On a stormy afternoon in Bentonville, Arkansas, a Walmart regional manager describes the moment his humanity reached its breaking point.
He was a 24-year-old store manager who was anxiously trying to get his employees to prepare the Halloween merchandise display. Instead, employees were clustered around a television in the electronics department. It was the morning of September 11, 2001.
“Why aren't we preparing for Halloween here? Why isn't it over yet?” he recalled saying. She didn't fully understand what was happening until one employee tearfully explained that she had relatives in New York City.
“It took me less than a minute to look around the room to understand the impact of my words and actions,” David Seymour, a former store manager and current regional vice president for Walmart, told the audience. “I grew up really fast that day.”
His statement was intended as an objective lesson. Seymour, who currently manages 110 stores in the South and Midwest and generates $11 million in annual sales, was among a group of Walmart and Sam's Club store managers who came to Walmart headquarters for a leadership training program conducted. I was talking to him. Available in retail stores almost every week since July 2022.
Store managers at Walmart and Sam's Club run multi-million dollar companies and manage hundreds of employees. Their ability to increase sales directly impacts the company's revenue, which totaled $648.1 billion worldwide last year.
But the company says management style is also important. Almost every week, Walmart flies groups of 50 people from around the country (about 1,800 total last year, 2,200 expected this year) to its Manager Academy.
Throughout the sessions, trainers reinforce the message that Walmart's success is only possible if store managers care about their employees, customers and the communities in which they operate.
“The purpose of the academy is to help students understand what our values are, what we expect from our leaders, and how we can operate effectively from a perspective that puts our people first. Walk away,” said Donna Morris, chief human resources officer at Walmart.
Walmart, the nation's largest private employer with 1.6 million employees, has long been accused of putting profits above its store workers. Through lawsuits and unsuccessful union campaigns, Walmart employees have argued that the company's business practices are harming their physical, mental and emotional health.
In the 2022 example, an employee with health issues died on the job while the store was understaffed, and when she asked to go home, the store manager told her to “take it easy.” The newspaper reported that this was the case. New Republic.
Morris declined to comment for this story, but said: “Our focus is always on making sure our employees are at the forefront of management's thinking.”
Walmart isn't the only company focused on getting executives to think this way. A focus on compassionate leadership became a hot topic among companies about two years ago, said Jessica Kriegel, a workplace training consultant who studies the topic.
“The big insight here is that making employees feel valued is directly tied to communication,” Kriegel said. “And the people who communicate most with the front lines are their bosses. That's why frontline supervisors are so important. If they communicate effectively, employees feel valued. Because I feel that I am.”
Most of Wal-Mart's executives attended the Walton Institute, the predecessor to the Manager Academy, founded in the 1980s. And this training has broader implications. Much of Walmart's leadership eventually extends to other companies in the retail industry.
“The Walton Institute was a great way to immerse myself in the Walmart culture,” said Horacio Barbeito, who worked at the company for 26 years. “And when you come back to a market that has a lot of corporate culture, you become an ambassador and a catalyst.” He ran Old Navy.
John Farner, chief executive officer of Walmart US and an Arkansas native whose father also worked at Walmart, began his career in 1993 as an hourly employee in the retail store. As he rose through the ranks, he received training at the Walton Institute. He also focused on corporate culture, at a time when the company was still relatively small and it was possible to get to know the leadership at the top.
“You weren't a number,” Furner said. “You weren't just someone who got results.”
But especially since the pandemic began, store managers have faced new challenges, including transitioning between in-store and online purchases, increased employee turnover, and dealing with sometimes unruly shoppers. It is working. And as the company expanded, it became harder to make people feel connected to the company's mission. Furner suggested to Doug McMillon, Walmart's global chief executive, that it was time to reinstate in-person training programs for store managers.
Former and current executives, including Furner, will give lectures at the training. (Attendees will also meet the company's founder, Sam Walton. (There's a hologram of Mr. Walton explaining what he used to do.) Participants will be taken on a one-hour tour of the surrounding area. At the headquarters, passing executives stop to chat and sometimes ask business-related questions.
Things also become more concrete. Managers need to ensure that all employees, from the mechanics in the auto repair department to the night shift worker mopping the floors to the worker restocking apples in the grocery department, are I am participating in a breakout session on how to make people feel like they are contributing to the larger society. Corporate mission. They brainstorm ways to deal with both common problems (understanding other people's values) and special problems (schedule disruptions).
The program allows store managers to think not only about what's next for them, but also how to keep their subordinate employees engaged and find other opportunities within the company. After all, Walmart is in the business of selling, and that's how they measure the program's effectiveness.
“If you have really strong store managers who are purpose-driven and values-driven, you can drive better performance,” said Lorraine Stomski, who runs Walmart's learning and leadership programs.
Walmart is also increasing incentives to keep managers motivated and prevent them from leaving for other opportunities. This year, the company announced pay increases for store managers, raising base salaries to $128,000 and stock grants of up to $20,000. High-performing managers at Walmart now have the ability to earn more than $400,000 annually.
In interviews organized by Walmart, store managers who participated in the program said they enjoyed the emphasis on company culture during training. Loris Miller, 39, a store manager at a Sam's Club in Keller, Texas, started as an hourly employee 20 years ago and now manages 165 employees, but in January He said he had gotten some feedback from people before joining. She works for her: they were trying to build a relationship with her.
Since joining the program, she said she has started making time for informal chats. (“How was your weekend? Is there anything I can help you with?”) “When you're together for eight hours a week, 40 hours a week, I think those things are helpful,” she said.
Daniel Harrelson, 30, a store manager in Fayetteville, Arkansas, participated in the training in October. He started at Walmart as an hourly employee and was promoted to store manager during the pandemic, overseeing 450 employees.
He learned about the resources the company has for workers in need, including free counseling classes and a fund for people dealing with housing crises that can arise from fires or domestic violence. Ta. For some employees, “Walmart is usually one of the only stable things they have,” he said.
There was also a light element to the training that helped reinforce his culture. Consider a meeting a manager holds with employees in a store. All of this begins with enthusiastic cheers. This is a tradition that Sam Walton started in his 1970s.
During the pandemic, large meetings have been canceled to follow social distancing guidelines. There were cheers from along the road. But through training, he said, he was able to understand how important it is to restore habits.
“It’s nothing great, but it’s kind of fun,” he said. “It lightens the mood, and that's what Sam Walton did.”
