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Organizational Behavior Analysis Of Walmart

Introduction

The subject of the current study is Walmart, whose organizational behavior will be

discussed in detail. Based on research and prior experience at Walmart, this essay will apply

organization behavioral concepts and literature review to objectively discuss the company’s

policies and practices and, propose opportunity for improvement.

Walmart is an apt selection for the analysis because it has a large employee base who

work together to meet the consumers’ expectations. This essay argues that organizational

behavior can be used to better the efficiency of any business enterprise. The first section of the

report will focus on backdrop of the company, the second section will highlight the current

practices in the leadership and employee engagement of employees in Walmart while the last

section will outline the learnings from the assignment.

Company Background
 Walmart is the US-based world’s largest company by revenue-approximately $480

billion, that is, a multinational retailing corporation functioning as a chain of hypermarkets,

grocery stores and department stores (Fortune.com 2017). The retailer ace has its official

headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. It was founded by Sam Walton in 1945 as a single

discount city store. The company is still owned and operated by the Walton family that owns

more than 50 per cent of the share. Its mission is as follows:

“The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really,

if you think about it from your point of view as a customer, you want everything: a wide

assortment of good-quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed

satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free

parking; a pleasant shopping experience” (help.walmart.com 2017).

Walmart operates in 28 countries around the globe with 11,695 stores and 2.3 million

employees (corporate.walmart.com 2017). Having said that, its majority of the market sales

comes from the US (62.3 per cent) where it has a strong foothold. The company went public in

the year 1982 making a debut in the New York stock exchange (NYSE). In today’s digitized

world, the company leads with its heavy investment in technology owing to which it has e-

commerce websites in eleven countries.

Walmart is known to use its largesse as leverage to offer low cost products to the

customers. It works with the slogan, “Save money, live better”. Some of the competitors to the

low-price pledge of the establishment are Amazon, Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Family Dollar

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(Lutz 2015). Nevertheless, the company due to its stellar market base outperforms all of them

and is still the retail ace.

Organizational Culture
Service to
customers
Respect for the
individual
Strive for
excellence
Action with
integrity

The organizational culture at the company stores is based on four beliefs: Service to

customers, respect for the individual, strive for excellence, and action with integrity (Lombardo

2017). As can be seen from the list, company prioritizes customers in its operations above all and

thus, makes it to be an ideal organizational culture in the world. The company contributes almost

three per cent to the US economy and for decades, it has built an image to have impeccable

logistics with everyday low prices (Mourdoukoutas 2016). There is retail, hourly, corporate,

healthcare, technology and campus jobs in the company.

Motivation/ Employee Engagement

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 Walmart leaves no stone unturned to make its employees feel an integral part of the

company. Right from the recruitment, employees are motivated to participate in company’s

growth in myriads of forms. To symbolize this, it came with the slogan, “Our people make the

difference” on the associates’ name tags (Wahba 2015).

The company boasts of striving to enhance the employee engagement using both intrinsic

and extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards are supposed to be driven solely by interest and

enjoyment in the work and has no dependence on rewards or external management pressure. On

the other hand, extrinsic rewards include monetary incentives, gifts or recognitions etc. Put

another way, these benefits are given in the form of healthcare or financial benefits. For instance,

following are some of the explicit endeavors by the company in the present context.

Discount Cards

All the associates are given a ‘Walmart discount card’ that offers a 10 per cent off on

regularly priced general merchandise and fresh produce at any Walmart store in the country. To

motivate the new employees, they are given the discount cards only after the three-month

probation period (news.walmart.com 2017).

Profit-Sharing

The profit-sharing depends on the store’s performance from May through July of a given

year when the store’s performance exceeds expectation and customer service goals of that

particular store (news.walmart.com 2017). In the year 2015, the company announced a two-year

budget for the profit sharing plan at an estimated investment of $200 million in cash bonuses.

This concept of sharing profit with all the employees including part-time and full-time associates

is rare to be seen in retail market.

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Stock Purchase

Employees at Walmart can invest in company stocks either through payroll deductions or

through a broker. The former is also called associate stock. The employees can sell their holdings

online or by phone at any time. Walmart contributes 15 per cent of the total value of the

investment up to the first $1,800 spent on stock each year (Koca-Helvaci et al. 2015:374).

There are numerous ways used by the company to make the employees engaged and motivated

all the time. They can be summarized as below:

My Sustainability Plan (MSP)

It is also commonly known as MSP. Started in the year 2010, Walmart urges employees

across all the stores to adopt goals focusing on healthy life, care for the planet and getting the

maximum out of the life. The company has made certain objectives like My Health (eating

healthy, getting active, reducing stress, quitting tobacco), My Planet (saving water and energy,

reducing waste, enjoying nature), and My Life (learning new skills, managing money, making

quality time, helping others) (Apte et al. 2017:48).

Grassroot Employee-Opinion Survey

This is one of the old school management by objective (MBO) principle, implemented by

Walmart, grassroots surveys target employee work issues like satisfaction with company

management (Bushnell et al 2015). Managers getting bad score on grassroots surveys could get

demoted or fired.

Open-Door Policy

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 The company uses open-door policy for addressing any concerns or employee problems.

This involves issues like workplace bully, rights violation, unfair policy or discontent vis-à-vis

any store practice. Any issue identified by the management is handled very meticulously (Jin

2014).

Performance Review Process

The employees are assessed based on SMART- Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented,

Realistic, and Time-bound. It is believed that the regular performance review helps keep the

employee conscious about her current standing against expectations (Wang et al. 2017:109).

Management by Walking Around (MBWA)

Walmart uses a unique strategy called MBWA to manage its operations enhancing

employee engagement. Managers walk personally to different employees to address any

concerns while she is on-the-job if any (Gopalkrishna et al. 2016:99). Walmart has realized it

long time back that mere pay-check is not enough to engage the employees completely. Rather,

positive reinforcement techniques like the ones listed above are required to build a bridge

between employees and management.

Critical Analysis of The Behavioral Practices

It is a fact that to understand Walmart’s policies, it is vital to know the beliefs of Sam

Walton. Sam laid the basic structure of the company considering the employees to be business

partners instead. Undoubtedly, the ideas and policies are impeccable for any company to

succeed, and so is the fate of Walmart. That being said, there is always some room to optimize.

One of the biggest challenges is the proliferation of the culture. The store-management team has

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always a dilemma of people against profit. For instance, if being a store-manager you achieve the

profit goal at the cost of morale of the employee team, you may get fired or demoted.

Thus, some of the solutions, bearing in mind the current practices, could be to enhance

the camaraderie between the associates and the management. This could be done by giving

cultural training so that all the beliefs could be completely absorbed by the employees. Walmart

is a tight-fisted corporation, since it plays with the minimum profit margin, thus, there is not

much that could be done on the economic front. However, performing sophisticated check to

ensure implementation of all the policies could turn the events.

Secondly, addressing minor issues like distrust among the employees in relation to issues

like lack of full-time employees in the store can prove panacea at all fronts. Thirdly, establishing

proper channel for communication could help achieve perfection for the retailer giant. In huge

stores like Walmart, there is usually lack of proper communication up above the hierarchy. The

company should focus on more direct way of communication like email or telephonic streamline

between manager and employee.

Conclusion

I personally, learnt one of the best organizational behavior in the workplace.

Furthermore, it guides me to understand and practice the required policies that cater to address

the company’s culture. It is indispensable for an individual to work along the lines of company’s

expectations and, also to consider oneself to be a business partner instead of just an employee.

The present study helped me to understand that it is crucial for an employee of any designation

to establish proper communication with her superior. On top of that, an employee should be an

advocate of open-door policy since, quite understandably, management is the only one that could

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solve a problem, provided it is cognizant of the matter. It is also followed from the present

assignment that just the pay-check is not sufficient to motivate and engage employees to give

their maximum.

Walmart has presented to be an epitome of how camaraderie between the employees and

management could convert a single budget store into the world’s largest retailer. There is a

necessity to conduct timely assessments to keep the employees on their toes. Recognition is an

acknowledgement that motivates an employee to strive incessantly for desired behavior. Positive

reinforcement technique could have significant effect on the company’s productivity. Starting

from positive work atmosphere, boosted morale to retention and productivity, favorable

organization behavior could lead to miracles like Walmart itself. Sustainable growth and

development means development bearing in mind the impacts of operations on planet and

environment in general. Walmart focuses on proper recycling of waste and urges its employees

to save water and energy. Most importantly, ‘Servant leadership’ meaning prioritizing needs of

others is one of the key ideas in its philosophy.

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 References

Apte, Suhas, and Jagdish Sheth. "DEVELOPING THE SUSTAINABLE EDGE." Leader to
Leader 2017.85 (2017): 48-53.

Bushnell, Nolan, et al. "Business Planning and Market Strategy in a Nutshell." (2015).

Corporate.walmart.com. United States. 2017. <https://corporate.walmart.com/our-

story/locations/united-states#/united-states>.

Fortune.com. global500- Walmart. 22 October 2017. <http://fortune.com/global500/walmart/>

Gopalakrishna, Pradeep, Ram Subramanian, and David Fleischmann. "WALMART IN INDIA."
Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies 22.3 (2016): 99.

Jin, Qili. Impacts of the Open Door Policy and globalization on income inequality in China
between the 20th century and the early 21st century. Diss. 2014

Koca-Helvaci, Zeynep Cihan. "Walmart and its employee relations: organizational stance-taking
and legitimacy." On the Horizon 23.4 (2015): 374-386.

Lutz, Ashley. Walmart's entire business model is crumbling. 16 October 2015.

<http://www.businessinsider.com/challenges-to-walmarts-business-model-2015-10>.

Lombardo, Jessica. "Walmart: Organizational Structure & Organizational Culture." Panmore

Institute (2017).

Mourdoukoutas, Panos. Walmart's Outdated Management Style Is Failing Customers. 30

January 2016.

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News.walmart.com. Walmart Hourly Associates Earn More Than $200 million in Cash Bonuses.
21 September 2016.

Wahba, Phil. One way Walmart is motivating workers: Less Celine Dion on the PA system. 3
June 2015.

Wang, Ze, et al. "Effects of Employees’ Positive Affective Displays on Customer Loyalty
Intentions: An Emotions-as-Social-Information Perspective." Academy of Management Journal
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