A new study identifies the companies that give workers the best career mobility without requiring a college degree – and three Dallas companies made the list.
The project, led by Philadelphia think tank Burning Glass Institute, used publicly available data to assess the 250 largest U.S. public companies. They call the rankings “a corporate scorecard of worker advancement.”
Topping the list is Dallas-based telecom giant AT&T. Other Dallas firms in the top 10 were oil company HF Sinclair and Southwest Airlines.
The researchers looked at career histories, job postings and salary sources to determine the companies that provide the most help for career advancement for workers in roles that don’t require a college degree.
The five-year study measured accessibility, or who is able to join the company, wage or how well they’re paid, and mobility, or how high up the worker advances either at their original employer or a new one.
When looking at why AT&T ranked No. 1, the researchers found an employee, Demetrus Hayes, who worked his way up from a call center to the executive office as vice president and general manager of the Gulf States.
“I started answering the phone in the call center,” he said “But I always knew I wanted to do more, and it’s been a wide-open green field of opportunity ever since.”
The company also paid for him to get a degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix, making him the first in his extended family to graduate from college. Less than 5% of jobs at AT&T require a college degree.
The researchers said AT&T has “an ever-extending ladder of career growth” because it invests in training and mentorship for its workers. An internal survey revealed that 85% of AT&T employees plan to stay at the company for the next year.
The project concludes that where you work is critical for advancement. Companies at the top of the list paid employees 2.5 times more than companies at the lower end. That translates to $1.5 million or more over a career, the study said.
Companies toward the high end of the index also promoted workers a year faster on average than companies toward the bottom.
Upward mobility has been decreasing in the U.S. for decades, said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, in a statement.
“If you were born in the 1940s, you had a 90% chance of doing better than your parents,” he said. “Today, it’s even odds.”
A lack of opportunity for advancement is contributing to the tough labor market in the U.S. where businesses are struggling to hire and retain workers, said Joseph B. Fuller, co-director of Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work Project.
“They lack visibility on how their workers advance and how their policies affect their employees’ prospects,” he said. “They are missing critical components of the big picture.”
HF Sinclair, a diversified energy company with more than 4,200 employees, earned top scores for homegrown leadership, promoting up, employee retention and access to entry-level positions. Southwest Airlines’ strengths were career stability and growth, and advancement without a college degree.
Irving-based Kimberly-Clark Corp. also made the ranking’s top 50, placing 29th overall and second among consumer goods companies. It scored high in career mobility measures.
Other Dallas-Fort Worth companies included in the ranking are American Airlines, Builders FirstSource, Caterpillar, CBRE Group, Charles Schwab, D.R. Horton, Energy Transfer, Exxon Mobil, McKesson, Pioneer Natural Resources, Tenet Healthcare and Texas Instruments.
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