Course Project - Research Paper Example

Walmart is regarded as America’s largest grocery store. It is claimed by the company that more than 245 million customers visit the 10800 Walmart stores in more than 27 countries across the globe (Walmart, 2013c). The company offers electronic commerce website in more than 10 countries and employs more than 2.2 million staff worldwide. The company generated revenue of $466 billion in the fiscal year 2013. In the year 1945 the concept of goods being offered at lowers prices was evolved by Sam Walton.

He opened the first Walmart store in the then year 1962 in Arkansas which was a result of his visionary leadership (Walmart, 2013b). The company has categorized into 3 major divisions; Walmart stores, Sam’s club and Walmart International. The author has been asked to serve for the post of the finance manager in the reputed company. Although the company is one of the most profitable companies of USA it is still facing certain dilemmas in allocation of budget and expenses. 1.2 Problem Statement Although, Walmart is regarded as one of the most reputed and largest retailer of the world it has sparked controversy regarding its management practice.

Some of the human resource issues that has made the company a target for criticism are gender discrimination, wage inequality, bribery etc. It is observed that Walmart are facing various challenges due to lack of implementation of an effective human resource system. The wage inequality system is often a result of lack of well defined wage and salary system in Walmart. More than 2000 women employee of Walmart in 48 states have claimed that the management of Walmart practiced gender discrimination (Hines, 2012).

In the year 2011 the women employee had filed suit against the company management for denial of promotion and low pay (Levine, 2012). The women employees had even claimed that the men who held less seniority position than the women employee were promoted first. The US Supreme Court had declared that the wage system was not systematic and smooth in Walmart. This is because the regional polices for wage administration are different in the stores of Walmart. Walmart had agreed to their varied wage incentive plans in different regions and had to pay compensation damages worth $111.

7 million to women employees of London(Hines, 2012). 1.3 Research Questions Based on the problem statement and objectives of the study the following questions were formulated. Each of these research questions will be addressed accordingly. 1. How can an effective salary and wage administration improve the efficiency of the employees? 2. How can an incentive plan improve the morale of the employees? 3. What contemporary human resources theories can help in promoting a congenial work environment? 1.4 Literature Review Wage &Salary Inequality in Walmart Wages and Salaries are linked to the productivity of the organization and have a direct influence on the efficiency of the employee.

Walmart has been accused of wage and salary inequality practices several times in spite of being one of the most profitable companies of the world. It has been observed that the Walmart management pays $8.00 on an hourly basis with 32 works per week which equals to $256 per week (Santa Clara University, 2004). This calculation shows that