Ahead of opening for the 2022 season, Tennessee theme park Dollywood announced earlier this month it would provide free tuition to all workers.
Tim Berry, Dollywood’s vice president of human resources, said the move was intended to care for existing workers and attract new ones in an industry that shrank during the pandemic.
The benefit is provided through Guild Education, the same program Disney uses to offer free worker tuition.
But Dollywood takes its education program a few steps further: all workers, whether seasonal, part- or full-time, are eligible for the benefit from their first day of work, and its program also covers books and fees. Disney Aspire is available to part- and full-time workers after 90 days of employment and reimburses books and fees.
In Orlando, the nation’s top theme park destination, Disney is the only company to provide comprehensive education benefits to employees upfront. Universal Orlando and SeaWorld offer tuition reimbursement, but details on their programs are scarce, and company spokespeople declined to provide further details.
Hospitality workers are looking for better wages and benefits in an industry trying to rebuild its staffing numbers from the pandemic, and education programs are one way the companies are trying to attract applicants.
If Dollywood can do it, nothing is stopping the larger theme parks from starting similar programs, said Scott Smith, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina’s College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management.
“Any company that’s not thinking like Dollywood, ‘Hey, what can we offer that will bring the right people into the door or bring the right people back?’ is going to be at such a competitive disadvantage,” Smith said.
Dollywood University
Located in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., Dollywood will employ around 3,000 people this year across its theme park, water park and resort, Berry said. Dollywood and Splash Country, which operate seasonally, had over 3.2 million visitors in 2019.
The resort is co-owned by country music legend Dolly Parton and Herschend Family Entertainment, which also operates theme parks in Missouri, Georgia and Kentucky.
Other Herschend Family Entertainment locations will offer employees the education benefit, too. The move is in line with the values Parton and Dollywood share, Berry said. Parton has helped provide educational opportunities through her Dollywood Foundation since 1988.
“We want this work environment to be a place where it’s not just a job, but we’re really caring for each employee’s well-being,” Berry said. “We want them to have a good experience here.”
Dollywood has not publicly revealed which schools are eligible under the benefit that began Thursday. It will include about 30 institutions offering everything from GEDs and certificate programs to associate’s and bachelor’s degrees, Berry said.
Similar to the Disney Aspire program, Dollywood’s benefit pays for specific degree programs in areas like business administration, finance, technology, marketing and culinary studies. Dollywood will provide up to $5,250 per year for 150 more programs in fields such as hospitality, engineering and art design.
“We don’t want there to feel like there’s any strings attached to it,” Berry said. “You don’t have to work for us for a certain amount of time. After you get the degree, there’s no retroactive payback if you leave early.”
Berry said Dollywood has seen “increased interest” from job seekers after the program was announced Feb. 8. It is good for both employees who want to stay with Dollywood and those whose career goals extend beyond the company, he said.
“We still are proud of being able to grow people, even if their time with us is just a stepping stone to greater things for them,” he said. “If we had a part in that, then we’ve succeeded.”
Without Disney’s Aspire, Cree Jenkins, a custodian at the Magic Kingdom, would not have been able to afford college. She would have had to take out extensive loans, making her education much more expensive over the long term.
“Paying for your secondary education with a minimum wage job is almost impossible, especially with all the other rising costs,” said Jenkins, 21.
She said Dollywood’s programs are encouraging for the industry and hopes initiatives like these will help hire more people into better-paying jobs.
“Hopefully, Universal and SeaWorld and all the other parks around the country could follow suit knowing that both Disney and [a smaller theme park like] Dollywood can do that,” she said.
‘It’s about quality of life’
To attract and retain employees, theme park and hospitality companies are having to offer better benefits to job seekers than in the past, Smith said.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Feb. 4 show employment in the leisure and hospitality industry is down by 1.8 million people from February 2020, a 10% decrease from just before the pandemic took hold in the U.S.
“They need a lot of bodies to keep the parks open, and so they’re coming up with creative ways to incent people,” he said. “I applaud (Dollywood), and I think more companies should do it. I think in general it’s not about the money always — it’s about quality of life.”
Universal has been working on “significant enhancements” to its education benefits and plans to announce them soon, spokesman Tom Schroder said in a statement.
Updated details on Universal’s tuition reimbursement program were not immediately available. In 2003, the company said it covered 75% of tuition costs. A publicly available copy of its Team Member Handbook from 2011 said partial reimbursement would be available after class completion for full-time employees who had been working for at least six months.
SeaWorld also offers tuition reimbursement for part- and full-time workers. In the past, the company reimbursed employees proportionally to the number of hours they worked. Full-time employees got 85% of tuition and 100% of books and lab fees repaid.
Tuition reimbursement programs can still be stressful for theme park workers because they have to pay out-of-pocket first, Jenkins said. Last year, Disney and Universal raised their minimum wages to $15 an hour, while some positions at SeaWorld start at $11.75. Pay at Dollywood starts at $13, Berry said.
Beyond the new education program, Dollywood sets itself apart in caring for its workers in an industry that frequently overworks and underpays staff, Smith said.
“I know everyone talks about organizational culture and ‘how good we treat people.’ But in the case of Dollywood, they walk the talk,” Smith said.
Berry said he has been with the company for 37 years since he was in high school.
“It is a very, very common story for people to build their careers [at Dollywood], grow from frontline employee, learn, take educational opportunities to improve and then continue to stay,” he said.
