Case Study: Walmart achieves career advancement at scale with Guild Education

Walmart Paves the Way From Jobs to Life-Long Careers

Walmart, the world’s largest private employer with roughly 2.3 million associates, wanted to create scalable, equitable career pathways for hourly frontline workers by upskilling and reskilling its workforce. To make education accessible and remove financial barriers, Walmart partnered with Guild Education and in June 2018 launched the Live Better U (LBU) program, a career-opportunity platform offering tuition assistance and academic partnerships.

With support from Guild Education, Walmart built LBU as a 100% tuition-and-books-paid program (after removing a prior $1/day requirement), expanded eligibility to new hires, and partnered with multiple universities and providers to offer certificates, degrees, and trades training. The initiative drove measurable results—by July 2021 more than 52,000 associates had enrolled and over 8,000 had graduated—while improving retention, promotability, internal talent pipelines, and advancing Walmart’s shift toward skill-based hiring; Guild Education’s role was central to creating and scaling the program.

Walmart

Beth Williams-Moore

Director