Walmart company overview and operations

Managing People -- Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart

Summary of the Company and Facts

Wal-Mart is among many multi-national retail businesses that are well-known. It runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouses all over the world though it's an American multinational retailer corporation. It is also the biggest private employer in the world, to employ such a big number of workers can be very challenging and hence the employee relationship with the management requires thorough evaluation. With corporations such as Wal-Mart always chasing to grow higher and getting better returns come with the temptations to go really wrong in many ways. Wal-Mart does a lot right; it has expanded its productivity by being more efficient and leaner when compared to many companies. Shoppers accrue a lot of benefits from the expansion of Wal-Mart. Like all this retail businesses the employees in Wal-Mart are given low wages, they work on part-time conditions particularly having a strict policy of scheduling their employees that ensures that they are not paid overtime. The employees are therefore required to clock out early if they had been working over on a previous day. Wal-Mart has a very high employee turnover rate, on average at any Wal-Mart store at the end of a year like half of the employees would have left this leads to mismanagement of employees and overall lack of morale by the employees. This is attributed to the low wage levels in Wal-Mart to the employees.

Employees at Wal-Mart are expected to be busy all the time i.e. At work all the time clocking out during lunch and breaks on time are mandatory for employees. In other cases some employees are required to work off the clock and they are denied the overtime pay and in other cases they are not even allowed to take breaks for lunch or even mere rests. There are some unethical practices carried out in Wal-Mart like gender discrimination when it comes to hiring and the actual work area. Women employees in Wal-Mart fare worse when compared to their male counterparts when it comes to receiving adequate take home pay, the hours they have to work, the training they go through and respectful treatment. There are general discriminatory practices among the Wal-Mart management when it comes to women. Another unethical issue is the fact that Wal-Mart employs minors who work too late, during school hours or even for too many hours in a day. They are extensively violating the children's rights and child labor laws.

Wal-Mart is known to employ even undocumented immigrants in their stores. Wal-Mart has health insurance that set to cover only a small percentage of its workers. The fact that there is an insurance policy for the workers is a good thing but this would only be very effective it would cover all its employees. The fact that it covers less than half its employees is not something to be happy about. Wal-Mart is even set to reduce or bring down its health care expenses through measures such as the employment of younger and implicitly healthier workers through attracting them by offering educational benefits. They are even set to eliminate completely full time positions and instead hire part time employees who will be ineligible for expensive health insurance .Wal-Mart is also an anti-union company where they urge their employees not to form any unions arguing that they have no need to pay third parties to discuss problems with management sine it as a company has an open door policy where all the complains and suggestions by employees can be lodged

These factors have led to several symptoms that indicate a problem in the management of Wal-Mart to address the issues that relate to its employees. This include the warnings by disgruntled Wal-Mart employees, joined by labor unions and community groups to stage combined protests and educational campaigns during times that can hurt wal-mart greatly as a company like after thanksgiving which is the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. There have been also recorded walk offs by employees in many store to protest working conditions and poor wages, and this move to strike soon spread to other stores in other states. This has also made employees in Wal-Mart realize that there is power in unions which they are so much being denied the opportunity to form in Wal-Mart. Data from unions also indicates that Wal-Mart employees are the most recipients' of government assistance among people employed in many states. This is a clear symptom that the employees in Wal-Mart are really suffering. The employee walkouts and go slows will continue to take place among the employees of wal-mart attempt to make the management address the issues and treat them fairly. If these issues are not addressed then Wal-Mart will find itself in a situation they cannot come out of (DE-DE Group LLC, 2012) The numerous law-suits that Wal-Mart is faced with is another symptom that shows something is definitely amiss in Wal-Mart. They have been forced to pay millions in settlement for its employees; this is a clear indication that Wal-Mart is definitely doing something wrong otherwise there would be no cases against Wal-Mart.

Problem Identification

Wal-Mart, being a big company that is very reputable, should be a place where many people want and have dreams to work but this is not the case. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that Wal-Mart is not a company where one would be dying to get employed in. It has therefore qualified to be termed as a company that people love to hate. The major problem that Wal-Mart has is when it comes to its labor it is reputable in not dealing with the rights of its workers and also the shirking of the benefits of the employees. The employees there are not in any way treated well and this range from the employees being forced to work overtime to union busting. There are various problems that are associated with Wal-Mart when it comes to employees, first when it comes to payment. Anyone who seeks employment has needs that ban only be satisfied with money. Therefore the wage policies in Wal-Mart do not allow the employees to completely take care of their needs.

Many people who work in Wal-Mart are on food stamps this is a clear indications that the wages they get there are not sufficient for them to take care of their needs even the basic of them food. Another problem is the working conditions; the poor working conditions in Wal-Mart are very disheartening. Every employee who goes an extra mile to work for extra hours expects to be paid for their valuable time they have committed in the extra time. However, in Wal-Mart employees may be required to work for extra hours and receive no pay for this. On top of that they are even denied any breaks to rest that may result to fatigue among the workers. Lack of payment for the overtime also brings down the morale of the employees and they may end up not doing a good job since they lack motivation.

Another problem in the working conditions is the fact that most of the workers are not covered in the health insurance policy if the company only a few are covered and hence when the employees fall sick they are in big problems since most of them cannot afford healthcare services. The employment policies when it comes to women are also a problem in Wal-Mart. This is because of the unequal treatment of women in this working area and soon many women will boycott employment in Wal-Mart this will leave only men in Wal-Mart stores which is not a healthy working environment.

One of the biggest problems comes from unions and community groups; though no one can force to have unions in Wal-Mart these problems will eventually hurt the company itself. Many unions complain that Wal-Mart is in business to take advantage of its staff not only when it comes to income but also when it comes to insurance and other benefits. The workers in Wal-Mart give the company high performance though they are not accorded the proper pays and benefits that they deserve.

The management should therefore look into all this problems within Wal-Mart that pertain to the workers or else they may just find themselves with no one willing to work for them and continue paying out millions in settlement of lawsuits that are constantly being brought against the company.

Causes of the Problem

The problems in Wal-Mart that pertain to its employees can be linked to various causes. The lower prices that Wal-Mart offers to its customers may be the cause of the low wages that are offered to the employees. Wal-Mart offers lower prices on their commodities when a comparison is made with many of its competitors, the benefits of the lower prices are therefore implicitly clawed back when Wal-Mart drives down wages to its own workers and throughout the retail sector as a whole. The high cost of low prices, or the strategy of privatizing profits and socializing cost by Wal-Mart has resulted to overburdening of local governments' welfare and food stamp programs with undue numbers of underpaid Wal-Mart workers. Wal-Mart is therefore responsible for nearly as many unemployed, underpaid and overworked people in America and other countries where they have their stores.

The management of Wal-Mart argues that, price depressing effects of Wal-Mart out-run the wage depressing effect that, they claim leads to an increase in the purchasing power for the employees. However this reduced prices that are realized through the expansion of Wal-Mart make up an ever-shrinking share of the American families' expenditures. Essentially Wal-Mart gives people the ability to buy food, clothes, household goods and furniture at reduced prices. The real pressure that many families have on their incomes is from items that are not available in Wal-Mart like healthcare, housing and transportation that are going up over time. This products and services however can only be bought with higher wages. Wal-Mart pushes down its wage rates in two ways this are; substitution effect this is through the replacement of better paying jobs with lower paying ones.

The other way that Wal-Mart pushes its wage rate down is through competition whereby it pushes down wages in competing businesses. The low-wage levels and benefit programs are designed so that they can realize their policy of keeping costs down .in the process due to how economically influential Wal-Mart is and its market shares the prevailing wage rates are thus driven down. As much as Wal-Mart loves the low wages it becomes a problem when the wages go too low since its lowest income customers will no longer afford to shop at its stores. The many problems that employees face in Wal-Mart can be analyzed clearly with regard to Maslow's hierarchy of needs since this hierarchy of needs concerning the responsibility of the employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables the employees to fulfill their self potential that is unique. Therefore according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the employees in Wal-Mart are not self-actualization when it comes to growth and fulfillment .this is because their wage level is very low, an average employee's income is about $8.23 per hour totaling to $13,861 annual full-time salary. Most of the workers work 24 hours a week and hence the average income translates to an annual income of close to $10,271 the poverty line being $14,630 for a family of three means that most of the workers in Wal-Mart lived below the poverty line (Ludensky, 2008).This means that they are barely able to satisfy their own needs and those of their families. Therefore this employee cannot grow in any way financially since what they earn in Wal-Mart is barely enough to satisfy their basic needs. They cannot therefore save anything and hence cannot register any growth. Therefore the desire of an employee in Wal-Mart to grow as a person cannot be realized and they cannot have self-fulfillment. When it comes to physiological needs that include the basic needs that are vital for survival the employees in Wal-Mart cannot afford this, this are the most basic and instinctive needs in Maslow's hierarchy since all other needs become secondary until these physiological needs are satisfied. The low wage rates in Wal-Mart make these employees not able to satisfy these physiological needs.

Another cause of problem in Wal-Mart is the affordability of health insurance coverage that is deplorable. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs everyone has needs that include safety and security. The security needs may include ones desire to have a steady employment and also health insurance. Employees in Wal-Mart are denied from this need since they cannot afford the employer provided health insurance. Most of the employees qualify for Medicaid, welfare and WIC since they are offered adequate wages in Wal-Mart. In Wal-Mart, managers often encourage their employees to seek out the programs that are offered by the government such as Medicaid. There have been significant increases of health insurance coverage cost that is offered by Wal-Mart this is about 169% in single coverage and 117% for family coverage which means that the workers have to pay a fifth to a third of what they earn for healthcare coverage through Wal-Mart. Apart from raising the premiums, Wal-Mart has added many restrictions on the eligibility to their health plan that will bring a significant limit on the access to coverage at rates that are unaffordable to its employees. This includes working close to 30 hours a week for one to be eligible for health care as opposed to the 24 hours that was previously considered. Part time employees are also locked out of the ability to purchase

The reduction of full-time employees is another cause of problems that pertain to union formation among its employees. The bad treatment that employees in Wal-Mart runs rampant in the Americas largest private employer should exemplify the need for unions serving which is clearly indicate in Wal-Mart employees are not on full employment basis then they will not have any form of connection or unity among themselves hence Wal-Mart has succeeded in its no union policy. They are even set to open stores in states that support a worker's right not to join a union than in states that are pro-union statutes.

Solutions and recommendations for implementation

For nearly a year, employees in Wal-Mart have been coming together to seek change within the organization. They have spoken openly about the problems the face while working in Wal-Mart and have gone ahead to threaten and carry out strikes in an attempt to get the change that they badly want. Wal-Mart should strive to always act with integrity; the managers should always lead with integrity so that they expect the workers to work with integrity. The managers should strive to follow the laws at all times, this include adhering to the labor laws and rights of workers that are set by the government to be followed by each company or business. They should be always in line with fair labor standard act that guarantees rights to employees like overtime pay, equal wages regardless of gender and minimum wage (Ludensky, 2008) Therefore in an attempt to comply with this act Wal-Mart should not overwork its employees and pay appropriately incase the workers work overtime. They should also not assign tasks that will compel employees to spend more time than they should according to what their shift allows.