Creating a Program with Professional Development Pro™ (Company Administrators)
Investing in employee growth is essential, but managing professional development programs can be time-consuming and complex. With Compt, you can easily set up a structured professional development program that gives employees access to learning opportunities while keeping approvals, budgets, and tracking streamlined in one place.
This guide will walk you through creating a Professional Development program. Whether you're offering tuition reimbursement, certification support, or ongoing skills training, Compt makes it simple to manage everything in one organized platform.
Please note: To create a Professional Development Program, Professional Development Pro must be included in your Compt service plan. Please connect with your dedicated Compt CSM or support@compt.io if you do not see the Development Admin tab showing on the left sidebar when you login to your Compt account.
Hover over the Development Admin Tab on the sidebar and click Manage Programs
On the Manage Program page, you will see any active programs. You can click Create Program to create a new Professional Development Program.
Input your Program Name and Program Description that employees will see when they view the benefit that is available to them.
After clicking Next, you will then have the option to select the eligibility breakdown.
👉Shared budget across a group: Employees within the same group (ie. Department or any other identified group in Compt) will have access to a single amount to share as a group.
👉Individual budget per employee: Each eligible employee will receive designated funds to use over a specific timeframe.
👉Reviewed on case-by-case basis: Employees can submit ad-hoc requests for professional development reimbursements and will not have a specific budget assigned.
Shared budget across a group
- Select the frequency that you would like your budget to recur (Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annually, or Annually)
Plan your Budget by clicking Create Plan.
- Select which group(s) should receive the budget. If your entire team (active in Compt) will share the budget, you can leave the selection as is, indicating Everyone.
Please note: If you don’t see the group you'd like to select, additional groups can be added & assigned in Compt. Contact your CSM or support@compt.io for assistance in adding a new group.
Input the amount and currency that each group should receive before clicking Save.
- Click next to move forward to Set the Funding Expiration Timeframe.
Individual budget per employee
- Select the frequency that you would like your budget to recur (Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annually, or Annually) and select how you would like the budget distributed.
Upfront: Employees will receive the full amount regardless of their hire date or the program start date.
Upfront with Prorating: New Hires will receive a prorated amount based on when they are hired.
Monthly Accrual: The total stipend amount will be divided by the number of months in the cycle, and that amount will be funded on the 1st of each month, and any unused amounts will continue to roll over until the end of the cycle.
Plan your Budget by clicking Create Plan.
- Select which group(s) should receive the budget. If your entire team (active in Compt) will share the budget, you can leave the selection as is, indicating Everyone.
Please note: If you don’t see the group you'd like to select, additional groups can be added & assigned in Compt. Contact your CSM or support@compt.io for assistance in adding a new group.
Input the amount and currency that each group should receive before clicking Save.
- Click next to move forward to Set the Funding Expiration Timeframe.
Reviewed on case-by-case basis
The default Employee Eligibility is set to Everyone. Click Edit next to Employee Eligibility if you would like to assign access to a specific group.
- Select which group(s) should have access to submit Case-by-Case Professional Development requests (no budget will be assigned). If your entire team (active in Compt) will share the budget, you can leave the selection as is, indicating Everyone.
Please note: If you don’t see the group you'd like to select, additional groups can be added & assigned in Compt. Contact your CSM or support@compt.io for assistance in adding a new group.
- Input the amount and currency that each group should receive before clicking Save.
- Click next to move forward to Set the Funding Expiration Timeframe.
Set the Funding Expiration Timeframe
- After clicking next, input the timeframe you would like to give employees to submit for reimbursement after their request has been pre-approved. Funds will expire if employees do not finalize and submit their reimbursement requests within the set timeframe.
- After clicking next, you can click Preview employee form to see what the request form will look like when employees submit their Professional Development Program requests.
8. If you need to add custom fields that you would like employees to complete when submitting a request, click the Add Field button. After confirming the updates are accurate, click Create to add the new field. Click next to assign request approvers and a reimbursement reviewer.
9. Select the primary approver for pre-approval requests. You can either select "Employee's Manager" in the drop-down or a specific person to be the primary reviewer for all requests for the Professional Development Program. You can select multiple names if needed.
10. If you would like a secondary approver assigned to the program to review pre-approval requests after the primary approver completes their approval, select the name(s) in that drop-down.
11. Select the person(s) responsible for reviewing the final reimbursement claim before an employee is reimbursed. Click next.
Please note: If selecting "Employee's Manager" as an approver or reviewer, the eligible employee's manager must be assigned the appropriate access and assigned to the employee in Compt. Access the Updating Employee Manager Access for Professional Development Pro article for step-by-step details on assigning Employee Manager access.
- Review your Professional Development Program details. If you aren't ready to launch your program, click Save Draft. If everything is finalized and you are ready to schedule your program to launch, click Schedule to launch your program immediately, or schedule the program launch for a specific date.
And that’s it! If you have any additional questions, our support team is happy to help! Please reach out to support@compt.io if you need assistance.