In April, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) introduced H.R. 2262, the Flexibility for Workers Education Act. The bill aims to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) to exclude from employees’ hours worked educational or skills-based training offered by employers.
Under current legislation, training related to one’s job must be compensated by their employer, regardless of whether it is mandatory and whether it occurs during work hours. This means that even if such training is voluntary and done outside an employee’s working schedule, they must be compensated for it.
Hinson’s bill comes on the heels of widespread hiring difficulties among small businesses. In March, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reported that 53 percent of small business owners were “hiring or trying to hire,” yet 87 percent of those respondents said they found few or no qualified applicants to fill open positions.
Under H.R. 2262, time spent in voluntary training, education, or lectures outside regular working hours would not count as paid work, provided that participation is genuinely voluntary, opting out does not affect employment conditions, and no productive work is performed during the training. Rep. Hinson argues that the bill should make it easier for business owners to find qualified employees and for workers to access skills development opportunities that can advance their careers. Her bill, she says, would encourage employers to invest more in their current staff, making it easier to promote from within and expand job opportunities for existing employees.
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Some employers back this sentiment.
Sam Caucci, founder and CEO of 1Huddle—a workforce coaching and development platform that prepares employees for jobs through quick-burst games—and a long-time advocate for H.R. 2262, explained in an interview with Minding the Campus how current law limits employer-provided training. He described a scenario in which a hotel wants to offer staff a course on becoming a manager at one of its properties. Under the current FLSA, such training would likely be deemed “non-transferable,” meaning the skills gained could not easily be applied elsewhere. In this case, the hotel would be required to pay employees for the time spent in the course, even if participation were voluntary. Most corporate training programs fall into this “non-transferable” category, making them costly and risky for employers to provide.
Caucci says that “Under the current law, we are not allowing employers to offer career development skills to workers as freely as they would.” As a result, employees often miss out on opportunities to develop skills that could lead to promotions or higher-paying jobs.
H.R. 2262 aims to change this. Easing restrictions would allow even non-transferable programs to be offered without mandatory compensation, giving employers more freedom to expand training and career development opportunities. But as Caucci argues, the bill does more than ease burdens on employers—it strikes at higher education’s credentialing power.
By making it easier for employers to deliver their own skills-based training, the legislation undermines higher ed’s role as the nation’s de facto “credentialing mill,” as it opens the door for private-sector alternatives to credentials.
As Caucci explains, “The impact for higher education is that, one, it will force academia to create education that’s more meaningful, because they will now be competing with the skills offered from employers.” Colleges like the way current law is written because it gives them “an embargo, a monopoly, on what is a transferable skill,” he said. “If Starbucks offers how-to-write-a-resume training, it’s not transferable. But if you go to Miami Dade College, or FIU, and you do a how-to-write-a-resume class, it is.”
“The best person to train a worker is an employer, period,” Caucci added. “They’re the closest to the employee experience, and they understand it best.”
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Still, he does not discount the value of higher education. He explained that if employers are encouraged to offer more voluntary, skills-based training, it could actually expand opportunities for colleges to connect with potential students. “If employees get better skills, they’re always going to demand more skills,” Caucci noted. For example, if a worker is promoted because of training gained on the job, they may naturally feel inclined to pursue more education to continue climbing the career ladder.
While existing laws on job training provide some benefits for workers—most notably paid overtime—the requirement that employers compensate employees for voluntary training outside of regular hours often discourages companies from offering such opportunities at all. As a result, workers miss out on valuable educational and skills-based training that could help advance their careers.
If the proposed bill is passed, employers believe they will have greater incentives to provide training to employees, giving workers greater chances to retain their jobs, earn promotions, and build skills that open the door to more advanced career prospects in the future.
The bill has completed a markup session, according to Congress.gov, but its passage in the House remains uncertain.
Image: “Ashley Hinson” by Team Hinson on Flickr
