Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How a Retailer Made Socioeconomic Diversity a Career Accelerator
Transcript
- Lucas: You know, when we talk about diversity in corporate America, the conversation almost always starts with race, gender, sometimes sexual orientation. But there's one dimension that's still surprisingly invisible, and it's the one that shapes your entire trajectory from the day you're born. Luna: Socioeconomic background. Class. It's the diversity category people can smell but rarely name. Lucas: Right. And today I want to talk about a company that actually named it. A large US retailer — we're talking over a thousand stores, household name — decided to look at whether your parents' income predicted how fast you'd climb inside the company. And what they found was uncomfortable. Luna: What did they find? Lucas: They ran an internal audit on their store manager pipeline. About 60 percent of their store manager candidates came from households earning under fifty thousand dollars a year. So not a pipeline problem. But when they tracked who actually got promoted from store manager to district manager, those same candidates advanced at roughly half the rate of peers from higher-income households. Luna: Half the rate. So the talent was there, but something in the system was filtering them out. Lucas: Exactly. And the retailer had a choice. They could blame the candidates, right — say they weren't 'executive presence' ready, or they lacked the right polish. Instead, they redesigned the promotion process itself. And I think the specifics are worth digging into. Luna: Let's dig in. What was the first thing they changed? Lucas: They removed college-degree requirements from all manager-track roles. Now, that's becoming more common in retail, but what's interesting is that here it wasn't just about access to the job — it was about how you were evaluated once you were in it. They replaced the old promotion criteria, which heavily weighted things like 'strategic communication' and 'network across the region' — very subjective, very correlated with social capital — with a set of on-the-job skills assessments. Luna: So instead of 'does this person sound like a leader in a meeting,' they asked 'can this person actually lead a P&L review?' Lucas: That's exactly it. They built simulations. Candidates had to run a mock quarterly business review, resolve a staffing conflict, analyze a markdown calendar. All things store managers actually do. And the results shifted who got promoted. Luna: I imagine that ruffled some feathers. People who had climbed the old way probably felt like the rules were changing on them. Lucas: It did. There was pushback from some district managers who said, 'You're lowering the bar.' But the company's argument was: we're not lowering the bar, we're changing what we measure. And when you change what you measure, you get different outcomes. Luna: Did the outcomes bear that out? Lucas: Within 18 months, promotion rates for lower socioeconomic status employees rose by 23 percent. And district-manager retention improved by 14 percent. The people who came up through the skills-based path were staying longer, because they felt the system was actually fair. Luna: That retention piece is huge. Turnover at the district manager level is incredibly expensive. So this wasn't just an equity play — it was a business case. Lucas: Right. And the company also added a formal mentorship program where first-generation professionals — people whose parents didn't go to college — were paired with senior leaders. But here's the twist: the mentors were trained to avoid giving 'polish' advice. No 'try this cologne,' no 'here's how to order wine at dinner.' Instead, they focused on organizational navigation: how to build a budget, how to get a sponsoring executive, how to read the unwritten rules. Luna: That's actually refreshing. Because a lot of mentorship for underrepresented groups defaults to assimilation — here's how to code-switch, here's how to fit in. But this retailer seems to have said, 'We'll change the system, not you.' Lucas: That's the key line. And I think it's worth pausing on that philosophy, because it gets to something we don't talk enough about on this show. You know, making a career ladder that actually works requires trusting your people and redesigning processes. And that kind of work is what keeps this podcast going. Luna: Yeah. And if you're listening and you've found these kinds of practical examples useful — maybe you've even used one of them to make a case inside your own company — we'd love your support. The show stays ad-free because of listeners who chip in at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a low-key way to keep the conversations going. Lucas: Appreciate that. So back to the retailer. One more piece I want to highlight: they also changed how they talked about career progression in their internal job postings. They stopped using phrases like 'high-potential' — which, as research shows, tends to favor people who already have a sponsor — and instead described specific outcomes: 'has led a store through a holiday season with less than 2 percent shrinkage,' things like that. Luna: So they made the criteria concrete and observable. That's a lesson that applies well beyond socioeconomic diversity. Lucas: Absolutely. And here's the last number I'll leave you with: after two years, the percentage of district managers from low-income backgrounds went from 18 percent to 31 percent. Still not proportional to the 60 percent in the pipeline, but a real move in the right direction. The company is now looking at whether similar redesigns could work for their corporate roles. Luna: I think the most powerful takeaway is that they actually measured the gap, named it, and then changed the machinery rather than blaming the people. That's rare. Lucas: It is. And it's a reminder that class is the diversity dimension that often hides in plain sight. You can't see someone's parents' income when they walk into a room, but the effects are everywhere. The question is whether companies are willing to look. Luna: And when they do look, they often find that the fix isn't about charity — it's about better management. Lucas: Exactly. That's the note I want to end on: equity and rigor aren't opposites. This retailer proved that if you define rigor as measuring actual skills, you get both.