STRATEGIC HR MANAGEMENT RESEARCH PAPER OF ALPHA GROUP (FIRST DRAFT) HR PLANNING AND STRATEGIC CHANGE FOR WAL-MART [pic] Bouffard, Jason Fiel, Zachary Kizil, Cevdet Pimental, Kristen Swihart, Jason Southern New Hampshire University Strategic Human Resource Management – Dr. Annette West October 29, 2006 CONTENTS I. Abstract II. Wal-Mart Employee Selection, Training, and Development III. Wal-Mart Human Resources Planning IV. Wal-Mart Performance & Compensation Management V. Wal-Mart – Strategy & Strategic Changes VI. Wal-Mart: A Strategic and Financial Summary VII. Recommendations VIII. Conclusion IX. References I. Abstract The primary objective …show more content…
“Wal-Mart grew its training and development program the way it grew the corporation: from store level up.” (Speizer, P. 2) Wal-Mart is such a large organization that their training and development needs to be top notch and have great influence on their staff. An author of Wal-Mart and a worker said, “Their training and development is making a significant commitment and it will be a radar screen for all other organizations.” The company is using a combination of outside vendors and systems it has created on its own in the overhaul of training and development. (Speizer, P. 2) Their new method of training was brought to them by Nike. The process goes something like this, “Each segment is three to seven minutes long and gives the associates the basic knowledge they need about various products. As new products are introduced each season, the training is updated and Nike customized the program for each retailer. Associates are then quizzed at the end of the training and asked for feedback, which gets sent back to managers and they are able to adjust things if needed.” (Marquez, P. 2) This process is an outstanding format; internet is the new way of communicating and training. This type of training is called e-training and is definitely shown to be efficient. Other companies such as Cingular and Nike have taken part in this
Going by the success and good market reception from the public, the company invested further within the same line by establishing two more stores in 1979. At the time of its establishment, the company was headquartered in Marietta, Georgia. However, the headquarters were moved to Cobb County in Georgia. Since its inception, the company has been led by several CEOs who have guided that company to various phases of growth. After the retirement of Marcus and Blank in 2000, Nardel was appointed as the new chief executive officer. During his term that lasted up to 2007, the company registered mixed growth and development. Activities of the company were centralized, and the company went through various phases of efficiency in operations. Nardel introduced cost cutting mechanisms that involved cutting on the number of jobs. Although earnings doubled as a result of reduced expenses, employees, and in extension the customers, were alienated (Roush 2010, p. 1-5).
Wal-Mart’s employs 930,000 people domestically and internationally, causing it to be one of the largest employers on the Fortune 500 list. (Course
Introduction – Wal-Mart, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, is one of the world largest companies by market capitalization and number of people employed and touching millions of customers everyday. There are more than 7,800 Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club locations in 16 markets worldwide and there are more than 2 million associates serving more than 100 million customers per year (About Us, n.d.) It is the largest grocery retailer in the United States with an estimated market share of around 20% of the retail grocery and consumables business. To be able to efficiently operate such a complex operation at such a large and do it consistently would only be possible by the huge effort by Wal-Mart’s ‘associates’ as its
In conclusion, as a leader I understand the importance of maintaining the element of surprise and gaining a competitive advantage versus the competition, however, as a former frontline representative, I also intimately understand how challenging it can be to deliver an exceptional experience to a customer when you are struggling to answer their question. Therefore, I frequently implore our senior leadership to provide as much lead time for training as possible and educate frontline employees regarding why the period between training and launch is so compressed and the importance of not sharing proprietary information regarding the training via social media or the internet. Additionally, as an organization, we are constantly searching for ways to enhance the speed and quality of our training and communications to improve organizational overall agility (Groysberg & Slind,
Now Home Depot focuses on in-store training, such as doing exercises from a workbook and analyzing sales reports, so more supervisors can have time to complete the training. I found that Home Depot's training is similar to case analysis we do in college. This type of training may increase total participation since they can be done in-store and improve supervisors' analyzing skills. However, I think that this type of training is ineffective to actually improve supervisors' important soft skills, such as communicating with employees and delegating responsibility. Since the article mentioned that the main problem of old training is a lack of people skills, I do not think that Home Depot's training system is effective to resolve problems, such as struggling with asserting authority, communicating with workers and delegating responsibility. To improve its training system, Home Depot needs to focus on developing people skills and have activities based on communication and interaction.
Reevaluation of Walmart’s training is necessary and is supported by current research which finds that there is a link between training and expect organizational and human resource outcomes. Research find that “that companies that conduct training are more likely to have more positive human resource outcomes and greater performance outcomes” (Noe, 2013, p. 234). By determining who needs training, the skills and knowledge that needs to be taught, and the timeframe the training needs to be completed in, the training can be tailored to meet the needs of the company as well as its employees.
The City of Grande Prairie HR Department differs from most organizations in its role of recruitment. Managers are responsible for their own recruitment, interviews and orientation. During the recruitment and selection process, the right type of applicants is far more important than the number of applicants. If hiring managers do not support or understand the importance of diversity or rush the process it can has negative impacts, both short and long term. Often a variety of factors including financial constraints, stiff competition for talent, mandates for efficiency and effectiveness and the decision making structure make service delivery and recruitment challenging. To ensure that a diversity policy and program becomes a part of the organizational culture management will need to be educated and supported in regards to the importance of hiring and effectively managing a diverse team.
In business, three major strategies comprising of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies exist. The focus strategy emphasizes on providing services and products to a specified buyer group or market segment within a given geographic market. The differentiation approach is often defined as provision of services or products that are perceived to be unique in the market place. Wal-Mart emphasizes on the long-term strategy of cost leadership. Through this strategy, the company ensures that it offers customers with quality products at relatively lower prices than other providers in the industry. Through overall cost leadership strategy, Wal-Mart has been offering better quality products at a lower price than any competitor can offer. For the organization to achieve this goal, it has developed long-term supply chain management, which ensures that products are made available to the market at the required time (Enz, 2010).
Question-1: Discuss the relationship between corporate human resources structure and operations at the plant level. What impact, if any, did that relationship have on the situation described by Newcombe?
Here we have two companies in the same industry multiline retail who have very different strategies. In order to succeed, the way that employees are trained is crucial to implementing the strategy they are using to compete. This will be a comparison of the training methods of Big Lots versus Dollar Tree of their store associates and managers.
1. One of the requirements to successfully apply as a Zappos employee is to be happy. The company hires only happy people, after which the company expends significant effort to maintain this sense of happiness. The philosophy behind this is that customers will be happy when being served by happy employees. This is why the company strives to create a company culture that inspires its employees and promotes their sense of well-being.
went as far as having ROWE training. As a current employee of Best Buy I can say any change that the company has they have training. We just this year we had TRUST training. These training are to introduce the
Wal-mart is the number one retail store in the U.S. and was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. Wal-mart has expanded to include the U.S., Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, China, and various other places. In 1988, Wal-mart developed the Supercenter concept to meet the growing demand for one stop family shopping. Supercenters combine grocery and general merchandise all under one roof. Their purpose is saving people money to help them live better (Wal-Mart, n.d). Even their success Wal-mart has still had many lawsuits for violating labor laws and
Throughout this case I will attempt to explain old methodology of doing business with your human resources and other staff components has changed. No longer will any organization try to create a compelling vision without its tools, resources, and staff components gainfully employed to obtain the overall goal. One team, one fight if our subordinates fail then we fail as leaders. I will explore relationships between staff sections, developing strategic activities, preventing a fraudulent atmosphere, and improving communications with human resources. Let’s get started by discussing how the King’s Company relations amongst its staff sections.
In 1991 Wal-Mart entered in Mexico to internationalize its operation. By 2005 Wal-Mart had presence in nine countries with its US based success model of EDLP. But it received mixed response in different markets. Wal-Mart did well in Mexico, Canada, and England, whereas in Germany it had to sell all its business to Metro, a German retailer. Likewise, it was facing many challenges in Chinese market. For example because of increased government interventions in China opening up of stores at desired places was totally dependent on local authority's will.