Wal-Mart's (WMT) employee woes -- Can they be fixed?

Wall Mart needs to change their ways. Have mature and caring people in the right postions and you will be suprised what associates will do for you. Im a 17year veteran with Home Depot and I would love to bring my knowledge and people skills to wallmart. I specialize in Tools....

Associates can be tough working with. WallMart needs to hire mature and personablepeople to be successful. Im a 17 year Veteran with Home Depot and it takes a Big Heart and time to fix problems. I specialize in tools/hardware. wallmart would make an easy transition, but pay also plays a big part in peoples performance..

I never cease to be amazed at the rift between this blog and what I experience at the Youngfield Wal-Mart in Denver. I get there at least once a month and find a clean well-stocked store with helpful associates (and by the way, a superclean restroom -- I'm 64 with all that entails), but enough of personal confession. Hooray for the associates who've never let me down. -- And yes, I'd like to see all of them get a raise to go along with the new medical plan. I would pay more. But a union?--No thanks.

Wal-mart started its slide when it began caring more about what Wall Street wanted than what the customers and associates wanted. The more Wall Street got, the more it wanted.

And I just love asking for help in a Wal-Mart only to find out that the only associates in the department doesn't speak a word of English.

Wal-mart seems to be the place that people love to hate. I haven't seen, even one time, an employee with a gun to their head keeping them at Wal-mart.

I do know of instances where employees have been kept on the job in spite of poor attendance due to poor health, which allowed them to earn as good a living as they were capable.

I also know of other employees that have made Wal-mart their career job and have done well there.

Just go to any town and check the parking lots, it isn't hard to see where people go to shop. It is the place where merchandise can be returned with minimum effort, either to get something else or money back.

Customers love to complain but it still is the place they love to shop.

Wal-Mart is a backward old abatrose of a company.
Its people make no decisions because they don't know how. The officials of the company are still trying to ride Sam's coat tail but don't understand what it takes to run a company or to make a profit.
I think they are on their way out in 5 to 10 years.
They don't have anyone in their organization who can pull it out or even deal with their personal problem. As time goes by they will run into bigger problems with China as the Chinese don't want our money anymore as its not worth anything. Most of Wal-Marts merchandise comes out of China

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Walmart's stores are too crowded, too large. Aisles get cluttered and the stores appear disorganized. Figure out those issues and they will improve morale. Of course, better pay would help too.

Someday, WalMart will stumble. But for now, all I see is y/y revenue growth, relatively healthy margins for a deep discount retailer, and overhead that is kept within a very tight set of confines.

Personally, I don't like shopping at WalMart. The rest of their client base smells kind of funny and I don't care for all the piercings and tattoos on their customer service personnel. I know that, sooner or later, I'm going to have a GTA3 moment in one of their parking lots.

But when it comes to dirtbag retailing, these guys are spot-on when it comes to sending a carriage out the door with several hundred dollars worth of merchandise. You can scorn them, you can hate them, but until someone else re-masters the formula for squeezing profitability out of the trailer-park retail sector, WalMart is going to be the way to go.

I shop at Walmart several times a month, and I hate going there because the cashiers are 9 times out of 10 very unfriendly. They have 30 or so registers and most of the time, under half that are open during prime hours when they are the busiest, so if you plan on buying anything perishable such as ice cream it is half melted by the time you get to the cashier, and as for the restrooms, I have seen cleaner bathrooms in a truck stop. I think part of the problem is that they require thier people to be available anytime day or night. If you have a family sometimes that just isn't possible, so that alone limits there employee base, they need to try to focus there hiring for specific shifts, rather than require people to work whenever. It is difficult to work say a 3 to 11 shift and then back in the morning for say an 8 to 4 shift. I have overheard a lot of employees complain about that.

I have been at Walmart for 10 years now and I can tell you that the moral is very low. Only because you have management that don't give you credit where credit is due. More management spends more time in the back office then they do out on the sales floor actually seeing what there associates do. When I first started it was a very "family" store. They cared about your family. Now all they are about is there "walmart" family and they expect you to go around there store schedule. Alot of people can't find other jobs due to the situation in our country right now. As for the people that don't speak english, that is what walmart wants because they think they are better workers and that I have heard from management. They took away any awards, like the good job pins, where you get four and you can get a share of stock, when you do a good job. When an associate is in need they have a fund for their associate, but you have to be one of their favorites or you will be denied, no matter how serious your situation is. This is why Walmart is no longer the number 1 family store. Its all about the money not there associates anymore and I think that is sad. If it wasn't for there hard working associates then they wouldn't be getting there big paychecks would they?

My gosh - Sam must be rolling over and over and over. From a policy that the customer was king to a day when cash becomes king.

I can remember smiling faces at the local Wal Mart - but don't see many these days. What a shame.

Second generation owners almost never keep the same vision of the original. Sam Walton had his vision and it's gone. Now Walmart is only about the profit margin and it's relative stock price.


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I have been with Wal-Mart for 5 years, and I agree that I am seeing a decrease in morale. However, it is not all management. Our bonuses have been low this year, and so is our stock. Well, bonuses are affected by sales and accidents. Our sales are Ok, but every dip that gets hurt at our store wants to file a complaint. Recently, we had an eldeerly customer that wondered off from her husband in the parking lot. She is almost completely blind. She tripped over a cement parking space blocker. Now it is OUR fault that she tripped and fell over am item that she could not see. It is not her husband's fault for not keeping her near. It is not her fault for being blind and walking off. But why is it our fault that these events occurred? So once again my pocketbook gets hurt because a person does not want to take personal responsibility for his/her actions.
As for the stock, see some of my other blogs. No company can make money if it is constantly under attack. And Wal-Mart is constantly under attack.

I have been with Wal-mart for almost a year now...I started as a Cashier, and very much enjoyed my job in the beginning. It was an interesting experience to meet so many different people. I caught on quickly and soon exceeded the average Items scanned per hour. People complimented the way I bagged their groceries, as I paid special attention to organization. Yeah, I know it's not much to be proud of, but it was my job and I wanted to be respected as a great associate. I learned that the more friendly you were with customers, the more friendly reaction you received in return. After awhile, the little things started to annoy me. People leaving their carts behind in front of other customers, leaving their basket on my register when i'm not allowed to leave to put it away, especially when I was busy and had other customers. People deciding at the register that they don't want their meat anymore after it's been out of the freezer for who knows how long, meaning we have to now throw it away...people trying to stuff unwanted meat into the candy boxes at the registers contaminating everything. People blaming me for someone else that was rude to them in another department, people blaming me for something not ringing up correctly. People who go over their EBT limit and decide to put back cheese and bread so they can get their pop and candy. Getting hit on daily by creepy older men, or young guys making very inappropriate gestures to me, and even once having an older guy grab my ass and having to maintain my composure and return to my station after crying and embarassing myself in front of management. All of this soon took a toll on me, and a position opened up in the Bakery for a Cake Decorator. I have a background in art, and decided to go for it. I had actually been hired in the Bakery shortly before the aforementioned incident, and when I was crying in front of one particular manager, I made a comment that I was thankful to be moving back to the Bakery. He said, "Yeah, that'll certainly solve a few things..." For me, yeah, not the other girls.

Anyways, I am still working in the Bakery, and I LOVE my job. I love it very much, people still annoy me, but it doesn't interfere with the dedication I have towards my cakes. I love to make beautiful cakes for my customers' special occasions, and spicing things up with my display cakes. Wal-mart has a policy about piercings. But I recently decided to do something kinda crazy. I had my dimples pierced, and have been covering them up for a few weeks now, and management never said anything. I knew and understood the policy, but I made the decision outside of work, during my personal time, in my personal life. I don't want to not make decisions because work doesn't approve. They can tell me what to wear to work, and they can tell me what I can't wear to work. But I think I, as well as anyone else, should at least be able to have piercings covered until they heal when they can then be taken out during a work day period. Which I had been doing for my lip/nose piercings. I simply took them out during work because I had had them for awhile and they were completely healed. After my dimple piercings, I am letting my lip and nose heal over. I know what everyone will say. At work they can do whatever they want and enforce any dress code policy as long as it doesn't discriminate against race, gender, sex...etc. But I think if I decide to do something with my body outside of work, as long as I compromise to have them covered while working they can at least allow me to let them heal. I know for a fact no one who reads this will agree with me. But please see things from my point of view. I am just trying to make a living. I am different. Wal-mart isn't my dream job, and I make my own decisions. I don't plan to work there forever but for now I am just trying to save enough money to go to school, move out on my own and pursue my own dreams. I did something with my body to express myself. I understand some people are offended by them, but I was offended daily while cashiering. I was sexually harassed almost daily, and had to hold my tongue when people screamed at me, and couldn't defend myself if anyone made racist comments. Why can't I work just because I am different, just because someone doesn't like the way I look? I do my job and I do it well. It's me, it's who I am, and people who do not approve of piercings will not understand. I don't disapprove of normal looking people, and I don't get offended by people who may be disfigured. I just don't see how a piece of metal should hinder my ability to work. I keep them covered with the sticky ends of band-aids so that they won't fall off. If they are covered it shouldn't matter. I don't go flash them into people's faces and force them to look at them. I can't help who I am. It's not my religion, it's not something I believe in, I just like them. My body is my temple, and I like to keep it very well decorated. Why does Wal-mart sell the jewelery for facial piercings if they don't approve of them? They don't affect the way I work, I am polite and friendly and am not rude to even the angriest customers. The only complaint I have had was I put a little too much frosting on someone's cake.

I was confronted yesterday, for the first time since getting them done, after the store tattlle-tale saw them. Shortly after I was called back to the management office and my manager had the dress code policy pulled up on the computer. I said, "I already know what it's about, and I already know who ratted me out." He looked at me and said, "Nobody ratted you out, "Someone" (referring to our newest cocky Co-Manager) saw them this morning." Even though I hadn't seen this "someone" all day. He told me, "Today we'll let them slide, but tomorrow they have to come out." I calmly said, "They're not coming out." So he asked, while laughing, if I was going to quit. And I told him that no I don't want to quit. So it's up to them if they want to fire me, and if they do they're firing a great associate for a really stupid reason. I am supposed to talk to the store manager tomorrow morning when I go in. So I guess I will anticipate the judgmental hateful comments that I know i'm going to get on here. I apologize if my facial piercings offend you...But I won't apologize for being different than all of you.

i think your all mistaken - this post sounds like it was written about sears

Walmart will fix their problems, just like McDonalds has fixed their growth issues. http://www.phoenix-life-insurance.com

I find it utterly appalling that Walmart amidst all the profits raining in, treat their workers like crap!Having them stand all day, cutting their hours and then having the audacity to tell associates not to work any where there is a competitive urge against Walmart. I am real pissed! My sister is working at a Walmart to support her schooling and the hoodlums who are refusing her hours as a part - time associate don't want her to work at a local retail store. What the heck? Can anyone tell me if Walmart has the freaking right to determine where its associates can work even when they work part time at Walmart? I mean no disrespect to the blogging community - if i did come accross as uncouth , I am sorry. Please help me out.

Walmart has the resources to fix this. Just like when the U.S. was in major deficits in the late 70's it was big enough to fix in the 80's. Now we need another fix, huh. But Walmart will correct its errors. http://www.phoenix-life-insurance.com. They have massive income that keeps rolling in. Walmart is the least of our worries.