Putting ex-welfare recipients to work

Health Progress, Mar/Apr 2001

TJX Cos., corporate parent of the clothing retailers T. J. Maxx and Marshalls, specializes in turning former welfare recipients into self-supporting citizens. In doing so, the firm has solved one of its own problems as well.

"Welfare reform"-the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996-ended longstanding federal subsidies to poor families and encouraged their heads, usually single mothers, to seek work instead.

Unfortunately, many of these people were unskilled at finding and keeping jobs.

In May 1997, TJX's CEO vowed to hire 5,000 former welfare recipients by 2000. Altruism was one motive, need another. Because retail salaries are generally low, employee turnover tends to be high. At TJX, which operates more than 1,000 stores in 47 states, turnover of 100 percent was common. The company had to find a way to fill those slots. It did so with a three-part program:

TJX engaged CIC Enterprises, an Indianapolis-based firm, to operate a job hot line linked to agencies that help welfare recipients get ready for life in the working world. By calling a toll-free number, a TJX store manager in any city is connected within 24 hours to a local agency, which sends out candidates for the job.

Because many such candidates have little education or work experience, TJX gives them three weeks of classroom training, followed by internships at a T. J. Maxx, Marshalls, or Goodwill store. (Goodwill, a TJX partner in the effort, runs the training with federal funding.) Those who complete the internships get TJX or Goodwill jobs.

A case manager follows each welfare recipient-turned-employee for at least a year, helping the new worker solve problems with, for example, child care or transportation. A liaison person is available to help the employee with performance problems at the store.

TJX's program-which brought it 16,000 new employees, rather than the 5,000 originally envisioned-has been a success both for former welfare recipients and the firm itself.