Human Resource Management at Walmart: Strategies and Challenges

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UNIT 3 HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................3
1. OVERVIEW OF WALMART.................................................................................................4
2. PURPOSE OF HR FUNCTION AND THE KEY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES........................5
3. APPROACHES TO WORKFORCE PLANNING, RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION,
DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING, PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND REWARD SYSTEM.......9
4. APPROACHES TO EFFECTIVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND
ADOPTION OF FLEXIBLE WORKING PRACTICES......................................................................12
5. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT HRM DECISION MAKING INCLUDING
KEY AREAS OF EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION...........................................................................15
6. APPLICATION OF HRM PRACTICES IN WORK-RELATED CONTEXT...................................16
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 23
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 24
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INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is termed as the process of the recruiting, selecting and
imparting training and development to the employees of the organisation which leads to
motivating them and providing them with the benefits by ensuring the employee's safety,
compliance and health measures. The human resource management plays many functions
in an organisation which will be laid emphasis in the following report undertaking Wal-Mart
as an organisation (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
This report, therefore, explains briefly the purpose and functions of HRM at Wal-Mart and
lays out an assessment of the workforce planning, recruitment and selection and the
training and development. This report also renders insights about the importance of the
employee relations and the employee engagement which ensures flexibility in an
organisation by effectively implementing the employment legislation. At last application of
the HRM practices will be practised that helps in effectively conducting the recruitment and
selection process.
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1. OVERVIEW OF WALMART
Walmart is considered to be an American Multinational retail corporation that operates in
grocery stores and operates as a chain of hypermarkets and discount department stores. It
is headquartered in Bentonville and was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. It is considered to
be the world's largest company in terms of the revenue according to the Fortune Global 500
list in 2018. It has an employee count of 2.2 million across the world.
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2. PURPOSE OF HR FUNCTION AND THE KEY ROLES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES
The main purpose of HRM in Walmart is to handle effectively all the aspects of the
employees by conducting effectively the HRM functions so as to ensure the awareness and
compliance of the employee's welfare and safety across the levels of an organisation. The
purpose of HRM at Wal-Mart is to deal with employee and hire them so as to render the
right job to the right person (Biance, 2019).
AT WAL-MART IN ORDER TO ENSURE THE EFFECTIVE WORKFORCE PLANNING AND THE
RESOURCES UTILISATION, THE HRM FUNCTION PLAYS VITAL ROLES WHICH HOWEVER ARE
DISCUSSED AS UNDER:
HR of Wal-Mart takes part in Workforce planning by taking place at the top management
level of the corporate HR department. At Walmart special software is used to automate the
process of analysing the changes in the workforce and then through the central database,
the operational needs are catered (Thompson, 2017).
In order to meet the needs of the surplus and the shortage of the employees, Walmart's HR
applies the corresponding plans that help in stabilising the workforce (Cascio, 2018).
According to the HR plan framed by the HRM function the adequate access to the qualified
workforce is ensures which ensures continuous hiring and the training of new employees
(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
HRM department of Walmart is much concerned about the issue of the workforce planning
and in order to effectively deal with the recruitment system, it announces its vacancies
effectively and renders benefits to the employees irrespective of any discrimination
(Thompson, 2017).
SOME OF THE KEY RESPONSIBILITIES OF HRM FUNCTION IN WALMART ENSURING
EFFECTIVE WORKFORCE PLANNING AND RESOURCE UTILISATION ARE AS UNDER:
Walmart is responsible for providing benefits to employees with career assistance that will
be conducted by the HR leaders in helping the employees advance their careers and grading
them on basis of a checklist of performance points (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
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Another responsibility of the HR function at Walmart is to participate in effective workforce
planning and allowing to gain deep insights about the organisational activities and ensure
sustainable growth.
It also forms an essential responsibility of HR of Walmart to find and recruit the right
employees and meet the favourable workplace standards by providing satisfactory
compensation and benefits (Thompson, 2017).
HR FUNCTIONS OF WALMART FULFILLING THE BUSINESS OBJECTIVES ARE DISCUSSED AS
UNDER:
Recruitment and selection
In order to attain the high profitability and productivity goals of the business the employees
must be competent enough so as to attain the objectives of the organisation. This,
therefore, is ensured by HR of Walmart by effectively hiring the employees which help in
contributing to the firm in a cost-effective manner. This is done by Walmart through the
online as well as offline recruitment and selection process (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
Working conditions
At Walmart, the HR function emphasises on boosting the main factors that help the
employees in remaining satisfied (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). This Walmart also adopts
the two-factor motivation theory which helps in boosting the performance of the employees
and thus in accordance to the same Walmart revamps their policies and boosts the safety
and security of the employees where they work so as to ensure growth (Pot, 2014).
Employee relations
Walmart also ensures in its HR functions the employment legislation and practices which
ensure sessions carried out for the welfare of the employee belongingness and this thus
helps it in boosting the morale and the trust of the employees working at Walmart. This also
helps in boosting the retention rate and attainment of the goals (Thompson, 2017).
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Training and development
It forms another HR function of Walmart which ensures the learning plans and the sessions
for the employees working at Walmart (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). This helps in boosting
their career needs and helps in injecting in the employees with the recent advancements
that ensure smooth achievement of the objectives.
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION AT WALMART
Walmart adopts the internal as well as the external sources of recruitment for different
positions. In its internal recruitment, it focuses on the current employees while in external
recruitment it accesses the labour markets and then addresses the needs of the HRM (Bika,
2018).
Internal recruitment Strengths:
 It will reduce the time involved in hiring
 It will help in shortening the onboarding times which are involved in external hires
 It will attract fewer costs of hiring
Internal recruitment Weaknesses:
 It will limit the pool of applicants and fresh skills
 It will lead to the creation of inflexible culture
 It will leave a gap in the existing workforce (Bika, 2018)
External recruitment Strengths:
 It boosts the chances of better and fresh skills and input
 It provides a better competitive edge
 Will involve lesser internal politics
External recruitment Weaknesses:
 The applicants will have a limited understanding of the company
 It will be a time-consuming process
 It will lead to internal disputes
 Issues of maladjustments will emerge (Bika, 2018)
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The selection process at Walmart involves the education and the training background check
where the criminal backgrounds are also checked. Walmart checks knowledge retention and
interpersonal skills and then selects the candidates. It also adopts the structured interviews
and the hob knowledge evaluation approaches while selecting the candidates. It also
practices the situational judgement tests in order to determine the analytical and problem-
solving skills of the candidates (Thompson, 2017).
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3. APPROACHES TO WORKFORCE PLANNING, RECRUITMENT AND
SELECTION, DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING, PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT AND REWARD SYSTEM
Walmart employs a set of approaches to ensure effective workforce planning and conduct
performance management so as to ensure a competent workforce in an organisation. For
the same, the business objectives are aligned with the successful management of the
workforce by effective recruitment and selection.
Workforce planning
At Walmart, there is a range of activities involved which ensures the workforce planning
leading to fulfilling the needs of the employees in terms of the skills and the locations and
the number of employees required. This thus helps in fulfilling the recruitment needs and
thus helps to monitor the workforce effectively leading to the attainment of the business
objectives (Das and Ahmed, 2014).
Recruitment and selection
Walmart employs both the internal as well as external recruitment and selection
approaches. These help in laying out the talent plan for internal vacancies that help in filling
the internal vacancies and it also adopts listing the current employees that are looking for
new posts. It adopts the process where the employees can approach the stores directly as
well with their CV to apply for the job posts. The approach to recruitment and selection is
also conducted by an external process where on the vacancy boards the vacancies are
advertised and the websites are also used for the same. This thus helps in attracting external
staff (Das and Ahmed, 2014).
Training and development
Walmart is more focused towards the training and development which involves both the on-
the-job training and off-the-job training methods. These thus help in providing the
employees with the opportunities of the development and the growth by boosting their
skills.
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Performance management
For effective performance management, Walmart adopts different methods that help in
keeping a check of the performance of the employees and allows for their development.
There are many performance management plans such as balance Scorecard, Steering Wheel
and others that help the managers in analysing the performance of the employees and thus
boosting their performance.
Reward system
For effective workforce planning and ensuring the employee's retention in Walmart, there
are many reward approaches adopted by it so as to attain the common objectives. The
rewards provided to the employees of Walmart are in the form of the monetary benefits as
well as non-monetary benefits which motivates them in attaining their personal as well as
professional goals.
BENEFITS TO EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES OF WALMART THROUGH THE ABOVE HRM
PRACTICES
Some of the benefits that the HRM practices at Walmart will render to the employers as
well as employees are discussed as under:
Effective reward management by Walmart will help in offering much benefits and rewards
to the employees which then leads to rendering competitive advantage to the employers of
the firm. This also leads to boosting the motivation level of the employees working at
Walmart leading to better contribution towards the desired objectives and leading to better
productivity. The reward management also leads to offering the employees of Walmart with
the benefits and returns that drive them to desired goals (Humburg and Van der Velden,
2015).
Effective training and development initiatives employed by Walmart benefits the
employers as they gain competent staff and workforce through the training and
development programs which leads to hike in their profitability (Meijerink et al., 2016).
Through the development ensured by these initiatives at Walmart, the employees feel
valued and they strive hard to attain the best out of them.
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Through effective working practices at Walmart, the employees can be kept satisfied and
help in retaining them in the long run. This helps in boosting their morale by providing them
with flexible working conditions and facilities that allow them to work harder and
effectively. At Walmart the flexible working practices also allow the employers to have a
competent and motivated workforce which helps them in attaining their organisational
goals and productivity (Meijerink et al., 2016).
EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE HRM PRACTICES FOR RAISING PROFIT AND
PRODUCTIVITY
Reward system at Walmart
At Walmart, the reward system practised helps to motivate and encourage the employees
through the combination of the financial as well as non-financial benefits that helps in
retaining the employees. This thus helps in keeping the staff motivated and work towards
the goals of the organisation effectively (Katou and Budhwar, 2014).
Effectiveness of training and development at Walmart
The practice of training and development practised at Walmart helps in keeping the
employees competent enough so as to face the dynamic competitive environment. This thus
boosts the profitability of the business and helps in ensuring a productive workforce. The
training and development initiatives at Walmart ensure a better contribution from the
employees (Meijerink et al., 2016).
Effectiveness of the flexible working options
At Walmart, the work hours and the environment is flexible and provides many perks to the
employees working at Walmart. This helps in building a positive environment at Walmart
resulting in a better contribution of employees and leading to better profitability and
productivity (Katou and Budhwar, 2014).
Thus all the HRM practices practised at Walmart is effective enough and contribute much to
the success of the organisation.
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