Human Resource Practices at Wal-Mart - Case Study Example

Running Head: HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES AT WALMART HRM at Wal-Mart Name Institution Professor Course Date Introduction Walmart Inc. which was formerly known as Wal-Mart is a public corporation that is based in US. It consists of a chain of departmental stores and warehouses with around 8500 stores in more than 15 countries across the world. In those fifteen countries the retail chain is recognized in more than 55 different names. It is the biggest private employer in US. Walmart employment opportunities Due to its elaborate expansion plan, there are always job opportunities at Walmart depending on ones qualifications and interests. Some of the most popular opportunities at Walmart are auditing, accounting, human resource, IT, engineering, financial services, and strategic planning among others. Once you decide on the job to take, you proceed to fill an employment application form. Human Resource Practices at Walmart The success of the Walmart Stores is largely due to the management of the human resource. It has a workforce of about 1.4 million people. This company is known to have one of the best human resource management policies in the world. One of the most crucial aspects of its HRM is the implementation of the employee advancement program. More than 65% of the company’s managers started working at the stores on hourly jobs and mostly as cashiers. Walmart has taken up the responsibility of providing its employees with a chance to climb up their ranks, from junior positions to the senior positions. The practice of providing opportunities for its staff to advance has made Wal-Mart to be voted severally by Fortune magazine as the most admired and the best company to work for in US. Walmart would not have been able to expand to its current capacity without employing and taking care of its employees. Among the Walmart’s HRM practices include recruitment of staff from college universities and a lot of attention being paid to staff training and development. While most companies continue lying off their staff, Walmart is looking for ways to attract new employees in readiness for their expansion plan. Walmart Employee Recruitment To apply for a job at Walmart one is required to fill out a Walmart job application form and undertake a career assessment test aimed at determining ones suitability to work at Walmart. When applying for a job at Walmart it is a requirement to respond to all employment statements and also to accept to undergo a background check that includes being screened for drugs and acknowledging the fact that any omission or false information on the form will lead to disqualification from being considered or dismissal if you are employed. Among the details required in the job application form is whether one you want to work as Walmart retail, Sam’s Club, or for Walmart transportation and distribution. Your contact information must also be provided and the availability to work on certain schedules. Personal qualifications, employment history and two referees must also be provided. After filling out the job application form, the next stage is to fill out a questionnaire where you should provide your real age, give information on whether you have ever been convicted for any crime and the exact times that you think you will be available to work. Willingness to work full, part-time or on temporary bases should also be disclosed. It is also mandatory to indicate your highest academic level and if you were employed in the past you requested whether the previous employers should be contacted. Other questions are supposed to determine whether you are eligible to receive credits from federal tax. Employee Training and Development Once you arrive at Walmart Stores as a new employee you are welcomed by other employees candidly as they portray their willingness to guide you through your new career. All Walmart employees are supposed to go through a thorough induction process as an orientation of what is expected of them as Walmart associates (Brown, 2005 pp, 184). It starts with a business simulation where the new associates play the role of a customer so that they can learn all the customer expectations first hand. The next phase includes holding insightful discussions on the uniqueness of Walmart retail industry. The associates are given an opportunity to explore Walmart’s history and culture, working conditions and what is expected of them. In the final phase of orientation, the associates are taken through the Audio Store Discovery Tour. Here the new associates are requested to listen to customers’ voices through a headset and an audio player. Training and Development at Walmart is a continuous process offered to the associates. The aim is to provide the associates with all the necessary training and resources that would help them climb up the ranks as high as possible. Assistant Management training (AMT) is an example of a training program at Walmart that is open to all USA Wal-Mart field associates. This program is designed on the basic principle of continuous improvement through learning. AMT is an avenue for various development opportunities through several stages of a manager’s career. There are three stages in this program that are designed for each level of management with a purpose of increasing quality of leadership in managers that is necessary for them to become proficient and effective in their leadership roles. AMT is a competitive leadership program that provided managers with a learning platform that is necessary in boosting their performance by providing them with necessary resources that are vital in remaining competitive at Walmart stores. Another leadership training program at Walmart is the Stores of Learning which is a leadership training program that was initiated in 2007. It takes place in field-based classrooms in specific stores which can accommodate a class. Regional Leadership Champions (RLCs) is responsible for arranging and facilitating workshops for management training and promoting change initiative training. The Career Development section of the AIM Toolkit, offers associates with the information they require to plan their careers (Arthur, 2001 pp, 145). Such information includes job opportunities, and skills such as writing of resumes and how to behave during interviews. Merchant Development is obliged to provide professional development through competent learning solutions. It offers over more than 50 courses in its curriculum. It is committed to provide basic fundamental tools and resources that associates require to remain competitive and relevant in the ever changing market. MD recently launched an Associate Investment Model commonly referred to as AIM toolkit. This toolkit permits newly hired associates to put their job descriptions in their references and get feedback from their supervisors to come up with their individual plans. There are three sections of the toolkit that are designed to enhance development among the employees (Bernardin, 2002 pp, 112). Phase I is the learning stage where associates are able to familiarize with the skills of their new assignment. Phase II is concerned with performance that enables the associates to develop confidence in understanding the operations of their current positions. This face enhances proficiency in the associates. Phase III is the career planning phase where the associate is equipped with the relevant skills through advanced courses that place the associate at some advantage in times of career advancement. A Continuing Education program known as eCornell is offered online as a subsidiary of Cornell University. This program is as a result of collaboration between Cornell University and Wal-Mart to assist in the marketing of the regional associates in Wal-Mart stores in USA. This has led to a number of several certificate programs from Cornell University such as Leading Management Teams, Executive Leadership, Leading High Performance Teams, Change Leadership, and Studies in Proactive Leadership (Edwards, 2008 pp, 324). There are also other certificates in Human Resource Studies that are co-branded as eCornell and Walmart University Certificate Programs. The Walton Institute offers educational platform for Wal-Mart leaders from around the globe to learn about how to sustain Walmart’s culture. It helps managers to utilize their own capabilities and to nurture talents from others. More than 24,000 Wal-Mart mangers have attended more than 700 Walton Institute classes in various countries including Brazil, Canada, China, and Germany. Walmart Employee Benefits A Walmart employee enjoys various benefits depending on the job position. There are a number of paid holiday vacations that Walmart associates enjoy. Every associate is entitled to various discounts on some daily goods (Storey, 2005 pp, 42). These include 10% off on fresh vegetables and fruits, 10% off or regular priced goods, 10% off on eyewear at Walmart Vision Center. There are also certain discounts that employees can access at the Walmart website using their associate discount card. New employees are only eligible to get discount cards only after they have worked for not less 90 days. This is a fair period though some other companies give credit cards to employees who may have worked for less than 90 days. Employees may also access more than 250 discounts on the ‘associate only’ website of Walmart. Other savings that employees have access to include movie tickets, sports, and membership for fitness centers. Walmart employees also get military differential pay, membership for Sam’s Club, and bereavement duty time off. Walmart also offers various employee savings policy. In 2009, the company set aside $850 million for Walmart employee benefits 2010 plan (Birchard & Marguard, 2007 pp, 221). Walmart employees may also participate in the Associate Stock Purchase Program that allows them to purchase stock without brokerage fees. For the Health and Wellness Benefits, any Walmart associate working in US is entitled to health coverage from as little as $8 per month and this covers even the associate’s children. For this reason more than 90% of Walmart associates have a Walmart Health Coverage Plan. These associable are also eligible to getting around 2400 generic medications and prescription drugs for diabetes and heart diseases at a little cost of $4. Insurance plans for Walmart associates include dental insurance, business travel accident insurance, critical illness insurance, and company paid life insurance among others. Walmart associates have access to a 24 hour open clinic nurse line for free medical advice. The company also caters for free annual medical checkup for associates and their families and free immunizations for children under the age of 18 months (Ferenczy, 2008 pp, 25). Expectant female employees are also covered through a ‘Life with Baby Maternity Program’ from pre-conception to early stages of child development. Through this program the expectant mother is assisted to get a registered nurse to attend to her. In addition to the above benefits, Walmart associates are also eligible for some performance based benefits for each branch store. For instance associates who have worked for with Walmart for 20 years or more are entitled to a pay rise. All these benefits make Walmart a company that is concerned with the welfare of its human resource. Walmart human resource strategy is such that it fits in the global standards of human resource practices (Brunn, 2006 pp, 85). For instance, it is an accepted practice to fill out an application form in many organizations during the employee recruitment process. Due to its location in many countries, Walmart Company has adopted the system of job advertisement through its website. By doing so it gives all the potential employees an equal chance to be hired in the stores. It has however emerged that thousands of people apply for one positions raising doubts on how the human resource department selects the candidates to be interviewed. The process of recruitment at Walmart is quite thorough and the applicants are vetted to know their backgrounds. This vetting locks most people out especially the ones who do not come from regions where Walmart is not located. Walmart cannot therefore be considered to be an international employer though this can be explained by the fact that it is in less than thirty countries. With expansion strategies for Walmart in place the company may need to incorporate international employees among its human resource. This will therefore call for steady application of the international human resource strategies in the company’s human resource department. Walmart’s Staff Retention It is an objective of any corporation to ensure that employees are retained by motivating them and improving the working conditions (Arthur, 2001 pp, 53). At Walmart the management believes that employees should fit well in their job position and this among the first step towards employee retention. Walmart has been following some policies that are aimed at retaining associates in the company. In 2010, Walmart introduced an education perk for its employees who had been employed for one full time year. This education package was also offered to employees who had been on part time for a period of three years. According to some executives from the company, the move was supposed to improve on the quality of its associates. Walmart had partnered with American public University and all the eligible associates were to receive a 15 percent price reduction. The employees who qualified for this package must have had high grades in job evaluation. Another way that Walmart uses for staff retention is letting the associates to know all promotions in the retail chain are done from within. This makes the associates to remain hopeful for their career ladder. Research has shown that for a company to retain its workforce, it must show commitment in the training of staff for career advancement. Assuring the staffs that by remaining in the company, they will receive free educational training may reduce the rates of staff turnover which affects productivity. Recommendations Walmart is believed to be among the biggest corporations in the world with the largest human resource base. On e of the employee retention strategies that the company is applying, is to offer a lot of benefits to staff (Griffin, 2007 pp, 69). This may be enticing to employees but it might be short lived. The cost of living has gone up in most regions that Walmart is situated pushing the employees to financial constraints. Some studies have shown that Walmart employees earn an average pay of around $ 250 per week. This is calculated at a rate of around $7 per hour for 40 hours per week. This is relatively low and might explain the high rate of labor turnover at Walmart. The company therefore needs to rethink on its Human resource strategy in relation to the employees’ remuneration. The salaries should be adjusted upward to reduce the rates of Labor turnover. If this is done it will give Walmart a competitive advantage in the larger market. Labor unions are an aspect of human resource strategy. Walmart also needs to allow its staff to be unionized. The main fear of Walmart is that it allows it’s associate to join labor unions its retail operations may be affected adversely if workers engage in a strike that could be called by the union (McDaniel, 2008 pp, 86). Owing to the fact that Walmart has more than million workers then one may understand why Walmart is reluctant to let the employees join labor unions especially with rumors that Walmart workers are underpaid. Walmart seems to take advantage of the high labor turnover with its employees since no labor union would allow such people to join their unions. Walmart argues that it caters for all the necessary benefits in their associated but the purpose of a union is not merely to fight for employees’ benefits, but it also bonds the workers and makes them to have a sense of belonging. It the employees rights to join any labor union of their choice without the interference of the employer. A union can also represent the workers if there are any disputes with the employers but with the current situation there is no one to represent the associate in case of a dispute with their employers References Brunn, S. (2006). Walmart world: the world’s biggest corporation in global economy. New York: Routledge. Bernardin, H. 2002. Human Resource management: an experiential approach. New Delhi: TIME. Arthur, D. (2001). The employee recruitment and retention handbook. California: AMACOM. Birchard, W., & Marguard, W. (2007). Walmart: what takes to profit in a Wal-mart world. Boston: McGraw Hill professional. Brown, S. (2005). Strategic operations management. Melbourne: Butterworth –Heinemann. Edwards, L. (2008).Managing Talent Retention: An ROI Approach. London: John Wiley and Sons. Ferenczy, I. (2008).Employee Benefits in Mergers and Acquisitions. Boston: Aspen Publishers Online. Griffin, R. (2007).Fundamentals of Management. New York: Cengage Learning. Storey, J. (2005). Strategic human resource management theory and practice. London: SAGE. McDaniel, C. (2008). The future of Business: The Essentials. Princeton: Cengage Learning. Read More