Wal-Mart Human Resource Practices - Performance Management and Career Development Analysis - Case Study Example

WAL-MART HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT & CAREER DEVELOPMENT ANALYSIS Prepared by (Student’s Name) Course Name Professor’s Name Date Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3 2.0 Walmart’s Career Development Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………….4 3.0 Walmart’s Performance Management Analysis…………………………………………………………………………..6 4.0 Conclusion & Recommendation………………………………………………………………………………………………….8 References List……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………9 1.0 Introduction Walmart is the one of the largest companies across the globe in regards to its underlying organisational size; business operations as well as financial prowess. According to Pope and Pope (2015, p.1), the company remains to be one the rapidly growing retailers, not only in the United States of America, but the world over. In fact, it is the single largest private employer across the world. In the US alone, the form operates more than 4400 retail chains that goes ahead to put more than 1.4M people, which is roughly 1% of the US overall workforce, into both permanent and contractual employment bases. Recent phone surveys conducted (Pope & Pope, 2015) indicate that the firm receives at least 84% of US household shoppers within any particular operational year. Despite its enormous workforce, the company ensures that its underlying human resources are always supported in order to satisfy business goals and objectives. The purpose of this paper is on examining the firm’s underlying human resources practices that relate to its career development as well as its performance management aspect. The rationale behind the company’s successful business operations that has, in fact, resulted to accelerated international expansions, rest with the fact that it does value its employees base while at the same makes sure to compensate them in commensurate with their levels skills; and experiences in retailing industry. In essence, the company makes sure to incorporate the employees as a priority stakeholder group in its overall business model. This is especially achieved by its ability to address the interests of the employees in fairly-regulated policies as well as formulation of initiatives that provide a considerable aspect of job security. 2.0 Walmart’s Career Development Analysis Career development is a lifelong process of managing employee progress in learning and work (Claussen, et al, 2014). The overall quality of this process is deemed to be significantly determined by the underlying nature and quality of individual’s manner of lifestyles; the kind of people they expect to become; their sense of purpose in both life and work; as well as the level of income disposal they expect to accrue as a result of successfully engaging this development. It is important to understand that career development is a human resource practice that is highly valued not only by the employee but also the employers as well. Commonly referred to as talent management, career development allows of employees allows them the ability to feel appreciated and valued in a business operation as one prioritised stakeholders (Claussen, et al, 2014). The conventional approach towards career development was solely focused on progression up an ordered hierarchy within a given organisation or profession for that matter. Nowadays, however; the concept has been fragmented as a result of intensive technological changes and advancements. In this regards, research indicates that career development should be customised to each and every employee and remain to be an unstandardized practice all along. Nouri and Parker (2013) ascertains that the process of career development should be conducted in particular hierarchical levels in order to foster immediate development of management and junior employee’s unique skills and expertise. For the case of Walmart, the idea of tailoring career development and making sure that they remain un-standardised can be effectively portrayed by its ‘individual-organisation matching’ model (Nouri & Parker, 2013). The firm adopts both a direct and indirect approach to the evaluation and application of individual-organisation matching. This is meant to ensure that Walmart HR department attains the goal related to ensuring that each and every employee fits in with their job and the organisational culture as a whole. In regards to the direct method, Walmart seems to makes sure that they are able to collect pertinent information of their underlying employee-base that clearly portrays their perceptions about the activities of the company as a whole (Nouri & Parker, 2013). These perceptions would normally represent show employee’s perspectives on the appropriateness of the current positions in comparison to the underlying company’s overall strategies. On the other hand, the indirect approach incorporates the company’s variables as possible indicators since the employee-organisation fit does not seem to conform with the firm’s efforts of matching workers to their immediate jobs and the organisational structure and culture (Nouri & Parker, 2013). In essence, one of the company’s human resource management lies in its identification of available career chances within the firm. The firm seems to show that the identification process involves a great level of job analysis results that are an indication of the job requirements and career paths. To effectively match employees with the available career development slots, the firm adopts a distinct employee selection criterion that relies on their interests and KSAs (Walmart, 2016). The fundamental objective of this rather unique criterion rests with making sure that the employees are fairly positioned within their career paths while still minimising the possibility of a high employee turnover rate. Notably, the firm also enhances its career development through institutionalising career development initiatives that clearly focuses on coaching; training and APU partnership. The aspect related to coaching is a preserve of leadership positions within the organisation whereby leadership insights and ideas are openly shared to a selected lot. In essence, it is common for the senior management team within the organisation making sure to coach their junior counterparts for purposes of improving their leadership capacities. Social exchange theory emphasises that in ensuring effectiveness of the coaching process, the coach at hand should have a great depth of knowledge pertaining to a coachee’s job and the manner for which the job compares to the overall goals of the firm at hand (Buller & McEvoy, 2012). It is important that the coach shows the willingness and ability to share information to the coachee and, also should be ready to commit a substantial amount of their time that resonate to the process overall demands. Certainly, the firm’s recent partnership with American Public University (APU) is customised and focused to solely enhance career development within the firm. The partnership mandates APU with awarding academic credits to employees’ exemplary work at the company (Walmart, 2016). As a result of this partnership, Walmart has managed to effectively manage its employee goals and objectives that relate to the motivations and career development within the sector as a whole. Statistically, the firm invests $2.7B in a two-year period to cater for higher level of wages, education and training (Walmart, 2016). In 2015, the company promoted more than 200,000 people to positions within the organisation that have more responsibilities and duties. In addition to the employees being eligible for 15% tuition grant at APU, the company has also made sure that it avails them with full scholarships through the Walmart Foundation initiative (Walmart, 2016). 3.0 Walmart’s Performance Management Analysis There are quite a number of definitions available to the term performance management. The most relevant definition today is by the Australian HR Institute (2017), which describes it as being a practice that focuses on driving the decisions related to a company’s immediate performances, remuneration, promotions and career development needs. It seeks to measure the level of progress that has been achieved in the effort of achieving an organisation’s immediate business goals and objectives. Columbia University (2017) notes that there are three stages of performance management within any given organisation that include; planning; coaching and reviewing stages as shown in Figure 1 below. Figure 1: (Columbia University, 2017) Pulakos (2004) argue that a successful performance management system that would basically incorporate performance appraisals and employee development are the ‘Achilles heel’ of an overall human resource management. Maintaining a successful performance management system is never an easier task given that the entire process is considered to be highly personal and for most cases; a career-threatening process for both management team and the junior staff. It is highly possible for management to remain reluctant in providing rapid and robust feedback while still manage to have an honest discussion with the junior staff for fear that there might be reprisals or possible damage of relationships with the same people they count on to get work done. Similarly, the junior staff would feel that the management are thus unskilled at discussing their immediate performances and thus, perceived to be ineffective at providing efficient coaching on the best ways of developing their skills. In fact, research ascertains that there are an increasing number of complaints from different stakeholders terming performance management process as being cumbersome and bureaucratic in nature. As a result of this, both management and junior staff perceive performance management as a necessary evil of work that should be reduced as opposed to it being a crucial process that could lead to accomplishment of both individual and organisational-based goals. Despite of these possible issues, performance management remains to be a paramount tool for all highly-rated and performing companies while still it forms one of the management’s most crucial responsibilities. In the event that it is done correctly, Pulakos (2004) argues that it can foster a great deal of important results for a company; its management team and the employee-base at large. In regards to Walmart, the performance planning stage is solely based on three fundamental aspects that are interlinked with the needs of its immediate retail operations. These three aspects include; first, a robust customer service orientation that is used to address possible management concerns within its numerous stores located across the globe. Considering the fact that retailing is a service-based business, the firm focuses on conducting performance planning that seeks to satisfy the customer’s needs and expectation (Walmart, 2016). Secondly, the firm emphases on adoption of an effective decision-making and results oriented framework that touches on all positions held within the company. Orientation is used for the purpose of optimising the underlying level of organisational resilience through provision of a favourable environment for efficient decision-making process. Consequently, the performance management system of the company advocates for analysis and problem-solving capabilities, which allows management to solve issues within the workplace environment. Of particular interest to note, the firm adopts a distinctive measurement and standard practice for its overall performance management activities. Different job positions are measured differently. A perfect example can be seen when the company focuses on productivity standards that are mainly imposed solely for its warehouse personnel across its different stores (Walmart, 2016). Frontline sales employees are gauged in relation to their salesmanship as well as the level of deals they are able to seal within any particular financial period. Interestingly, Sam Walton had always indicated that the biggest risk that would rather destabilise the company’s overall performance success lies in an unsatisfied customer. Following this line perception, the company’s performance management mechanism is enshrined with its culture of ensuring to meet the customer’s needs and expectations as a way of guaranteeing future operations (Walmart, 2016). 4.0 Conclusion & Recommendation This paper has successfully argued the necessary theories and human resource practices that relates to Walmart’s career development and performance management. It has been ascertained that the company’s has invested lots of resources and, also gone further to formulate partnerships with such entities as APU for purposes of developing the skills and capabilities of its staff. In fact, it has been noted that the company has over the last two or so years promoted more than 200,000 employees into higher offices as a way of advancing their career growth and development. For the case of Walmart, the idea of tailoring career development and making sure that they remain un-standardised can be effectively portrayed by its ‘individual-organisation matching’ model. In regards to performance management, it has been noted that the company formulates measures and standards that are considered to be unique for each and every position held within the company. It is thus suggested that in order to match employee’s career growth and development with their overall performance; the company should seek to improve on their current benefits and compensation package especially for its low-ranking workers across the stores. It should desist from only focusing on improving supervisors and management team’s compensation package and motivate the lowly-positioned. References List Australian HR Institute.2017. About Performance Management. Accessed from https://www.ahri.com.au/assist/performance-management Buller, P. F., & McEvoy, G. M. (2012). Strategy, human resource management and performance: Sharpening line of sight. Human Resource Management Review, vo.22, no.1, pp.43-56. Colombia University. 2017. Guide to Performance Management. Accessed from http://hr.columbia.edu/helpful-tools/hr-manager-toolkit/managing-staff/goal-setting-managing-performance/guide-performance Claussen, J., Grohsjean, T., Luger, J. & Probst, G., 2014. Talent management and career development: What it takes to get promoted. Journal of World Business, vol.49, no.2, pp.236-244 Nouri, H. & Parker, R.J., 2013. Career growth opportunities and employee turnover intentions in public accounting firms. The British Accounting Review, vol.45, no.2, pp.138-148 Pope, D.G. & Pope, J.C., 2015. When Walmart comes to town: Always low housing prices? Always? Journal of Urban Economics, vol.87, pp.1-13 Pulakos, E, D. 2004. Performance Management: A Roadmap for Developing, Implementing and Evaluating Performance Management Systems. SHRM Foundation-USA. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/india/hr-topics-and-strategy/performance-management/creating-high-performance-culture/Documents/Performance%20Management.pdf Wal-Mart. 2016. Working at Wal-Mart: Opportunity & Advancement. Retrieved on March 9, 2017 from http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/working-at-walmart Read More