Career mobility and DE&I: How to increase diversity in the workplace with career mobility

Real change doesn’t come from a generous donation or a social media post.

It comes from an investment in the professional and economic mobility of all of your workers – particularly your diverse frontline.

We’ll cover why career mobility is a top DE&I initiative, along with:
→ Case studies from the Fortune 1000
→ Actionable strategies to promote DE&I with career mobility 
→ How to measure the DE&I impact of your programs

Table of contents

• Chapter 1: The relationship between career mobility and DE&I – and how it benefits employers

• Chapter 2: Overcoming challenges and biases in career mobility

• Chapter 3: Strategies to promote DE&I in the workplace through career mobility

• Chapter 4: Measuring and evaluating DE&I outcomes from career mobility + relevant case studies

Employers are using career mobility as a key DE&I initiative.

Career mobility and DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion) share an intrinsic connection as they both contribute to creating a more equitable and vibrant workplace.

Forbes recognizes that DE&I improves innovation and financial results – in addition to being a corporate social responsibility that employees expect from their employers.

However, most leaders haven’t figured out how to systematically increase the diversity of their workforce, particularly in management and leadership.

The answer?

A strategic focus on career mobility – particularly for the frontline, where the majority of diverse talent lives – into middle management and onto senior management.

Most leaders haven’t figured out how to systematically increase the diversity of their workforce**.**

Top 5 benefits of diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace

When employees feel that their unique perspectives are being valued and respected, they are more likely to take risks and explore different avenues within their organization.

We’ve already written about how organizations should measure the ROI of DE&I, but we’ll name a few of the top financial and cultural benefits here:

1. Diverse representation at every level of the org fosters innovation and growth.

Diverse teams bring varied viewpoints and perspectives, sparking innovation and leading to fresh ideas and problem-solving approaches.

In fact, a recent study on career pathways of more than 1,000 global organizations and 94 L&D practices found that the #1 most impactful practice for driving business, talent, and innovation outcomes is “creating extensive opportunities for career growth.”

A study of more than 1,000 global organizations and 94 L&D practices found that the #1 most impactful practice for driving business, talent, and innovation outcomes is “creating extensive opportunities for career growth.”

Career Pathways: Building Tomorrow's Workforce from The Josh Bersin Company

2. Accessible and transparent career mobility improves employee engagement and retention.

Inclusive organizations that create a sense of belonging for everyone drive higher employee satisfaction, engagement, and longer tenures.

An Coqual study on being black in corporate America found that Black men who had senior leaders of color were 15% more likely to stay with their company than those who did not.

3. Cultures of opportunity attract and retain top talent.

Embracing diversity and inclusivity helps organizations attract a diverse pool of talented individuals who value inclusive work cultures.

Here's an example of a company who is doing this well: The Walt Disney Company.

They launched their Disney Aspire program in partnership with Guild to help their diverse workforce pursue personal and professional dreams with tuition free education.

As of August 2022, 1 in 4 applicants who apply to hourly roles at the Walt Disney Company cite the Disney Aspire program as their primary reason for applying.

4. Inclusive workforces outperform the competition.

Organizations with an inclusive culture are 3x as likely to be high performing and 8x more likely to achieve better business outcomes.

Additionally, companies in the top quartile of ethnic and cultural diversity on executive teams outperformed those in the fourth quartile by 36% in profitability.

Companies in the top quartile of ethnic and cultural diversity on executive teams outperformed those in the fourth quartile by 36% in profitability.

McKinsey & Company Report "Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters", May 2020

5. Equal opportunities for advancement lead to larger talent pipelines for HR.

When organizations provide equal opportunities for employees from diverse backgrounds to progress in their careers, it creates a pipeline of diverse talent that can rise to higher paying or leadership roles.

However, in order to do this, employers need to put an emphasis on career mobility for their frontline workers.

The key to a diverse workforce? Opportunities for your frontline workers.

For many companies, the majority of the diversity in their workforce lies in their frontline.

But a key barrier to career mobility for frontline workers remains formal education.

The unfortunate reality is employers spend the majority of their formal training dollars on workers who already have bachelor’s degrees.

It's time to change that.

A key barrier to career mobility for frontline workers remains formal education.

Tuition-free education and coaching are crucial for frontline mobility.

At Guild, we are on a mission to grant access to education, skilling, and career mobility to the 100 million frontline workers who need additional education and coaching in order to move up in their careers.

Employers can join us in this mission by:

• Removing financial barriers: Offering to pay the bill for education

• Diversifying educational offerings: Not just offering to pay for master’s programs, but also high-school completion, ESL, college readiness, and more

• Offering coaching and mentorship to all employees: Connecting frontline employees with coaches who can help them grow in their careers and move into their next role at your organization

“If low-wage workers are managed well and given the appropriate career guidance and mentorship to develop, they usually want to stay and grow with the organizations that employ them. And when they do that, not only do most of them thrive personally and professionally, but the companies they work for benefit substantially.”

Harvard Business Review on The High Cost of Neglecting Low-Wage Workers

Most workforces are already diverse – but most of the diversity is concentrated in one population.

Want a diverse workforce? Chances are you already have one, but the majority of your diversity lives in one population: your frontline workforce.

As an inclusive employer, you must recognize that your workers are starting from very different points in their educational and career journeys.

In our recent article on the “owning your own development” fallacy, our head of career mobility reminds employers that not all of your employees had:

• The financial means to attend college

• Or parents with who attended college

• Or a personal or professional mentor to lean on

To foster more diversity at every level of leadership, we need to come to terms with the challenges facing our employees today – and do our best to remove barriers where possible.

The top 5 challenges facing career mobility in corporations today

A number of challenges stand in the way of skilling your employees at scale. We call them out this chapter, and then offer specific strategies to address them in the next chapters.

1. Educational restraints

The challenge? The “bachelor degree” job requirement has posed a challenge to career mobility for decades.

Many American workers have not had the opportunity to attend higher education for any number of reasons – most commonly due to financial and time restraints (our next two obstacles).

At Guild, we have heard so many stories from the frontline of individuals who:

• Became primary caregivers at a young age, to other siblings or their own children

• Have to start paying bills out of high school

• Go into debt trying to complete a degree

Degrees should not be a barrier to entry, and cannot be in a tight labor market.

The solution? First, diversify hiring practices to remove degree requirements where necessary and actually look for skills instead.

Second, build up relationships between employers and higher education so employees can pursue education (if they choose) to grow into new roles. See chapter 3 for more strategies.

“JP Morgan Chase recently rolled out the Guild program and I had to take advantage of it. Being a single mom and just one income in the household, I felt like getting more education, getting more skill sets was gonna help me be able to provide for myself and son and continue to have the lifestyle that we want and even better.”

Keisha Owens, Send Us Feedback Analyst at JP Morgan Chase

2. Financial restraints

The challenge? As mentioned above, the financial barrier to education – whether that’s a bachelor’s degree, certificate, bootcamp, nursing school, etc. – has always held talent back from reaching their full potential.

For employers, shelling out expensive master’s degrees for “high-potential” employees has been the status quo for some years, and some capped amount of tuition reimbursement has been available for broader populations… but what about the employees who can’t afford to pay for tuition up-front?

Or risk their entire savings for a course they may not be able to complete (and consequently may not be reimbursed for)?

Solution? Tuition-free education and skilling for all employees creates a pipeline into open roles. See chapter 3 for more details.

"[School] is something that would not have happened had I not had the financial help that Walmart brings."

Richard, a Black associate at Walmart & a Guild learner

3. Time restraints

The challenge? Employees seeking career mobility are usually adults who already have full time jobs and often substantial caregiving responsibilities.

In other words, time is a commodity that cannot be underestimated. For many Americans who work more than one job, there is very little time and energy left over to work on professional development or pursue new educational endeavors.

Employers who want to build cultures of opportunity need to consider the time restraints of the workers they are trying to develop, and offer benefits that are conducive to learning and growth.

Solution? Flexible working schedules that allow for learning during work hours, and education programs suited to working adults. See chapter 3 for more details.

“[My employer] is really big on growth and growth at your own pace… I can sacrifice some hours of my week to better myself on [my company's] dime and then know that I have a job still at [my employer]. I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer.”

Guild healthcare member gaining skills and credentials through their fully-funded tuition RN to BSN program

4. Support restraints

The challenge? Employees are real people with real jobs (sometimes multiple jobs), juggling childcare, household duties, and sometimes other caregiving responsibilities.

A new study shows that 69% of Americans in urban areas live paycheck to paycheck.

Unsurprisingly, going back to school as an adult or pursuing a new career path can come with its own stigmas and insecurities. It is often a very emotional decision for your employees.

Solution? Dedicated coaching and mentorship, to have someone in their corner cheering them on and getting them to the next milestone in their career. More on this in chapter 3.

“Guild made it easy to apply and to keep track of everything – that's when I felt confident enough that this was the step I wanted to take. When I basically had the help of Guild. ‘Cause I couldn't do it without them, honestly. I feel like there was no way for me to stay on top of that checklist if I had no guidance. I'm jumping into something that I don't know, that's unfamiliar territory.”

Administrative healthcare employee at a Guild partner who completed a Frontline Manager Leadership Program and is now pursuing a BS in Nursing

5. Visibility and data restraints

The challenge? In general, employers (particularly large employers) have a hard time monitoring and mobilizing employees that are taking advantage of professional development opportunities.

In our experience, employers that offer tuition reimbursement as a benefit to drive professional growth see very low adoption rates (due to the financial restraints listed above).

But that's not all.

They are also typically not notified by the employee or the academic institution when an employee has completed a degree or a course.

In short, this lack of visibility into the employee experience stops employers from understanding which individuals are actively seeking career growth.

In short, this lack of visibility into the employee experience stops employers from understanding which individuals are actively seeking career growth.

Solution? Real-time visibility into employee progress for managers.

For Guild partners with employees enrolled in one of our Guild Learning Marketplace programs, your HR team can get visibility into which employees are currently enrolled in or are close to completing a program (degree, certificate, or other).

This can help your talent and recruitment teams pinpoint which individuals to reach out to for new job opportunities. See chapter 4 for more on data collection.

1.  Diversify your hiring practices and job requirements

First, start adding more inclusive hiring practices that attract candidates from diverse backgrounds and ensure equal opportunities for all.

For example, you could consider:

• More flexible job requirements: Craft job descriptions that focus on skills and qualifications rather than rigid requirements, allowing a wider range of candidates to apply. Consider dropping degree requirements where not necessary.

• Promotion from within: Develop clear pathways for internal career mobility and prioritize promoting from within the organization. Have dedicated HR resources to internal mobility.

• Transparent compensation bands: Make pay bands visible to the entire company. Pay internal hires as much as you would an external hire.

2. Get diverse talent past the higher education barrier with tuition-free credentials and skilling

Education is crucial for career mobility. Qualified talent often gets overlooked for roles because they are missing a certain skill or certificate.

So here's the key for employers: You should offer skilling that is tuition-free.

While most employers offer some form of an education benefit to their employees today, most of the programs available fall into these two common payment pitfalls:

• Tuition reimbursement: Limits the number of people who have financial means to pay for tuition up front

• Voucher-based payments: Removes financial burden from employees but still leaves them with an administrative burden

In order to maximize adoption rates, Guild works with employers to curate catalogs of fully-funded tuition assistance programs that employees can access and apply for online. This way, employers can remove both financial and administrative burdens from employees.

Our catalogs include programs ranging from:

• High school completion

• English as a second language

• College prep

• Digital literacy

• Bootcamps

• Certificates

• Bachelor’s degree programs

• Master’s degree programs

• …and more

“It's life changing and that's not hyperbole in any stretch of the imagination. To be able to not have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck, to be able to make decisions based on a finite amount of income. I can give my girls a better life and I really appreciate you guys for that.”

Guild learner whose new skills in digital forensics and cybersecurity led to a promotion that nearly doubled his salary

Bottom line? Your education and skilling opportunities should be as diverse as your workforce in order to meet their unique needs and drive adoption.

For more on this topic, check out our ultimate guide to employee education that drives career mobility.

3. Focus on boosting career growth from entry-level to gateway roles to destination roles

To make tuition free education worth it for employees, there need to be ample open roles for  them to move into. There are two key ways employers can scale mobility: pathways and pipelines, which can be thought about as:

• Pathways: Short-term, targeted reskilling courses that lead to the next job

• Pipelines: Long-term efforts to build new talent for certain jobs at scale

What are career pathways?

Career pathways, particularly for frontline workers, are clearly marked steps outlining the education and training required to move into a new job.

What are gateway roles?

Pathways are enabled by gateway roles — jobs that put people on a path to promotion, such as entry-level tech, engineering, or AI roles that are high-focus areas for the business.

Gateway roles offer flexibility as the supply and demand for talent fluctuate, but more importantly, they diversify the pipeline of entry-level workers moving into high-demand fields.

Gateway roles offer flexibility as the supply and demand for talent fluctuate, but more importantly, they diversify the pipeline of entry-level workers moving into high-demand fields.

What are career pipelines?

Career pipelines, on the other hand, prepare employers for tomorrow's talent needs.

They are fueled by internal talent who actively seek out education and training opportunities, signaling to your HR team that they want to stay and grow within your company.

In other words, robust talent pipelines allows companies to address ongoing talent needs and pivot when new business priorities arise.

They can improve:

• Talent retention

• Engagement

• Attraction

• Recruitment costs for talent in high-demand areas when shortages arise

By leaning on these two pillars, companies can focus on building a culture of promotion in their workplaces.

4. Walk the walk by creating HR resources dedicated to (and responsible for) internal mobility and DE&I outcomes

Big changes fail in the dark. If you want to make change that will stick, you should:

• Get an executive involved: Hold an executive responsible for it

• Declare it: Let the entire company know what the new goal is (in this case, internal mobility to promote DE&I)

• Delegate: Push responsibility down three levels to get the project rolling

The ownership of career mobility can often be unclear and cross-functional in nature, including teams like:

• HR and Recruiting

• L&D

• Skilling

• Performance Management

• DE&I

• Operations

• … and more

The problem? Career mobility usually ends up living in the gray space between L&D and Recruiting.

The solution? Challenge the status quo and build your own internal mobility team.

We recommend this team include:

• A VP-level+ role with equal importance to Talent Development and Acquisition (at Guild, we rolled out a Chief Opportunity Officer)

• A recruitment leader with policy-level influence

• A talent development business partner with access to enterprise budget

On top of being responsible for sourcing internal talent for roles, this team should be held responsible for measuring how diverse and equitable their talent pipelines are.

In chapter 4, we discuss how leaders should measure DE&I outcomes, but the important thing to note is that someone should be responsible for bringing this information to leadership.

For more on building out this function, check out our article on building an internal mobility team.

5. Build up soft skills in diverse talent through dedicated coaching, networking, and mentorship

While upskilling from a factory floor or call center job to a data analyst may require some hard skills, it also requires just as many soft skills.

Soft skills include:

• Resume building: Maintaining an up-to-date and effective resume to showcase their current skills

• Public speaking: Ability to feel comfortable speaking in front of groups, like an interview panel

• Social capital/networking: An understanding of “who’s who” and friends in diverse places throughout the org

• Occupational identity: An individual’s ability to see themselves in a new role

• Confidence: Emotional security to take the next leap in their career

You as an employer can foster these skills in your organization through:

• Coaching: Dedicated coaching for all employees – not just “high-potential” white collar employees, but for every employee to navigate what education, skilling, and professional development opportunities are open to them

• Networking: Ample opportunities for employees, particularly frontline workers, to connect with folks in other business units with aligned interests (i.e. Employee Resource Groups)

• Mentorship: 1:1 mentor matching programs where employees can meet up on a regular basis to learn from and mentor one another

Employers who partner with Guild have the ability to give all eligible employees access to our dedicated 1:1 coaching services and Career Accelerator resources. These tools help employees jump start their move into their next role.

Ongoing feedback and data collection is imperative to make data-driven improvements over time.

1. Identify the demographics of the employees taking advantage of your talent development and education benefits

To evaluate if an education or training benefit is helping an employer achieve their DE&I goals, we must be able to compare it to your overall employee base.

In other words, this puts proper context around the representation of historically underrepresented groups.

Demographic markers you may want to look for include:

• Age

• Gender

• Household income

• Education level

• Employees that identify as people of color

• Employees with child/caregiver responsibilities

Your data may look something like this (see illustrative example below).

If your programs are NOT garnering a diverse audience of employees, you may want to course-correct by:

• Increasing program awareness among your frontline workers

• Targeted marketing strategies

• Different education options (i.e. ESL, high-school completion, stackable credentials, etc.)

Our recent white paper on the ROI of career mobility goes over these statistics in depth.

UCHealth sees Black & Hispanic employees participate at X2 the rate of general population

UCHealth partnered with Guild to launch its Ascend Career Program, which fully funds tuition for programs that target critical staffing areas, including:

→ A selection of clinical certifications
→ Foundational learning programs, such as English language and college prep
→ Select degree programs in social work, behavioral health and other critical areas.

David Mafe, Chief Diversity Officer of UCHealth comments “When we look at the demographics, our Hispanic and Black employees are participating at almost twice the rate of their population within UCHealth. So, it’s been really exciting.”

2. Start monitoring salary and promotion outcomes of employees engaged with career mobility programs

As your career mobility program matures, your initial analysis of program adoption can turn into to an analysis of learner outcomes.

The most basic, no-nonsense outcomes to measure are salary increases and promotions.

Ask your team the following questions:

• Are learners in each demographic population achieving promotion and salary outcomes at the same rates as their peers?

• Is the program helping close historical equity gaps?

Let’s look at an illustrative example of how you can track the economic mobility of employees engaged in your career advancement initiatives.

Below you can see the growth of two specific populations that are very diverse – call center specialists and nursing assistants – before and after their involvement with Guild programs.

Talent leaders can get other C-suite and board members to rally around this type of data visualization, as it tells a clear story of how your programs are having tangible, lasting impacts on diverse employees.

Walmart sees wages & promotions skyrocket among engaged employees

Walmart’s LiveBetterU program, in partnership with Guild, offers a generous catalog of tuition-free programs to their associates in business-aligned areas such as data analytics, cybersecurity, engineering, and more.

Walmart’s data shows that employees who participate in these programs are rewarded with a 2.4x higher wage increase relative to non-students in their first year of student enrollment.

What’s more?

Walmart measured that Black hourly associates who participated in the program were 87.5% more likely to receive promotions than non-participants, while White associates were 80% more likely.

How to collaborate with external partners for inclusive career mobility

Familiar with the steps to build a career mobility strategy for your entire workforce, but don’t have the resources or expertise to take a DIY approach?

It may be worth exploring a partnership with an external partner to ensure your career mobility efforts are leading to your desired DE&I outcomes.

If your cross-functional talent leaders want:

• Pathways: Create pathways that map out achievable advancement from entry-level to gateway to destination roles

• Skill mapping: Understand the skills needed to make that progression

• Higher ed partnerships: Partnerships with high performing educational institutes to build those skills

• Pipelines: Future-proof talent pipeline

• Data: The right processes and data tracking in place

• Employee supports: Proper employee supports in the form of career coaching and career readiness tools

Then you should find out how Guild’s career mobility software solution is driving results for major Fortune 1000 employers like Walmart, Target, Hilton, and more.

Want to see Guild in action? Book a demo, or download our e-book below.