Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How One Company Created a Career Ladder for Part-Time Workers
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this assumption that part-time retail jobs are just temporary — something you do while you're in school or between real jobs. But for millions of workers, part-time is the only option they have, and it's treated like a dead end. Luna: Right, and that assumption hurts both the worker and the employer. High turnover is expensive. Lucas: Exactly. So I want to look at a midsize grocery chain called GreenLeaf Market — about 80 stores in the Midwest and Southeast. Seventy percent of their workforce is part-time. And a few years ago, they decided to stop treating that as a problem and start treating it as a pipeline. Luna: What was the trigger? Did they have a specific retention crisis? Lucas: They did. Their annual turnover among part-timers was pushing 90 percent. Costing them millions in recruiting and training. So the head of HR, a woman named Dana Reyes, proposed something she called the 'Career Ladder' program. The idea was simple: create a visible, structured path from part-time cashier or stocker all the way to store manager — with concrete milestones and pay bumps along the way. Luna: That sounds obvious, but most retailers don't do it. They have a 'promote from within' policy on paper, but no actual steps. Lucas: Exactly. So GreenLeaf designed four tiers. Tier one is entry-level associate — that's your first 90 days. Tier two is 'Certified Associate' — you complete five online skill modules on things like customer service, inventory basics, and food safety. That comes with a fifty-cent raise. Luna: Fifty cents doesn't sound like much, but for someone making fifteen bucks an hour, that's over three percent. And it's immediate. Lucas: Right. Tier three is 'Team Lead' — that's a shift supervisor role. You need six months in role, plus a recommendation from your manager and a short interview. That comes with a dollar-fifty raise and eligibility for health insurance, even if you're still part-time. Luna: Health insurance for part-timers — that's a big deal. Most retailers cap that at thirty hours. Lucas: It was a deliberate move. Dana told me they realized that a lot of their part-timers were working 28 to 30 hours but couldn't get benefits because the cutoff was 30. So they lowered it to 25 for anyone who reaches Tier three. That alone boosted retention significantly. Luna: What about Tier four? Lucas: Tier four is Assistant Manager — full-time, salaried. To get there, you need to have completed all the Tier two and three training, plus a leadership certification that GreenLeaf pays for — it's a six-week program through a local community college. And you need to have been with the company at least 18 months. Luna: So it's not a fast track, but it's a clear track. You know exactly what you need to do. Lucas: That transparency is key. They published the entire ladder on the employee app and in the break room. Every quarter, managers sit down with part-timers and do a 'career check-in' — not a performance review, just a conversation about where they are on the ladder and what's next. Luna: How did the program actually perform? Give me numbers. Lucas: Two years in, internal promotions from part-time to management rose from 12 percent of all management hires to 41 percent. Overall turnover among part-timers dropped from 90 percent to 55 percent. And the cost per hire actually went down, because they were filling more roles internally instead of posting on job boards. Luna: Those are significant. What about the workers themselves — did they benefit beyond the numbers? Lucas: They did a survey six months after launch. Eighty-three percent of part-timers said they now saw a future at GreenLeaf. Before, only 30 percent said that. And they saw a big jump in engagement scores among people who had completed at least one tier. Luna: So the ladder creates a sense of momentum. You finish one step, you get a raise, and you want to keep going. Lucas: That's exactly what Dana described. She said the hardest part was the first six months — getting people to actually enroll in the training modules. Once they finished one, the completion rate for subsequent modules was over 90 percent. Luna: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support. You can buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep this content free for everyone. Lucas: Yeah, and it really does make a difference. We don't run ads, so it's entirely listener-funded. If you've gotten a career insight from the show, that link is a simple way to give back. Luna: Alright, back to GreenLeaf. What about the challenges — did they run into any pushback from store managers? Lucas: That's a great question. Some store managers were initially skeptical. They worried that spending time on career check-ins would take away from operational tasks. So corporate gave them a small bonus for each part-timer who advanced a tier. That aligned incentives. Luna: Clever. What about the part-timers who didn't want to move up — maybe they're students or retirees who just want a steady gig? Lucas: The program is optional. You can stay at Tier one forever if you want. But they found that even people who didn't advance appreciated knowing the option was there. It reduced the feeling of being stuck. Luna: So it's a psychological benefit as much as a financial one. Lucas: Exactly. And there's a diversity angle here. GreenLeaf's part-time workforce is disproportionately women and people of color. So creating a clear ladder from those roles into management directly addresses underrepresentation in leadership. Luna: Did they track that? The diversity of who moved up? Lucas: They did. After two years, the management team at the store level became 25 percent more diverse in terms of race and gender. And the program specifically helped single parents — because the training modules can be done on your own time, and the company offers a small stipend for childcare during the in-person leadership sessions. Luna: That childcare piece is often the unspoken barrier. If you're a single mom working part-time, you can't afford to attend a training session without covering childcare. Lucas: Right. Dana told me that was the single most effective intervention. They spent about $15,000 per year on childcare stipends, and it unlocked promotion paths for dozens of workers. Luna: Can this model scale to bigger retailers? Think about a Walmart or a Target with hundreds of thousands of part-timers. Lucas: I think it can, but it requires a cultural shift. The biggest barrier isn't cost — it's the operational mindset that part-time workers are interchangeable. GreenLeaf proved that investing in them pays for itself through lower turnover and higher productivity. Luna: So the key is to treat part-time not as a cost to minimize, but as a talent pool to develop. Lucas: Exactly. And GreenLeaf is now expanding the program to their distribution centers. They're also experimenting with a 'fast track' for people who want to go from part-time to store manager in 18 months — it's more accelerated, but requires a commitment to relocate. Luna: That opens up mobility for workers who might not have considered moving for a job. Lucas: Right. And it gives the company a way to fill hard to staff locations with proven internal talent. Luna: I want to push back a little — 18 months is still a long time. For someone juggling two part-time jobs, can they realistically complete the training? Lucas: That's a valid concern. GreenLeaf addressed it by offering paid training time — up to four hours per week at your regular wage. So you're not sacrificing income to advance. They also made the modules mobile-friendly, so you can do them on your phone during a commute. Luna: That's smart. The biggest barrier to career advancement for low-wage workers is often just time and money. Lucas: Exactly. And the ROI for the company is clear. Dana calculated that each internal promotion saves GreenLeaf about $3,000 in recruiting and onboarding costs. Multiply that by a few hundred promotions a year, and the program pays for itself many times over. Luna: So it's not just a feel-good initiative. It's a bottom-line play. Lucas: It is. And I think that's the lesson: inclusion and career mobility aren't separate from business performance. When you design a system that actually works for the people in it, the numbers follow. Luna: What's next for GreenLeaf? Are they sharing this model publicly? Lucas: They've started publishing a playbook on their website — open-source, no strings attached. Dana says she's had calls from a dozen other retailers, including a few national chains. So the idea is spreading. Luna: That's encouraging. It's rare to see a company not treat a competitive advantage as proprietary. Lucas: Yeah, she said they'd rather see the industry improve than hoard the idea. And honestly, if more retailers adopt this, it could change the narrative around part-time work in America. Luna: It's a small shift in thinking, but with huge ripple effects. Lucas: Right. And it starts with seeing the person behind the hourly wage.