OUR COMMITMENT TO INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY

• Inclusion-Building Activities and Awareness 

  Our goal is to equip our Associates with the tools and support needed to further enhance a workplace culture of inclusion. Globally and across our regions, we have formal and informal initiatives underway to foster this.

  Our leadership competencies and cultural factors in our Leadership Development Toolkit help define the skills and behaviors that have led to long-term success for many of our managers, with personal character, integrity, and relationship-building at the core. We are currently reviewing this toolkit and planning to add more specific inclusion-based components where applicable to further support our commitment in this area.

  Treating each other with dignity and respect is one of our core values, and we do not tolerate harassment or discrimination of any kind. These expectations are reinforced to all Associates in the TJX Global Code of Conduct. Engagement and learning about our inclusive culture begins right away for our new Associates. Our global new hire orientation program includes a video and materials that discuss our approach to inclusion and our Welcome, Valued, and Engaged goals. We are proud to deliver a unified message across the Company that lets our new hires know that inclusion and diversity are parts of our culture that we truly value.

  In 2020, we launched a series of new tools and trainings to better support our inclusion and diversity goals. This included a new global training, which educates Associates on our approach to inclusion and diversity and creates better awareness of unconscious bias. In addition, we provided tools to support our managers in engaging their teams as we believe it is critically important to continue having conversations with our Associates about this topic. We have also begun incorporating topics related to inclusion and diversity in our learning curriculum. For example, in 2020, we added unconscious bias as a topic in some of our relevant online courses.

  We are passionate about continuing to provide opportunities for Associates across our organization to fulfill their potential. We plan to continue to work on solutions that build on our existing Associate engagement program to support the needs of our diverse Associate population.

  In addition to these global efforts, our various regions have inclusion-related activities. Below are a few examples of our initiatives.

  U.S.

  Raising awareness of unconscious bias is woven throughout our U.S. operations, through onboarding, store communications, learning tools, processes, and more. In addition to providing all new hires and new managers in our field organization with unconscious bias training and refreshing it periodically, we also keep the dialogue top of mind through ongoing conversations. For example, we have provided talking points and scenarios for Store Managers to use during Associate shift huddles. In the U.S., Store Managers also have a tool called “Culture Pulse” available to them. Culture Pulse helps store teams gauge performance in the areas of customer engagement and in their connections with each other, and is used to help determine where additional engagement with Associates might be needed.

  In the U.S., we have formal groups established to support Associate engagement around inclusion and diversity. These Associate Resource Groups offer networking, development, and support and are available to Associates in our corporate offices, loss prevention departments, and select distribution centers. In 2020, these Groups featured online events focused around mental health, women’s leadership sessions, and multicultural music gatherings. We also created two new Associate Resource Groups, the Working Parents Group and the Black Associate Resource Group. Learn more about our Associate Resource Groups.

  We aim to celebrate diversity in other ways as well. For example, our U.S. distribution centers fly the flags of countries represented by our Associate base and celebrate key holidays that are important to our diverse Associates. And, although the pandemic forced events to be postponed in 2020, we typically have a large presence in annual PRIDE parades.

  Our policies and practices also reflect our philosophy of inclusion. For example, prior to nationwide recognition of same-sex marriage in the U.S., TJX offered benefits to same-sex domestic partners who did not have access to marriage. Today, we are pleased that our benefits program provides benefits to same-sex married Associates and their spouses. We also offer transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits and related healthcare services, as well as Workplace Gender Transition Guidelines and a Workplace Gender Transition Plan template, which are designed to help transitioning Associates, their managers, and human resource partners ensure that adequate support is in place prior to, during, and after transition for those Associates. Additionally, in recent years, we have updated our dress code policy to make it more gender-neutral and enhanced our parental leave policy. We are currently reviewing our policies to ensure the use of gender-neutral pronouns. We are proud to have scored a 90 on the Corporate Equality Index of the U.S.-based Human Rights Campaign in 2020.

  CANADA

  In Canada, we have inclusion and diversity committees that support the overall inclusion and diversity efforts in our home office, distribution centers, and stores. We also have a Values Committee in the home office for coordinating inclusion-focused events. We offer formal programs, such as “A Winning Balance,” to help Associates better understand their teams and be more effective leaders. In addition, we have informal processes across the organization, such as pre-shift huddle discussions and short “did you know” postings that cover topics that support our goals for driving inclusion and diversity. In an effort to inspire, motivate, and reinforce Associate morale, TJX stores run The JOY Project, a customer service and Associate engagement initiative. This effort works to build strong connections between managers, Associates, and customers, and recognizes behaviors that mirror important aspects of our culture.

  We also aim to celebrate diversity. As in the U.S., the pandemic postponed events in 2020, but we typically support annual PRIDE events across Canada, and also host a diversity picnic at our home office that kicks off with an Associate huddle around why diversity is important to us.

  EUROPE

  In Europe, we continue to invest in additional training related to inclusion and diversity, designed to continue to foster a creative, inclusive, respectful, and productive workforce. An important part of the process is to seek feedback from a broad range of Associates, and we have listening groups across our organization to drive deeper insight into our Associates’ day-to-day work experience. We have established a cross-functional inclusion and diversity team to fast-track certain elements of our existing strategy, including launching a toolkit to help Associates create inclusive Associate Resource Groups and delivering a training and development calendar.

• Standing For Equity and Racial Justice 

  While inclusion and diversity are core to TJX, the significance of violent and discriminatory events over the past year illustrated that as a Company, we needed to escalate our efforts in a meaningful way and that we could and should do more to address equity and racial justice. We have publicly committed to stand up for our Black Associates, customers and communities, and take action in support for equity and racial justice through both internal efforts and external philanthropic support. We continue to see examples of violence and discrimination, including against the Asian and Pacific Islander communities, that serve as stark reminders that we need to continue to work towards a better future for all people.

  As a large, complex organization, our initiatives are focused on driving sustainable, organizational changes that can become embedded within our culture and business practices. We are fully committed to ongoing efforts that strengthen our inclusion and diversity programs, and we want our Associates to be heard and actively engaged in our journey as we build out and execute longer-term plans.

  Key areas of focus

  Associate Education

  Diversity presents itself in many ways. To help our Associates better understand how individual biases could impact how they think and act in the workplace, in 2018, TJX rolled out a large-scale Associate training program on unconscious bias to approximately 190,000 Associates. A year later, we made this training part of our new hire and new manager training for our field organization, and in early 2020, we expanded our efforts, sharing this training program with our executive team and Board of Directors as well as across additional business areas and international regions. We have also consolidated our online learning resources regarding inclusion and diversity for easy access on our Company’s intranet.

  To support development and retention of diverse Associates, we provide a number of opportunities internally and through external partnerships. Internally, TJX has strong resources to help Associates develop professionally, including our Global Leadership Curriculum. We also help create access to external professional development programs for our diverse Associates through The Partnership, Conexion, and new in 2020, a third-party leadership academy designed for Black executives and early-mid-career managers in the U.S., and through Business in the Community in Europe.

  Additional Training Tools to Manage Differences

  While we have consolidated our education and training materials related to inclusion and diversity on our Company’s intranet, moving forward, we are creating additional training tools designed to help our current and future leaders successfully manage diverse Associates by improving communication skills at both receiving and providing feedback with greater sensitivity and awareness. We expect to progress in this area by continuing to review the processes we have in place for unconscious bias and incorporating a stronger focus on inclusion into the many training materials used across our Company. We intend to continue to expand our offerings so that we can grow a more inclusive and diverse organization at all levels, and, importantly, support access to management opportunities for underrepresented Associate populations.

  Encouraging Honest Conversations and Feedback

  Our success has been built on collaborative relationships within our business, with our core values of honesty, integrity, and treating each other with dignity and respect as the foundation for these relationships. Over the past year, our inclusion and diversity leaders have conducted Associate listening sessions and focus groups to help guide open conversations and ultimately grow our collective capacity to be champions for equity and racial justice. We recognize that we need to listen, learn, empathize, and make it okay to talk openly about racial injustice as we build an even more inclusive work environment.

  It is important to us that, in addition to the workforce planning and development emerging from these and other efforts, our Associates around the world have an opportunity to weigh in and provide feedback. To that end, in early 2021 we invited our approximately 320,000 global Associates to participate in an inclusion and diversity survey to help inform our long-term global inclusion and diversity programs and initiatives. Due to various COVID closures in Canada and Europe, we do not yet have global survey results completed. However, input that we have collected over the past year encourages us that additional inclusion and diversity training, opportunities for career development including mentorship, and proactively supporting all Associates, regardless of difference, could be meaningful.

  Recruitment of Diverse Candidates for Management

  As positions within various levels of management become available, we are committed to deploying recruitment efforts that should result in an increase in the representation of diverse candidates, and that Black talent has more access to promotion opportunities. These efforts will be implemented as we recruit for positions, both internally within the Company and as we undertake searches for new Associates externally. To support our recruiting strategies, we enhanced training efforts for our talent acquisition teams over the last year and recently introduced a tool in the U.S., Canada, and Europe to reduce potential unconscious biases in job descriptions and other recruitment communications. Another way we are working to increase the diversity of management is by better aligning the diversity of our Field Management teams to more closely reflect the demographics of the community being served. We are also pursuing opportunities to increase minority candidate representation when we recruit for early career positions.

  Being Inclusive

  Being an inclusive organization is critically important to support and retain an increasingly diverse Associate population. We are working on several ways the organization can better model and actively integrate inclusive behaviors, language, and practices throughout our business. We also want each Associate to fully understand the role they play and their individual responsibilities for furthering our progress. Along these lines, we plan to establish internal inclusion and diversity advisory boards, support the growth of existing and new Associate Resource Groups (ARG) including our newest ARG that supports our Black Associates in the U.S., and launch new mentor programs, among other activities.

  The diversity of our Associate base makes us a stronger Company and better able to serve our broad base of customers around the world. Standing for equity and racial justice and creating career opportunities is a long-term commitment for TJX. As we continue to become a more inclusive and diverse organization at all levels, we know we must do it in a way that creates sustainable change. We look forward to providing updates on our progress as we move forward.

• Our Diverse Workforce 

  Underrepresented groups are an important part of our diverse workforce, and we know we can continue to do better. Our global inclusion and diversity framework will support our efforts to build a more inclusive and diverse workforce.

  Globally, women make up 78% of our total workforce, and they hold 67% of our managerial positions.^1,2 We are proud of their strong representation across our workplace, including an increasing percentage of our leadership team. Women are strongly represented in our more senior ranks, with women comprising 54% of Assistant Vice President and above positions, 47% of Vice President and above positions, and 43% of Senior Vice President and above positions. Averaged over the past three years, women earned 79% of our promotions. We are also proud that five of the 12 members of our Board of Directors are women.

  Our workforce also reflects a diversity of races, ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities. In the U.S., members of racially or ethnically diverse groups comprise 57% of our total workforce and 34% of managerial positions.³

  

  79%

  of promotions globally earned by women, on average, over the past three years

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  
  

  

  79%

  of promotions globally earned by women, on average, over the past three years

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  
  

  

  79%

  of promotions globally earned by women, on average, over the past three years

• Pay Equity 

  At TJX, we are firmly committed to pay equity and fostering an inclusive and diverse environment that provides attractive and accessible opportunities throughout our organization. As a large, complex, and global business, we believe it is imperative that we attract and retain the best talent for TJX at all levels and in all functions. We have designed compensation structures intended to pay our Associates competitively in the market and equitably based on their skills, qualifications, role, and abilities, and we are proud that women fulfill many key roles across the company. We have long-standing processes in place to monitor and support the objective evaluation and approval of compensation decisions in the many geographies where we operate. Our incentive plans have emphasized objective, performance-based pay and team-based execution of our business goals across the Company.

  In 2020, we expanded our efforts to include a pay equity analysis of our U.S. workforce that covers gender and race/ethnicity. We are pleased to report that, in the U.S., based on 2019 data and accounting for job title, geography, and full- or part-time status, we found, on average, no meaningful difference in base pay between Associates based on gender or race/ethnicity at TJX. We intend to monitor our processes and review our data periodically to support our goal of continuing to compensate our Associates equitably based on their skills, qualifications, role, and abilities.

• External Recognition 

  We’re proud of what we are doing. However, we are striving to move our programs forward with a goal of continuous improvement. Below are some distinctions our work has received:

  • In 2020, Forbes Magazine listed TJX among the World’s Best Employers, America’s Best Employers for Diversity, and Canada’s Best Employers.
  • In 2020, TJX was named a Best of the Best Employer by Black EOE Journal, Hispanic Network Magazine, and Professional Woman’s Magazine.
  • TJX scored 90 on the 2020 Corporate Equality Index of the U.S.-based Human Rights Campaign.
  • TJX has been named a Top Entry-Level Employer by CollegeGrad.com every year since 2014 and was also named a Top Intern Employer in 2020 for the second consecutive year.
  • Since 2014, TJX Canada has been named as one of the Best Workplaces in Canada by Great Place to Work and in 2020 was also named as a Best Workplace in Retail and Hospitality.
  • For the sixth consecutive year, TJX Europe was recognized by TheJobCrowd, receiving first place for Top Graduate and Apprenticeship Programmes in Retail in 2020. We also ranked as a Top 50 Retail Company for Apprentices.
  • T.K. Maxx Germany was listed as One of the Most Desirable Employers in Germany by the F.A.Z. Institute and appeared in the list of top 3 most coveted companies to work for among textile retailers in 2020.

¹Managerial positions are defined as Assistant Store Manager (or equivalent level) and above across the Company.
²Statistics cited in this section are for TJX's Fiscal Year 2021, which ended January 30, 2021.
³Data on ethnic and racial diversity not available outside the U.S. Statistics for U.S. Associates are based on racial/ethnic designations used by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.