How Did Walmart Get Cleaner Stores and Higher Sales? It Paid Its People More

[Gozer]

Paying them little enough that they are eligible for food stamps is the real winning strategy - Walmart I'd the ultimate welfare queen.

[sun]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

I love Walmart. It's one of my go-to stores.

Curious to know what your other go-to stores are.

[Sylvanfan]

Better training and more opportunity for employees has likely had a better impact. I'd avoided Walmart for two years because I was sick of waiting 10 minutes to save 75 cents on a 12 dollar purchase.

[N-E-B]

I don't shop at Walmart because they treat their employees like garbage. I'll go to another store and pay $79.99 for the video game I want instead of saving a whopping 2 cents. Everything they sell can be found elsewhere.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoco...ic-assistance/

Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance - Forbes

Originally Posted by N-E-B

I don't shop at Walmart because they treat their employees like garbage. I'll go to another store and pay $79.99 for the video game I want instead of saving a whopping 2 cents. Everything they sell can be found elsewhere.

And the fact of the matter is, you really don't know how much you are saving there, you are typically paying for it twice. If superstore can pay their staff well above minimum wage and still make a profit while in a lot of cases charging customers less for the same goods, there's no reason why Walmart can't do the same.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

People who think that paying an employee more causes an increase in motivation are not acting in a way that takes into account the long term behavior of the employee. Respect goes a lot farther than money.

If higher wages increased motivation, the motivation would wane as the employee became used to the greater compensation, and service would fall to the original point. This doesn't happen generally (in a situation like this), so I would propose that the wages don't increase motivation due to the monetary windfall, but because an employee feels valued by their employer.

When an employee feels valued, they take pride in the job that they are doing. They want to work harder for the employer that respects them. This results in a lasting increase in productivity, which should be the goal of an business owner or executive.

Paying someone more to motivate them is a losing strategy. Paying them in line with what the employee is potentially worth to the company is a winning one. Employees know the difference, managers know the difference, and CEOs on the golf course apparently frequently do not.

The ability of the employee to get promoted is also important, and hasn't been mentioned once here in the 1st page of discussions.

$10/h doesn't sound like much, but if you can move to $15/h in short time with proper training and career development people might be pretty happy.

[Hack&Lube]

In the US, Wal-Mart has more viable competitors. They have a virtual monopoly on that space in Canada after the loss of Zellers/Target. I hated going to Wal-Mart and vastly preferred Target (even with empty shelf woes) because the store was cleaner, brighter, and more comfortable.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

Paying them little enough that they are eligible for food stamps is the real winning strategy - Walmart I'd the ultimate welfare queen.

True. But at least this is step in the right direction and hopefully not just smoke and mirrors.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Azure

True. But at least this is step in the right direction and hopefully not just smoke and mirrors.

If they stop their practice of shutting down stores that unionize it would be an even bigger step in the right direction IMO

[Azure]

If they were they'd start eliminating the reasons people want to unionize.

Health care coverage would be a good start.

[GGG]

Not sure how many people read the article but the message I sn't people who are paid more work harder.

It's paying people more than their competitors and providing opportunity for advancement gives you the best in class employee instead of ones constantly looking for their next slightly higher paying gig.

It also talks about scheduling and giving people more hours. If you can make people only work at your job again you get a better class of employee. I suspect the increased hours also start pushing people into health insurance which again locks your employees in.

Good employees and low turn over can increase sales.

The statement is not pay people more and they work harder

[GGG]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

If they stop their practice of shutting down stores that unionize it would be an even bigger step in the right direction IMO

No way, this is the union/corporate system working at its finest. The company has to sacrifice profits in order to fight the union. This is how the process is supposed to work. It creates the moral hazard for both the company and the union.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Azure

If they were they'd start eliminating the reasons people want to unionize.

Health care coverage would be a good start.

Also a very good point. It's no secret that I'm a very vocal supporter of organized labour, but if an employer takes care of their employees and they are happy those workers would not necessarily need a union unless that changed.

[Violator]

Nm

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GGG

The statement is not pay people more and they work harder

Some people seem to feel that there is a psychological correlation. I think that theory is bunk. In every environment there are people who earn similar wages, and there is always a difference in the work they do and at what efficiency. My point was that higher wages don't always make a business crumble.

[AcGold]

The worst things for an employee:

1. Receive only negative criticisms from management intermittently. By far the biggest demotivator.

2. Wage not enough to get ahead in life

3. No upward mobility or communication of potential.

Most people would rather make less and have a boss that recognizes their individual strengths. Makes sense as the intermittent criticism in labour/service jobs essentially makes people feel like slaves.

[Locke]

Its about pride. And despite their best efforts Governments still havent figured out how to legislate pride.

In this case, its less about the money and more about indicating to people that their contributions are recognized and valued.

As with most things theres a delicate balance to this as well.

Let me tell you a story.

Its about a young woman who went out and got a job, she works a cash register at a hardware store and she gets paid minimum wage.

After 3 months her employer was pleased with her work and gave her a $0.75/hour raise.

Hey, she felt awesome! She earned a raise! She really likes working there and they treat her well, far from the gloomy descriptions of Dickensian workhouses and she almost never has to ask for more gruel.

Well, October 1 rolled around and she got another raise, but now she makes minimum wage. She only got a raise because her employer didnt have a choice.

That sense of accomplishment? Well, what do you think happened to that?

They gave her a raise because she earned it and then the Government came in and forced them to give her more. Theres an understandable bit of resentment there.

Now, she doesnt need this money to live, its pretty much purely discretionary but her coworkers who do have seen their hours reduced and one of her coworkers now has to work evening shifts in order to keep her hours up and this very negatively affects her family life.

I didnt pull this out of a textbook, I watched it unfold live, in real time.

And you know what the saddest part is? It was really very predictable.

[Gozer]

A raise being "purely discretionary" doesn't sound very representative of most minimum wage workers.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by AcGold

The worst things for an employee:

1. Receive only negative criticisms from management intermittently. By far the biggest demotivator.

2. Wage not enough to get ahead in life

3. No upward mobility or communication of potential.

Most people would rather make less and have a boss that recognizes their individual strengths. Makes sense as the intermittent criticism in labour/service jobs essentially makes people feel like slaves.

Not everyone wants upward mobility. The kind of people you'd ideally like to hire at a place like Walmart would be people who are content with their role and collecting a regular pay cheque for it.

People who desire too much upward mobility are going to be inherently unhappy working at a place like Walmart regardless of how well they are treated.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Locke

Its about pride. And despite their best efforts Governments still havent figured out how to legislate pride.

In this case, its less about the money and more about indicating to people that their contributions are recognized and valued.

As with most things theres a delicate balance to this as well.

Let me tell you a story.

Its about a young woman who went out and got a job, she works a cash register at a hardware store and she gets paid minimum wage.

After 3 months her employer was pleased with her work and gave her a $0.75/hour raise.

Hey, she felt awesome! She earned a raise! She really likes working there and they treat her well, far from the gloomy descriptions of Dickensian workhouses and she almost never has to ask for more gruel.

Well, October 1 rolled around and she got another raise, but now she makes minimum wage. She only got a raise because her employer didnt have a choice.

That sense of accomplishment? Well, what do you think happened to that?

They gave her a raise because she earned it and then the Government came in and forced them to give her more. Theres an understandable bit of resentment there.

Now, she doesnt need this money to live, its pretty much purely discretionary but her coworkers who do have seen their hours reduced and one of her coworkers now has to work evening shifts in order to keep her hours up and this very negatively affects her family life.

I didnt pull this out of a textbook, I watched it unfold live, in real time.

And you know what the saddest part is? It was really very predictable.

Yes, we've seen this happen at a lot of places, Walmart has been notorious for it for years, funny how now they are paying people more without needing to cut hours. This scare tactic that companies use to try and convince the public that higher wages will always result in job cuts or reduced hours has really consumed you to the point where I'm not even sure you would be open to even acknowledging that maybe just maybe, these actions aren't always done as a cost saving effort in reaction to a wage hike, and instead are done to gain support in opposition of another hike.