We believe our people — individually with diverse perspectives and collectively through collaboration — are what set us apart. At Gap Inc., we support our employees by fostering an inclusive culture and offering tools, experiences and benefits that ignite truly fulfilling careers.
Our Approach
At Gap Inc., we aim to build workplace equity, invest in learning and development for employees at all levels of our organization, and cultivate workplace culture and benefits programs that meet the needs of our employees. We also champion initiatives and ideas that encourage volunteering and ensure that we give something back to the communities and places where we work and live.
Building Workplace Equity
We believe that when you realize inclusion isn’t optional, gaps close and a whole new world of possibility opens.
We embrace opportunity hiring, a talent strategy that is helping us diversify and support our global workforce. In 2021, we launched a pilot in our Ohio Customer Experience Center to employ refugees through a collaboration with Tent Partnership for Refugees, and we’re part of the Second Chance Business Coalition, which promotes the benefits of employment for people with criminal records.
Fostering an inclusive culture has been our priority since the formation of our first Equality and Belonging Group over 15 years ago. We are committed to our goals of improving representation, continuing to build a diverse talent pipeline, strengthening our workplace diversity and inclusive culture, and supporting talent across the employee lifecycle.
Read more about Equality and Belonging at Gap Inc.
Learning and Development
Our enterprise-wide approach to building talent provides all our employees—professionals, managers, directors and executives—with best-in-class training. Our aim is to inspire and engage Gap Inc.'s talent through a consistent framework that empowers employees to drive their work forward while building strong relationships.
Our tiered focus meets individual contributors and leaders where they are on their professional journey, with programs that include:
- Retail Academy: This combines classroom sessions, rotational training and business simulations, as well as sustainability courses offered through our “Business Bootcamp” onboarding program.
- Rotational Management Program (RMP): This world-class program supports emerging and diverse talent to become future company leaders with a range of brand and product function experiences. RMP training also features an introductory course on ESG at Gap Inc.
- Mid-level Manager Coaching: This prepares mid-level managers for senior leadership roles in a variety of ways, including one-on-one coaching.
- Field to HQ: Fueling our entry-level headquarters roles with incredible talent is important to our success. This program promotes market opportunities to store employees, supports candidates through the recruiting process and provides a custom onboarding experience to ensure a successful transition.
- Great Bosses: This develops our leaders’ ability to connect, listen to feedback and continuously improve. We also conduct a biannual Great Boss Survey to give managers actionable feedback.
As part of our deep commitment to building an inclusive workplace, we also offer learning experiences that build inclusive habits and practices. These include mandatory racial equity and unconscious bias training, employee onboarding that integrates content on inclusion and equity, new leader workshops, inclusive design courses, and our Be One. Get One. mentoring program focused on cross-cultural mentorship. We also embedded “Championing Inclusion” into our core company values and invest in Allies and Advocates Workshops.
Employee Opinion Survey
We value our employees’ feedback and use pulse surveys on topical issues to capture real-time data that allows us to respond faster to employee needs. We issue surveys to representative samples of employees, with the aim of having all employees participate in the survey quarterly. We also collect feedback about our employees’ work experience during performance reviews.
Internal Hires
As a retailer that values hands-on experience in our stores, we give store employees opportunities to take on higher-level field and corporate positions. Approximately 18% of Gap Inc. executives at the vice president level and above started their careers working with product and customers in stores.
Benefits and Work-Life Integration
We offer financial incentives, work-life integration and benefits aimed at helping our employees make the most of their professional and personal lives. Our new “Hub + Home” model considers every facet of the employee experience—including tools, policies, technology and physical workspaces—to support a workforce culture of performance, creativity, collaboration and agility.
We also offer a variety of programs and benefits to accommodate the different needs of our employees and their families:
Nationwide family support: U.S. full- and part-time employees have online access to child-, elder- and pet-care resources. Full-time U.S. employees also benefit from back-up childcare and priority access to nationwide childcare centers.
Parental Leave: For U.S. employees, we provide 12 weeks of paid parental leave (six weeks at 100 percent of pay and six weeks at 50 percent of pay) to support employees with new family members. This benefit is available to all full-time employees after six months of service, as well as part-time employees who have worked at least 24 hours a week for the six months prior to parental leave.
Phase in/phase out: Eligible employees can temporarily reduce their work hours before, during or after parental or family leaves of absence.
Scheduling and wages: We have taken steps to raise our U.S. hourly minimum wage and improve scheduling practices, including eliminating on-call scheduling and providing employees with at least 10 to 14 days’ notice for their schedules.
Health and wellness benefits: We offer comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage for full-time employees. We provide access to free counseling, as well as a wellbeing program that spotlights physical, mental, financial and social wellness, and includes free meditation and fitness classes..
Financial benefits:
- GapShare 401(k) plan matches employees’ contributions dollar for dollar up to 4% of base pay, with 100% immediate vesting.
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) allows full- and part-time employees to purchase Gap Inc. stock at a 15% discount quarterly.
Work-life balance and lifestyle benefits:
- We provide generous paid time off (PTO) that increases with promotion and seniority.
- Our Employee Merchandise Discount Program gives full- and part-time U.S. employees up to 50% off regular-priced merchandise at Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy and Athleta.
- We offer tuition reimbursement, student loan refinancing and pre-tax commuter benefits.
- For current and prospective parents, we offer generous family-building programs, and backup childcare and tutoring among other resources.
Worker Safety
Safety is rooted in our organization’s values and we are committed to reducing risks for our employees and visitors while delivering a best-in-class customer experience. Eliminating risks, implementing sound engineering controls and championing safety and health through awareness, training and action allows us to reduce the frequency and severity of incidents throughout our global operations. We are dedicated to Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), strive to prevent and promptly address injuries, and abide by national and state-level OSHA standards.
- Hazard Identification Prevention and Awareness: We take a rigorous approach to safety, including store and warehouse design and layout. OSH criteria are introduced into contracts as needed to limit risk and liabilities associated with vendor and contractor services and projects. We understand that not all risks can be feasibly eliminated and therefore utilize sound engineering controls, increased awareness through worker education and utilization of personal protective equipment to reduce risks in the workplace. Our employees are trained on safe work practices and learn procedural knowledge through on-the-job training programs that are aligned to industry and Occupational Safety & Health standards.
- Assessments and Audits: Gap Inc.’s internal Safety and Claims teams analyze risks and collaborate with operational leadership to understand and adjust business practices to align with emerging trends. Our independent Internal Audit department completes reviews of our Global Supply Chain distribution centers and store locations throughout our networks to gauge procedural compliance. During audits, our approach is to learn how we can improve our processes by asking questions, listening and soliciting feedback of business partners to understand their needs while aligning with company policy and industry standards. We also utilize independent third-party firms to perform operational audits. Surveys of our customer fulfillment centers, corporate offices and data centers are conducted to understand ways we can improve and further align with industry standards and best practices.
- Incident Response: Leaders and associates are responsible for following our investigation and reporting processes. We analyze incident and injury information from our centralized online OSH reporting and management system to assess risks and develop preventive measures.
- Accountability and Oversight: We all share responsibility for the well-being of our employees and strive to maintain a safe working environment with the understanding that differing mindsets drive positive change. Both leadership and associates are accountable for safety performance, assessments of our Global Supply Chain and store OSH programs – ensuring all global team members execute operational processes effectively, efficiently and safely.