Changing the Lives of Adult Learners With Sean Flynn

My guest in this episode is Sean Flynn, chief customer officer at InStride. InStride partners with businesses to create life-changing workforce education programs through a leading academic network. Back in the day, these programs were called “tuition reimbursement,” but now, we are ensuring that adult learners have a better opportunity to learn, grow, develop and stay at your company.

That’s what this conversation is all about. Sean and I talk about how he is changing the lives of adult learners and his unique background. Sean is a West Point graduate who served his country and worked at IBM — serving his country differently — before going on an entrepreneurial journey with InStride.

One of the first things Sean mentions when telling his story is that he is a Guatemalan Irishman. Sean followed a rather distinct career path: armor officer to tank commander to surgical sales to IBM. But after 15 years, Sean wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself, similar to how he felt during his time with the Army. This need sent Sean to search for mission-driven businesses and eventually led him to InStride.?

In this episode, we learned about what he has learned from his experiences and his growth throughout his career.

Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to?thestarrconspiracy.com.

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Adult Learning at Scale

There are companies today that provide tuition reimbursement and similar benefits for their employees. One of the most well-known is what then Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz started in 2014 called the Starbucks College Achievement Program, or SCAP. The company saw massive success and influenced other companies to create similar programs.?

It’s one thing to have a program like this at Starbucks, but it’s another to implement it globally. The latter goal is exactly why InStride was created. “It was, how can we do this at scale? How can we work with companies of all sizes and all industries to deliver for their respective workforce?” Sean says. “We have built a network of high-quality academic institutions that know how to work with adult learners, how to help them get credit for prior learning or get back into their academic journey.”

Sean and his team work to “align those programs in a way that becomes a career path — we like to say, turn jobs into careers.” InStride addresses the fundamental questions people have about being an adult learner while providing guidance and support to get them to the finish line.

“When the program was first rolled out at Uber, similar to Starbucks, all drivers that reach a certain threshold of ratings and rides, they get a full college tuition, and they can offer it to a dependent,” he shares.?

InStride helps companies create these opportunities for their employees, but it only works if people believe in it. Sean and his team focus on helping companies promote these programs the right way.

“When it was first introduced at Uber, the drivers didn't believe it, it was too good to be true, and leadership had to get involved and explain it, and show, ‘No, really, this is real and this is aligned and this is our strategy as a company,’” Sean explains. “And if you bring that together, it's a business and talent strategy together, so we've learned how to get with the right schools and the right career path and the right support.”

Value of Employee Education

Gaining more skills and knowledge as an employee greatly benefits any company, especially when using a “direct bill” model. What that means is that employees don’t have to worry about paying up from and seeking a tuition reimbursement.?

Many adults hesitate to go back to school, and one of the biggest pain points is paying out of pocket. The direct bill model removes this significant obstacle for many professionals.?

“Put yourself in the shoes of any adult learner, right? That’s a big commitment to go and do that for a certificate or a degree,” Sean says. “Now, they have to go out of pocket, and that's just going to be a challenge, even with a reimbursement, so one of the things that we try to do is make sure that the program is set up with a direct bill model, where the student never has to worry about going out of pocket.”

This model also allows employees to start their careers or jobs without necessarily being experienced. “With this model, you can hire people into an organization and train them for the roles,” Sean explains.?

Health care systems, for example, are under duress to fill roles, especially while dealing with the effects of COVID-19. While you can’t just hire anyone for these roles, Sean shares that with this model, there’s more opportunity to help talent grow in these roles.

“What you could do is find the right talent and train them and then show them, ‘Here's step one of your career and here's how it continues to grow with us. Come here and we're going to show you a future,’" he says. “That's a different model that speaks to a job turning into a career, which is going to be important to somebody that maybe isn't in the pure academic environment but is out in the workforce.”

Fitting the Modern Needs for Continuous Learning

InStride is helping meet the workforce's modern needs for continuous learning. Meanwhile, academic institutions face a similar sea change in their approach to learning.

“The academic institutions are experiencing many of the same disruptions that the workplace is in terms of the physical place may be mattering less in terms of the ways of doing business over the last 900 years of a lecture-based model. They're being asked to change, too, and they are highly motivated to figure out how best to work with employers,” said Sean.?

Technology and job roles are rapidly evolving. Many professionals think about the skills they have now and question whether those skills will be relevant in 10, 15 or 20 years. Growth requires being open to learning, and Sean says that it’s not something that ends when the program stops.

“There’s a need for continuous education over a lifetime, and with that kind of disruption, they're very open to things like stackable credentials, which means bite-size education that leads to a degree, just as an example, or delivering quality online education.”

People in This Episode

• Sean Flynn: LinkedIn

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