Things are mostly black and white in the world of engineering, says MBA graduate Faye Banks. “But people aren’t machines. Engineering didn’t tell me how to motivate different people, improve performance or understand team dynamics.”
Banks asked her employer at the time, Yorkshire Water, whether the company would help fill in the gaps in her knowledge after a technical career of 15 years. She’d left school at 16 without qualifications but had already gained a master’s in engineering from The Open University and picked up a handful of professional awards, but still didn’t feel equipped to manage. “I’d come from a world where if there was a fault, you could go and repair it. But it totally changed when I started leading people, I just had no experience.”
She began studying again with the OU, completing an MBA, and was partly sponsored by her company and paying the rest herself. “I wanted to understand people and teams.”
Former journalist Kate Pain, now digital lead at Pfizer, also took the plunge, beginning an MBA with the OU, hoping it would fill in commercial gaps in her experience and help her provide as a single parent. Successful people, she noted, all seemed to have the business degree. “I found it life-changing. The slog is relentless, but we supported each other. It gave me the focus I was desperate for.”
After changing jobs in her first year, her new employer – a US firm – sponsored her for the rest of the course, which she took part time. “An MBA requires a manager’s ‘buy-in’ and this brings added visibility to your work.” Pain graduated with distinction in 2014 and went on to join Pfizer. “You also accrue confidence – in knowing that you have a massive toolkit to draw upon to help tackle any business situation.”
While both Banks and Pain were sponsored in part, few companies currently fully support staff through MBAs – and numbers are falling. Just 28% of MBA students worldwide were sponsored by their employer according to the Association of MBAs (AMBA), and the number of those paying their own way have risen from 51% to 70% globally since 2014. But 84% of respondents said they were certain that what they learned on an MBA met the needs of their employers.
Company support for MBAs can be patchy and ad hoc, say business school professionals, and most support comes from professional services, finance and accountancy sectors. “It’s an expensive programme, you do have to have all your ducks in a row as a company,” says Jim Reavey, an organisation development expert who’s worked for decades across financial services, utilities and the public sector. As a learning and development manager, he oversaw employees from leading financial services companies through MBAs. “The benefits to business can be excellent if it’s run properly.”
Any MBA programme, he says, should be closely entwined with an employer’s succession planning and talent management processes – the identification and development of people with potential. “If you link it to this, it becomes all-embracing,” says Reavey. “You can make sure that what people are doing at work links directly with and reinforces MBA activities. An internal mentor can oversee this and help you get the most learning out of it.”
MBAs help companies hang on to valued staff, while developing them and delivering value to the company at the same time, says Prof Mark Fenton-O’Creevy, associate dean at The Open University Business School (OUBS). Students often tell staff that they’ve been promoted during the course of their degree. “Our programme is designed to integrate university learning and workplace learning. We expect students to demonstrate tangible performance improvements at work while they study.”
Pain feels more capable and draws on her MBA whenever she feels under pressure. “I break down my work into bite-size chunks and address each facet at a time.” And she recalls the wisdom of her fellow students, some of them former army personnel, “who taught me even more about leadership than anything you could read in a book”.
And the OUBS slightly bucks the trend – more than 40% of MBA students receive sponsorship from their employers – who either stump up part or all of the fees. Some companies like to tie in employees to ensure they reap the rewards of a business education. They might require employees to pay back fees in part or in full if they quit the business within a certain timeframe. Companies can also give money with strings attached, says the OU – with funding dependent on successful completion of modules, for instance, or linked to performance targets at work. Employers in England now have the possibility of using apprenticeship levy funds to support employees through a degree apprenticeship that could lead to an OU MBA, says Fenton-O’Creevy.
Businesses can also help staff to get the most out of their degree by being generous or flexible with study time, says the OU. Residential schools allow students – often managers and even chief executives – to meet in person, and the OU MBA includes three residentials. And, crucially, companies can help employees join the dots with course content by allowing them to shadow staff or work in a different area to help reinforce study topics – this might require short secondments or informal shifts.
But how should companies select who goes on an MBA? This needs careful management, says Reavey. “If you have high-potential people – the rising stars who are really going places – there can be huge benefits for the organisation for relatively little cost.”
But employees who might not be on the radar will need to make a strong case. And once they’ve completed an MBA, it’s important to leverage what they’ve learned and ensure they’re exposed to the right experience in the months and years after the degree. “If they’re still doing the same job two years later, that could have a negative effect on others – as in ‘I did an MBA and look where it got me’,” Says Reavey.
Know what you will get from an MBA, says Chris Williams, principal, executive interim, Global HR Practice at executive recruitment firm Savannah Group. He’s part way through a fully sponsored business degree with the OU “not because the company want me to become chief executive, but because it’s directly relevant to my job – understanding more deeply different roles within a business and how they intertwine. Ultimately, it’s revenue creating for my company.”
Business fortunes depend on quality and development of staff, says Banks, especially as today’s employees tend to enjoy greater autonomy and responsibility. “But if they aren’t achieving or are unmotivated, your company will never thrive. Capability of your staff gives you a competitive advantage.” As for Pain, she feels equipped with both commercial and leadership skills to cope with whatever her role throws up. “I genuinely feel that there is no model left that can blindside me.”
