In October, assistant store managers, Wal-Mart's first level of salaried. Supervisors who've been through the new training programs — up to. Sam’s Club Management Jobs; Walmart Management Jobs; Walmart Store Jobs; Distribution Centers and Drivers. Managers in training earn between $45-$75k, and it only goes up from there—plus we feature incentives and bonuses. Sam's Club Manager in Training Program. Small business giving. Since 2011, Sam’s Club has invested more than.
Shareholders may have already been happy, but Walmart CEO Doug McMillon knew big changes were needed.
Walmart just announced its most recent earnings report, and the results have people talking.
For one thing, comparable sales at Walmart's U.S. stores grew by 4.5 percent--its strongest growth in more than a decade. But it's another statistic that's most impressive:
Walmart's U.S. e-commerce business grew at a rate of 40 percent.
This is no easy feat, considering the company's digital retail efforts had showed signs of a slowdown earlier in the year. But Walmart CEO Doug McMillon is a firm believer in the plan he's presented to shareholders, and he's sticking with it.
Not everyone has bought into McMillon's strategy over the years, but these recent results indicate the company is heading in the right direction.
McMillon took over as Walmart's chief executive in February 2014. At the time, most shareholders were happy with Walmart's performance, with an annual profit of $16 billion and hundreds of new stores opening across the country.
For one thing, he felt the company wasn't doing enough to compete with Amazon. The attitudes of consumers were changing, with more and more people shopping online. Additionally, many stores looked run down, and the shopping experience was lacking. Processes were old and broken, and employees lacked motivation.
In McMillon's view, while Walmart appeared to be in great shape, in reality it was sick--suffering from the disease of complacency.
The new CEO knew changes were needed. The company announced plans to invest heavily in e-commerce, an improved shopping experience, along with higher wages and employee benefits.
Investors thought McMillon was crazy. The stock price dropped to its lowest amount in years.
But fast forward, and the plan seems to be working. For example, take note of the following changes Walmart has recently made:
To better compete with Amazon, Walmart spent over $3 billion on e-commerce company Jet.com, and $16 billion on Indian e-commerce behemoth Flipkart. More recently, Walmart formed a strategic partnership with Microsoft to accelerate its digital retail efforts.
The company also gave its website a complete makeover, streamlining the shopping experience, which has no doubt helped contribute to the 40 percent increase in online sales.
Walmart's reputation has traditionally been based on an inexpensive, off-brand shopping experience, but the company recently forged a partnership with Lord and Taylor, allowing it to stock premium brands like Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and Tommy Hilfiger, among others.
Additionally, Walmart spent millions acquiring niche clothing retailer Bonobos and online footwear outlet ShoeBuy (now rebranded as Shoes.com).
In the past, Walmart's huge amount of real estate was seen as a weakness in its efforts to compete in e-commerce, but the company is trying to turn its stores into a strength--by combining the digital and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences.
For example, many Walmart locations now feature devices called Pickup Towers, which hold merchandise a customer has already ordered online. After completing an order at home, a customer can come into the store and use the Walmart app to retrieve their items from the Pickup Tower.
Walmart also features pickup discounts for certain items purchased online. And some stores give customers the option to order groceries online, which they can then pick up in the store (or have delivered).
Walmart has also taken noticeable steps to invest in its people.
Here are just a few initiatives Walmart has already announced or implemented:
- Starting salary raised from $9 to $11 per hour
- Expanded maternity and parental leave benefits
- An adoption benefit of up to $5,000 per child that may be used for expenses incurred in connection with adopting a child
- An education program that provides discounted college tuition, books, and fees, along with access to a coach to help guide employees through the process of choosing and applying to a school
- The Walmart Academy, a two- to six-week training program geared toward helping supervisors, department managers, and assistant managers advance
Through these initiatives, McMillon and company have demonstrated emotional intelligence by showing employees they're serious about having their backs, and giving them the tools they need to be successful.
It's not easy to pull off major change in a public company, especially when most shareholders are happy with the status quo.
But by identifying the rapidly changing retail landscape, McMillon had the vision not only to see that Walmart could do better, but that in order to survive, it had to.
Published on: Aug 20, 2018
Published 12:02 PM EDT Jul 9, 2019
Walmart, the country’s largest private employer, is using virtual reality headsets to test which employees have the aptitude for middle management positions.
The VR headsets place Walmart associates in real-life situations – like calming an angry shopper or giving new employees a store tour – that test knowledge of store departments, decision-making, leadership capacities and soft skills to place employees in the best-fitting job, says Drew Holler, Walmart’s senior vice president for associate experience.
The situations can then be virtually replicated and standardized for hundreds of employees, eliminating bias while placing employees in positions that best fit their skill sets.
“What we measure is how they engage with us,” Holler said. “There’s no right or wrong, but it gives an understanding for their level of maturity when it comes to leadership, as well as how they view customer service.”
STRIVR, a company based in Menlo Park, California, designed Walmart’s virtual reality training using $250 Oculus Go VR headsets. Oculus is a VR company owned by social media giant Facebook.
Walmart and STRIVR’s partnership started three years ago. In 2017, the VR headsets first rolled out in 30 Walmart Academies where associates were trained to handle situations from the everyday, like managing the produce section, to the rare, like Black Friday madness.
Since then, the Oculus Go VR headsets have expanded to all Walmart storefronts and 10,000 of the 1.2 million employees have undergone the skill management assessment as of February, according to Holler.
How it works
David Arias, 32, a 12-year employee of a Walmart in Economy, Pennsylvania, earned a promotion and 10% pay raise one month ago after being tested with the VR technology.
He said one of the VR scenarios required him to act as manager and assist a store employee and customer searching the aisles for mascara. Based on his handling of the situation, his hiring manager and the VR technology determined he had equal strengths for teaching and leadership.
“Our environment truly is 360 degrees, so a move to VR is a superb choice in keeping up with the times,” Arias said. “You get a better feel for what it’s actually like to be in those shoes.”
Holler said the VR assessment is only one of the “data points” used during the hiring process. The final decision is still made by the hiring director.
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A virtual workplace
However, Walmart isn’t the only company to dive into the virtual, augmented or mixed realities.
Johnson & Johnson launched a new surgical training program for doctors and nurses using VR headsets, Farmer’s Insurance trains its agents how to appraise damages using the technology and Ford designers sketch car models in real-time with co-workers living across the country.
“As people, we think naturally in 3D,” says Maria Fernandez Guajardo, the head of enterprise for Oculus VR and AR. “Because we’ve been reduced to a 2D surface, we’ve constrained the way we think.”
Virtual reality goes farther than Walmart's immersive training, Fernandez Guajardo said. More companies implementing the technology in small segments expand 3D design and collaboration once the technology is in place.
Follow Rebekah Tuchscherer on Twitter @r2sure
Published 12:02 PM EDT Jul 9, 2019