GMR’s ‘Earn While You Learn Program’ Adding New EMTs to Industry

Finding new blood is an ongoing challenge for the U.S. EMS profession. Global Medical Response (GMR) has come up with a practical solution to the problem: Pay people to be trained as EMTs and then provide them with jobs locally after they graduate.

GMR calls this program “Earn While You Learn” (EWYL), and it's an effective way to attract new hires by sponsoring their training and allowing them to receive a paycheck while they train to be EMTs.

“Earn While You Learn, our award-winning program, gives you the opportunity to earn a paycheck while attending our free training course to become a certified emergency medical technician (EMT),” said GMR’s careers website. “We provide candidates with the education, training and tools needed to become a certified EMT as a stepping stone to their future career in EMS. This opportunity is free of charge and academy students will be compensated a training wage while attending the EMT academy. After successful completion of the program, candidates who obtain their EMT certification will be promoted to EMT-B while receiving a commensurate pay increase and comprehensive benefits package.”

“We’ll give you the training,” the program's webpage declares. “We’ll give you the tools. You have to bring the passion. In return, you’ll get a purposeful, rewarding career, competitive salary and one of the most comprehensive benefits packages in the industry. After successful completion of our program and EMT certification, you will be promoted and given a commensurate pay increase and comprehensive benefits package.”

According to this webpage, GMR’s EWYL program runs for six to 12 weeks, and is open to people age 18 and up. Applicants need to have a high school diploma or GED, have all required immunizations, and pass background, drug, and physical agility tests.

“The Earn While You Learn program is a wonderful opportunity for GMR to get into the community and give those folks who may not have the means or the opportunity to become an EMT the chance to become one,” said Emily Chandler, GMR EMS program manager and NCTI program director in Massachusetts. “We cover the full cost of the programs. That includes tuition, books, fees, testing, certification fees, all while they're being paid to be in the classroom to learn as a student.”

GMR’s Tom Maxian created EWYL program in Buffalo, New York. He is now GMR’s National President of Ground Operations. “Tom saw a real need in the community for jobs, and a need to increase the workforce for EMS,” Chandler said. “He said, ‘We need to get creative about finding new employees, and we need to do it in a way that's beneficial to the community as well as the company.’ He piloted the EWYL program up in Buffalo, New York in 2018, and it took off like a wildfire. We started it in Massachusetts in 2019, and it's been popping up all over the country ever since.”

GMR requires graduates to work for the company for at least a year. However, this condition comes across as a benefit rather than a requirement for successful trainees, since it comes with a guaranteed job and a pay boost attached.

“Initially we weren’t sure if people would be willing to make this commitment,” Chandler said. “But after a couple of years, we've noticed that they are happy to do so, and that most of them actually stay much longer than the one year.”

In the seven years since GMR launched the EWYL program, the benefits to the company have been impressive. “In Springfield, we lose less than 20% of our students to attrition,” Chandler said. “After graduation in Massachusetts, we still had over 90% of our students working for us as full-time employees after the one-year commitment passed. Nationwide, the EWYL program is being offered in 42 states and 173 cities—and we've graduated just shy of 3,000 students to date.”

Meanwhile, the positive social impact of the EWYL program is significant. “We've seen a lot of folks come through that would not have had this opportunity otherwise,” Chandler said. “A specific student comes to mind, who came from an economically disadvantaged situation. She started in our Earn You Learn EMT program, graduated, and then went through and completed our Earn While You Learn Paramedic program here in Springfield. She said to me early on in her training, ‘When I become a paramedic, I'll be the first person in my family to have a career.’ And that just really struck me as pretty amazing.”

All told, GMR’s Earn While You Learn program is an effective way for EMS agencies to attract and retain the new talent they need. “I'm very fortunate to work for a company that's really committed to our communities that we work in,” Chandler said. “We think it's a win-win for everybody. Not only are we increasing our workforce, but we're giving back to the communities that we live in, and we're allowing the members of the community to work in their own neighborhoods and also support and make an impact in their communities.”