Only two of ten UK grocery chains have gender-neutral job posts

Last week team Textio took a hop across the pond to join other HR tech innovators at HR Tech World London. It was a great event, punctuated by Textio winning the #disruptHR award. Afterward it was time for a double-decker bus ride, spelling words with an extra u (honour, neighbour, colour, etc) and shopping for local foods.

Like the US, the UK has a highly competitive market for markets. So before picking which shop to pick up Lyle’s Golden Syrup, Ribena juice, and Twiglets, we decided to check out how these stores stack up in hiring on the Textio Index.

We were pretty surprised by the gender tone of the job posts at these supermarkets. Iceland Foods and Tesco were the only chains with a neutral tone. Asda and Morrisons Supermarkets (which also happen to have some of the highest scores in the Textio Index) have feminine bias in their job listings. And the rest of the lot, Waitrose, Ocado, Lild, Sainsbury’s, Mark’s and Spencer, and Aldi all have masculine bias in their job posts.

With low margins and intense competition, one of the few ways for grocery stores to stand out is to hire the best talent. But none of the stores we looked at currently have a Textio Score above 50, which is the overall average for the 50,000+ companies listed in the Textio Index. Asda and Lidl topped the list with just a score of 46. Aldi came in as the lowest of the 10, with a score of only 16.