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Embracing Inclusion and Diversity


To support TJX’s future growth, we are continually looking for enthusiastic and committed individuals from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences to join our team. As a large, complex, and global business, we believe it is important that our workforce reflect the diversity of our customers and the communities we serve.

We also believe that creating an inclusive environment in which Associates are engaged and empowered strengthens our business and fosters a culture where Associates are inspired to work hard, challenge themselves, and be innovative in their thinking. At TJX, inclusion and diversity are both important, and we encourage partnerships among leaders, managers, and Associates so all Associates feel welcome in the Company, valued for their contributions, and engaged with our business mission.

Diversity Presents Itself in Many Ways

Adapted from Johns Hopkins Diversity Wheel from http://web.jhu.edu/dlc/resources/diversity_wheel/

 


Our Differences Make Us Stronger


Each one of our Associates brings something unique to our collective culture – a diversity of experience, gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, abilities, and more. At TJX, diversity is not something we mark off of a checklist; it is something we celebrate in many ways!

Women are an important part of our workplace diversity and represent an increasing percentage of our leadership team. We are proud of the high percentages of women across our workplace, the strong representation of women in our more senior ranks, and our promotion rates for women over the past three years. We are equally proud that five of our 11 members of our Board of Directors are women.

Globally, women make up 78% of our total workforce, and they hold 66% of our managerial positions.1 Further, we are pleased to note that women are strongly represented in our more senior ranks across the company, with women comprising 52% of Assistant Vice President and above positions, 44% of Vice President and above positions, and 41% of Senior Vice President and above positions. Additionally, averaged over the past three years, women earned 78% of our promotions. More specifically, over the past three years, on average, women earned 54% of the promotions into Assistant Vice President roles, 46% of the promotions into Vice President roles, and 57% of the promotions into Senior Vice President and above roles.

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 33% of managerial positions.2

At TJX, we have high management tenure rates. For example, 61% of our Associates at the Assistant Vice President level and above have been with the Company for over 10 years. At the Vice President level and above, that percentage increases to 65%. We are pleased with the stability of our leadership team, which gives us the benefit of years of off-price retail experience to provide to our newer team members. We continue to strive towards a more diverse workforce across our Company at every level, and we are moving our programs forward with a goal of continuous improvement.



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 for our Associates to fulfill their potential.

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 a compensation structure 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 key roles across the company.

We have long-standing processes in place to evaluate our compensation practices. We set objective pay targets by position and periodically conduct general compensation reviews, which often include benchmarking of our compensation against a number of metrics. Our incentive plans emphasize objective, performance-based pay and team-based execution of our business goals across the company.

We have expanded our efforts to include a gender pay equity analysis of our United States workforce. We also adopted a policy not to ask Associate applicants about their prior compensation history during the hiring process in the United States.

We are pleased to report that, in the United States, accounting for job title, geography, and full or part time status, we found, on average, no meaningful difference in base pay between male and female Associates at TJX.

We are further expanding our pay equity analysis of our United States workforce to include race/ethnicity and intend to provide a disclosure of our findings by the end of 2020.

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.


OUR APPROACH TO INCLUSION: WELCOME, VALUED, ENGAGED


Our culture places great value on relationships, which has been a key to our success since our founding and is now a guiding factor driving our inclusion efforts. We encourage Associates to form strong, lasting relationships with each other, and our aim is to transform some of the individuals we hire today into our global leaders of tomorrow. We recognize that our commitment to this relationship must include ensuring that Associates feel welcome, valued, and engaged if they are to make a long-term commitment to TJX. We strongly believe that:

  • TJX Associates who feel welcome want to come to work. Our Associates feel welcome because they’re encouraged to bring their whole self to work and provide their unique perspective to the business.
  • TJX Associates who feel valued have an emotional connection to their job, not just an economic one. Our Associates feel valued because they know we want to hear and listen to what they have to say and we appreciate their perspective and experience.
  • TJX Associates who are engaged see the significance of their contributions to our organization and that their opinions are sought out. Associates who want to come to work and have an emotional connection to their job are fully engaged with our mission of delivering off-price value to our customers.

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


  • INCLUSION-BUILDING ACTIVITIES AND AWARENESS

    We do not tolerate harassment or discrimination, and we expect Associates to treat each other with dignity and respect. These expectations are reinforced to all Associates in the TJX Global Code of Conduct. In addition, learning about our inclusive culture begins almost right away for our new Associates. In 2018, we piloted a global new hire orientation program that included a video and supporting materials discussing our approach to inclusion and our Welcome, Valued, and Engaged mission. We are currently rolling this program out more broadly and are excited to be able 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 addition to our global efforts, many inclusion-related activities vary among the countries in which we operate. Below are examples of our initiatives.

    U.S.

    In the U.S., store managers 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. This year, over 190,000 U.S. Store Associates also participated in an unconscious bias training, designed to raise awareness of unintentional biases and provide the knowledge and tools needed to identify and mitigate them. Raising awareness of unintentional bias is woven throughout our operations including onboarding, store communications, learning tools, and more. We also have external partnerships to help build cultural acumen and provide development opportunities for our Associates. Learn more.

    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. Our benefits program also provides transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits and related healthcare services. We are proud to have scored a 100 on the Corporate Equality Index of the U.S.-based Human Rights Campaign in nine of the past 12 years and earned the highest ranking in the Human Rights Campaign’s “Buying for Workplace Equality” guide. Additionally, we have updated our dress code policy to make it more gender-neutral; we have an enhanced parental leave policy; and, to help promote pay equity, we do not ask job applicants about their salary history as part of the hiring process.

    Canada

    In Canada, 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. In Canada, we also offer programs, such as “A Winning Balance,” to help Associates better understand their teams and be more effective leaders.

    Europe

    In Europe, we are investing 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 continue to seek feedback from a broad range of Associates. We have focus groups across our organization to drive deeper insight into the day to day experience of working with us. We have also introduced an Inclusion and Diversity group made up of Associates from across our business with the aim of understanding experiences from diverse backgrounds and differing operational perspectives. The insights from these groups continue to help inform the development of our strategic initiatives, processes and policies, and actions we may consider in the future.

    In addition, we are developing a partnership with Everywoman, which works with organizations to enhance the potential of women. We are focusing initially on our Processing Centers and working on career development with both women and men.

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

  • OTHER WAYS WE ARE DRIVING INCLUSION

    Diversity-Focused Groups

    We have formal groups established to support Associate engagement around inclusion and diversity in the U.S. and Canada. These Associate Resource Groups (ARGs) are one of many key components for us in fostering an inclusive workplace. The groups offer networking, development, and support for new and long-time Associates and are open to Associates in our corporate offices, loss prevention (LP) departments, and select distribution centers. In Canada, we have a Diversity Council, consisting of senior leaders from across the Canadian division, that sets the vision and goals that will drive inclusion and diversity across that division.

    Celebrations

    With relationships and respect so deeply embedded into our culture, we show our Associates that we value them in many ways. Our ARGs in the U.S. and Canada run programs throughout the year, such as Bring Your Whole Self to Work, to promote respecting our differences. Our U.S. distribution centers fly the flags of the countries represented by our Associate base and celebrate key holidays that are important to them. And, we have a large presence in the annual PRIDE parades in the U.S. and Canada, as well as many other inclusion-related celebrations. In Canada, we also host a diversity picnic at our home office that kicks off with an Associate huddle around why diversity is important to us.

  • 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 2019, Forbes Magazine listed TJX among America's Best Employers and the Best Employers for Diversity. In 2018, TJX was listed among Forbes’ Best Employers for Women, and Best Employers for New Grads. TJX ranked third in a 2017 Forbes Magazine listing of 10 Companies Where Workers Age 45+ Feel Most Appreciated.
    • TJX has scored 100 on the Corporate Equality Index of the U.S.-based Human Rights Campaign in nine of the past 12 years. In 2020, we scored 90.
    • TJX was listed as a Top 50 Employer by Equal Opportunity magazine in 2017.
    • 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 2018.
    • Over the years, TJX has been listed as a top diversity employer by Black EOE Journal, Hispanic Network Magazine, Careers & the disABLED magazine, Professional Women’s Magazine, and Equal Opportunity magazine.
    • Since 2014, TJX Canada has been named as one of the Best Workplaces in Canada by Great Place to Work.
    • In 2018/2019, TJX Europe received several awards from TheJobCrowd as a result of surveys filled out by early career Associates related to company culture, pay, and career progression. These awards include: Top Company for Apprentices, Top Company for Graduates, Top 50 Retail Company for Apprentices, Top 50 Company for Apprentices - Career Progression, and Top 50 Company for Apprentices – Management.

1Managerial positions are defined as Assistant Store Manager (or equivalent level) and above across the Company.
2Data 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.
3Percentages represent promotion rates averaged over the past three years.