By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Graduation day arrived a little earlier than normal for 110 enterprising people who took advantage of Amazon’s help with its Career Choice education program.
The 110 grads proudly accepted their certificates of achievement which highlights Amazon’s overall commitment to increasing workforce development. It also marks a milestone in Amazon’s mission to boost the power of the employee through education.
“This is our second annual Career Choice graduation,” said Mike Berg Director of Operations a KCVG. “This is a full reimbursement program, and it includes secondary benefits such as no tuition, no student loans, just opportunities, and the employees are able to fulfill their ambitions.”
Last year the company graduated 98 employees from the Career Choice program, showcasing the fact that the initial flight of the program, which was designed as a comprehensive approach to employee development by providing fully funded education opportunities through various sources, was indeed a success.
“Amazon wants to support our employees on their educational journey, everywhere, from starting level skills to advanced degrees,” said Berg. “This graduation represents more than academic achievement – it’s about breaking barriers and creating new opportunities for our workforce.”
Now into year two of the program, the success stories are growing, emphasizing the genius of the decision of Amazon leaders to follow this path, and put faith and money into the education of their employees.
The program’s comprehensive support includes full tuition courage and reimbursement for books and fees, partnerships with more than 400 entities that provide education worldwide, and flexible scheduling options so the students can make the education fit in with their real life schedules.
They also have provided extensive career coaching, as well as support services, and that leads to better access to industry-recognized certifications and degrees. With such individualized coaching, students can customize their learning paths for many career goals.
Other companies offer tuition reimbursement, but when they were designing the $1.2 billion Career Choice upskilling commitment in 2019, Amazon designers realized that they needed to do more than the average company to remove barriers to education by covering tuition, fees and support services for eligible employees.
“Our company will cover tuition for associate and bachelor degrees, and although the course choices toward degrees are not unlimited, we offer so many choices that there are not too many that are not in the program,” said Andre Woodson, Regional Field Communications Manager for Amazon. “We realize that taking away the barriers to education makes it possible for people to be able to choose to further their education. As we all know, college education has become an unreachable goal for many due to cost, and that is just tuition. Books and support services can put the whole enterprise out of reach. Amazon wants all their employees to have the choice of education.”
Thomas More University and Northern Kentucky University are just two of the schools people can choose from. Other possibilities are Southern New Hampshire University, 160 Driving Academy, goFluent, Cincinnati State and over 400 others nationwide.
The tuition is paid directly to the education partner. There is personalized guidance and support available. Hourly employees are eligible for the program after just 90 hours of employment.
“The good thing is, this is for them, for the employees, but it benefits us too,” said Berg. “They don’t have to promise to work here for a set amount of time or anything. We are giving them the chance to advance their education to make them good employees whether they stay working at Amazon or if they decide to go elsewhere. Raising the bar on education helps everyone in the community.”
One of the new graduates, Alyssa, has been working at Amazon for three years and she just finished her degree in Graphic Design at NKU.
“This was a great accomplishment,” she said. “It was hard, working full time and going to school full time, but it was worth it.”
To help the students with study time, Amazon has just finished a Study Hall room where the students can go if they have a little time between shifts or before or after shifts, or even on breaks to keep up the homework and studies. This room is the first of its kind in the area.
Some of the newer education programs offered are Amazon Technical Apprenticeship which is a US Department of Labor certified program combining classroom Engineering roles, Surge2IT, a program that helps entry level IT employees advance to higher paying technical jobs, and AWS re/start, a free, cohort-based cloud computing training course with employment connections. They also offer AWS Skills Centers, which is a dedicated in person cloud learning space with instructor-led classes, and the AWS Cloud Institute, which is a virtual training program capable of launching cloud careers in as little as nine months.
Berg said they now have 1,340 people working on their degrees, representing 30 percent of the workforce at Amazon. He said whenever you see an Amazon truck, or an Amazon package on a doorstep, that represents a company who believes in education, and believes in people.
Assistant General Manager Jonathan Akers took his turn to congratulate the new graduates sincerely, with satisfaction and pride in his words.
“You showed up for work, you showed up for classes, and you showed up to graduate,” Akers told the graduates. “You have truly earned this moment. You are a credit to yourself and your families. Your success is our success. KCVG is proud of you.
