Structuring Educational Benefits to Promote Low‐Skilled Worker Retention

ABSTRACT Persistent talent shortages require employers to pursue novel approaches for recruiting and retaining workers. In this paper, we investigate one such approach, that is, offering educational benefits to low‐skilled workers, a segment of the workforce that less frequently accesses such benefits. In Study 1, we examine an operational educational benefits program targeted at employees occupying low‐skilled jobs, demonstrating that program participation is associated with reduced turnover. Building upon this insight, we draw from exchange perspectives on the employee‐organization relationship to investigate how different benefit structures shape low‐skilled worker retention and why. Across two vignette‐style between‐person experiments, we compare types of educational benefit programs and find that educational benefits with little to no upfront costs—termed tuition assistance programs—are more strongly associated with reduced turnover intentions, a relationship that is partially explained by perceived organizational support for development; importantly, this type of educational benefit more clearly contributes to a social exchange relationship with the employer. This indirect relationship is stronger when potential employees perceive internal career opportunities, and this pattern of results persists across social classes (and low and high‐skilled workers). We offer practical insights for how employers may structure educational benefit programs to retain (low‐skilled) workers.