment as high as 140% for com-
profit company that offered honors courses at panies that offer tuition-reimbursement pro-

community colleges (the company struggled, grams. “We saw powerful impacts on retention,”
and the brand is now owned by Wellspring In- says Lumina’s strategy director, Haley Glover.
ternational, a student recruitment firm). “Walmart and Amazon are in a death strug-
After graduating from Stanford under- gle,” proclaims Joseph Fuller, a professor at
grad and working briefly in the Obama White Harvard Business School. “If a Walmart work-
House, Carlson launched her first venture, er can say, ‘I got an education that allowed me
Student Blueprint, while getting her M.B.A. to get promoted,’ they’re going to be someone
(also at Stanford) in 2014. Student Blueprint who speaks generously about Walmart and
sought to use technology to match community they are more likely be a Walmart shopper.”
college students with jobs. It was a noble idea, Like a good politician, Carlson is work-
but she decided to finish school and sold the ing to please everyone. “We found a win-win,”
software she had developed to Paul Freedman’s she says, “where we can help companies align
Entangled Group in 2014 for a negligible sum. their objectives with helping their employees
In 2015, after she wrapped up her M.B.A., she achieve their goals.” F
pitched the idea for Guild to one of her profes-
sors, Michael Dearing, and to seed investor Ai-
F IN AL T HO UG HT
leen Lee, of Cowboy Ventures, raising $2 mil-
lion. “THE MIND IS NOT A VESSEL
After relocating to her home turf in Denver, THAT NEEDS FILLING BUT WOOD
THAT NEEDS IGNITING.”
she landed her first major corporate partner in —Plutarch

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