Walmart Social Media Implementation Plan: Solving Workplace Issues

Introduction and Background

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, faces a number of productivity issues that, if left unresolved, could affect the company's ability to compete in the future. Two of these concern worker relations and the company's failure to adjust its business model to reflect customers' needs in foreign markets. This paper presents a plan detailing how social media technologies could be used to resolve these issues.

The following sections outline the specific strategies the organization needs to employ when implementing the proposed solutions, as well as the associated costs, timeline, and training requirements. Also included are strategies for communicating changes to stakeholders, evaluating the success or failure of the project, and managing stakeholder resistance. Before proceeding to the main discussion, a brief review of the identified problems and proposed solutions is provided.

Walmart's Productivity Problems and Proposed Social Media Solutions

Poor Worker Relations

Walmart has, in recent years, come under serious criticism for a large number of violations regarding wages and work hours for its associates. The company has faced, and continues to face, a significant number of lawsuits regarding managers tampering with employees' wage and time records, forcing them to skip lunch and work breaks, and requiring them to work off the clock (Brunn, 2006). Lawsuits of this nature adversely affect employees' productivity and the company's overall profitability.

There are also serious concerns related to unfair compensation and reward schemes. For instance, despite making up approximately 67% of the total associate population, women account for less than 10% of the company's top management (Ferrell et al., 2009). An internal study by a Walmart executive revealed that a majority of associates — particularly women — are dissatisfied with the company's reward and compensation systems (Ferrell et al., 2009).

Unionization is another key concern at Walmart. The company reportedly spends a considerable amount of time and resources ensuring that its associates do not unionize (Ferrell et al., 2009). There have been reports of managers sabotaging unionization attempts and intimidating pro-union associates (Ferrell et al., 2009). Incidents such as these breed poor relations between the organization and its associates, and adversely affect the latter's productivity.

A number of social media solutions were proposed to address these worker relations issues. These include the introduction of in-house employee blogs, the introduction of in-house wikis, and the initiation of intranet and online discussion groups.

Employee blogs provide platforms for employees to present their views, exchange ideas, advance conversations, and promote their learning and successes (Haneberg, 2012). Employees could share their views on what they think the company's compensation and reward system ought to entail, and what they would like to see the organization do to make them feel supported and appreciated. Other employees could comment on these blog posts, and the information gathered therein could then be used to design effective reward and compensation systems aligned with associates' expectations (Haneberg, 2012).

Wikis allow employees to share their ideas with management and coworkers. Moreover, they help build healthy and positive relations among employees by allowing anyone at the company to annotate or edit a page with their suggestions (Keyes, 2013). Employees contribute regardless of job title, which places managers and employees on equal ground and can help nurture healthy work relations between managers and associates.

Intranets and discussion groups provide platforms for employees to understand why the organization does what it does. The company's human resources manager could post information explaining why the company resists unionization. Online discussions could then be held to help employees understand the organization's point of view and to devise ways of ensuring that employee welfare is maintained even in the absence of union activity. If employees and the organization are able to reach common ground through such discussions, the negative publicity resulting from unionization issues will be significantly reduced.

Disconnect between Product Offerings and Customer Needs in Foreign Markets

Walmart has been forced to withdraw from several key foreign markets as a result of failing to adjust its business model to fit the needs and expectations of customers in those markets. The most publicized of these withdrawals were from Germany, China, and South Korea. Studies have shown that the company's exit from the South Korean market was caused by its failure to understand local customers' shopping preferences (Gandolfi & Stratch, 2009). For instance, South Koreans are known to prefer fresh foods, and Walmart's strategy of focusing on dry goods, clothing, and electronics did not appeal to the local market. Moreover, South Korean consumers expected eye-catching, aesthetically pleasing displays, yet Walmart provided the Western-style box-store format used in the U.S. and Europe (Gandolfi & Stratch, 2009). This failure to understand local markets' expectations arises from the company's inability to communicate effectively with locals in foreign markets before entering them.

Walmart could use social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to interact with people from diverse cultures and understand their needs and preferences before entering foreign markets. A sound strategy is to adapt social media content to reflect the language of the target market. The company could run multiple regional pages on both platforms to allow users from different geographical regions to communicate in their own languages. This approach would increase user engagement and enable better collaboration between the organization and potential customers. It would also eliminate the perception that the organization values its home country's language over that of the foreign market — a form of ethnocentrism that can alienate local consumers.

Implementation Strategy: Costs, Benefits, and Timeline

Proposed Technology Description and Costs

The overall cost of the project will depend on whether the new system is a completely standalone system or whether it requires some form of interface with existing systems. The existing server infrastructure will need to be upgraded to allow for the efficient functioning of the newly introduced technologies. New interface systems will need to be introduced to enable enterprise-wide collaboration and support the new platforms. Beyond system upgrade costs, there are also ongoing costs associated with system support and maintenance.

Training costs will also be incurred. These new technologies place content-development capabilities — traditionally held by IT staff — into the hands of all employees. Associates will need to be trained both on how to use the new technologies and on how to engage positively with the newly introduced media, so that hierarchical structures and employee relations are not undermined. The organization must first identify its employees' training needs to determine what they already know about the proposed technologies and what benefits they expect to gain from using them. This will be crucial in ensuring that the implemented technologies align with employees' needs and that resistance to change is minimized. Additional costs will be incurred in hiring personnel from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds to join the social media communications team.

Further costs could arise from the purchase of relevant equipment, including smartphones and tablets to support the shift to the new social media technologies. The organization could minimize this cost by implementing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy, which allows employees to use their own smartphones, tablets, and other communication devices at work. Associates without such devices could be assisted through payback programs, whereby the organization purchases personal devices for employees and deducts the cost from their pay over time. This ensures all associates can benefit from the new technologies without requiring a large upfront equipment expenditure.

Benefits and Drawbacks to Employees

The proposed social media technologies will bring several benefits to employees. First, they provide platforms for employees to quickly and conveniently share knowledge, information, and internal expertise. Employees can share ideas with their managers and colleagues through online discussions, giving them an active role in the organization's knowledge base and decision-making processes. Second, the technologies increase opportunities for collaboration. Wikis deliver value by helping colleagues work more effectively with one another — sharing knowledge, expertise, and ideas toward shared objectives regardless of geographical location. Third, employees are likely to develop stronger relations with their managers and supervisors, as wikis place all contributors on level ground regardless of job title. Additionally, employees are expected to increase their cultural sensitivity and awareness by interacting with the different regional pages on Facebook and other social platforms.

There are, however, two major drawbacks associated with the proposed technologies. First, these technologies come at an increased cost to employees, particularly those who must purchase smartphones or tablets in order to participate. Second, the technologies could damage employee relations if the organization fails to establish strict guidelines governing ethical conduct on in-house social media platforms.

Benefits and Drawbacks to the Organization

The primary benefit to the organization is the opportunity to present itself as an entity that values diversity and respects other cultures. This helps build a positive reputation among consumers in foreign markets and increases their inclination to interact with the organization through both purchases and communication. It also helps minimize the losses associated with market withdrawals resulting from a failure to understand the cultures of promising foreign markets. Furthermore, through wikis, employee discussion forums, and in-house blogs, the organization gains insight into its employees' needs, preferences, and expectations — placing it in a better position to make decisions and design systems that align with associate needs. Employees who feel valued are more inclined to contribute greater effort and productivity.

The major drawbacks of the proposed technologies relate to costs and the risk of misplaced priorities. The organization will incur additional expenses in purchasing mobile equipment for employees, upgrading existing systems, and training associates. With the BYOD strategy, there is also the risk of employees spending work time engaging in personal online discussions or commenting on blog posts unrelated to their duties, which could adversely affect productivity and overall competitiveness. To minimize this risk, the organization needs to develop clear guidelines governing the use of social media technology during work hours. A further drawback is that these new technologies could disrupt the organization's hierarchical structure. For instance, wikis make it possible for managers and lower-level employees to interact on equal footing — sustained use of this format could erode reporting lines and hierarchies, potentially affecting work relations between employees and their supervisors. Organizations must therefore address governance issues and provide clear instructions on usage rules and applicable policies.

Timeline for Implementation

The plan could be implemented over a five-month period as outlined below.

Months 1–2 — Guideline/Policy Rollout, Training, and Social Site Monitoring: Establish a foundation, clarify expectations and intentions to avoid improper behavior and resistance from associates, empower and educate frontline employees, and monitor key influencers and conversation topics to respond appropriately.

Month 3 — Internal Community Launch and Feedback: Introduce the technologies, familiarize employees with the approach, encourage collaboration, identify gaps in execution, and begin resolving them.

Month 4 — Baseline Metrics and Selection of Internal Founding Members: Begin tracking participation and membership trends, seed associates with content and activity, and identify who is making the most progress and who could take a leadership role.

Month 5 — Evaluation: Identify what appears to be working and what does not, and devise ways of improving usability (Oracle, 2012, p. 9).