If you’re thinking of taking a postgraduate course that’s relevant to your job but you’re worried about finding the money to pay for the tuition fees, help may be closer to hand than you think.
Companies all over the UK are covering the costs of study, hoping that their staff will broaden their professional knowledge as well as their network of contacts in the industry – but often on the understanding that their staff will stay in post after they complete their studies.
Sales director Carl Day enrolled on a postgraduate course when his employer, Toshiba, began to take a more innovative approach to their staff development. He had always been interested in the best ways to encourage and motivate people, so the company’s HR director suggested that he should return to university.
“I thought: ‘I like the idea of a master’s, but I want it to be a bit more relevant to what I do.’ That led me to Middlesex, because they did a master’s in sales,” he recalls. “My company said: ‘Yes, OK, go and investigate.’”
Middlesex University works with its strategic partners Consalia to tailor the MSc in sales transformation to meet the specific needs of a business as well as individual learners. As its director of global corporate engagement, David Williams, explains: “Our model really lends itself to making an impact on the workplace and changing the way [students] look at their work role – skills that they will use for the rest of their careers.”
Williams adds that companies investing in this kind of learning and qualification for their staff get a great return – employees with improved knowledge, and with an increased loyalty to a business that values them.
Toshiba agreed to pay for Day’s study – and subsidised it for interested staff from their dealerships.
“If you do the same thing today as you did yesterday you’re going to get the same results tomorrow,” he explains. “Toshiba’s got a great reputation, but you can’t affect the way people sell to the end client unless you take a hand in educating them as well. That’s how it all came together, and then two and a half years ago we got the programme started – and off we all went.”
The course was delivered in intensive chunks in the classroom, and, in between modules, students were expected to apply their new learning directly to their business, with seven work-based projects. Day says: “If in my particular project I had a concern about a specific part of the business, I was supported to go and lift the bonnet on that business area and say: ‘OK, how can I make that better?’”
The innovations he has brought in since enrolling on the master’s have made a huge contribution towards the company’s success in the past 12 months – a market-share growth of 34%. Now that Day and his fellow students have graduated, more colleagues are expected to follow in their footsteps.
