Reflecting our founder Charles R. Walgreen's
strong commitment to creating equal opportunity, Walgreens has always hired people with disabilities and striven to foster a fully inclusive work environment. We recognize that a disability inclusive workplace and culture enables Walgreens to tap into a wider pool of talent, retain valued team members, and gain insight into the needs of an important and expanding segment of the customer base. Additionally, Walgreens disAbility Alliance business resource group (BRG), with its mission to “Engage, educate and empower individuals with disabilities and allies by providing informational content, fostering an inclusive workforce, and furthering disability-related initiatives”, continues to play a strong role in this space, in alignment with the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategy.
Over the last decade, Walgreens seized new opportunities to design facilities and training programs to create even more opportunities for people with disabilities through our two signature programs: the Transitional Work Group Program (TWG) and Retail Employees with Disabilities Initiative (REDI).
Walgreens TWG & REDI signature programs rest on three pillars:
- Jobs and expectations will be the same for employees.
- All employees will be held to the same work standards, for the same pay.
- A sustainable model that fits our operational, human resources and other critical standards.
Industry leading inclusive policies and practices we first implemented in Anderson, S.C. back in 2007, now known as Walgreens “same job, same performance” operating model, continue to revolutionize who we employ and how we operate across our distribution network, retail stores, the support center and field operations. More than 1,500 individuals with disabilities have completed retail and customer service skills training in stores across the nation.
Through our efforts we have seen that individuals with disabilities can perform to standard as much as any other team members, across a variety of work settings. In the process, we’ve enabled thousands of people with disabilities to build lives they may not otherwise have been able to, simply because opportunities were not presented to them.
Walgreens works with selected community organizations,
vocational rehabilitation agencies, and state and local social services agencies, to identify and screen candidates for our disability inclusion training programs. Consult the links below to see which agencies are eligible to conduct TWG and REDI training sessions according to our exacting standards.
Transitional Work Group Program: Registered Agencies
Retail Employees with Disabilities Initiative: Registered Agencies
2021 Disability Equality Index Best Practices Award (DEI)
Walgreens was recognized with a 100% score for the fifth year in a row by Disability:IN, the leading nonprofit resource for business disability inclusion worldwide, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.
