Walmart
Wal-Mart is the world’s number one retailer, with more than 1.8 million employees, but that does not exclude the company from personnel problems. In fact over the past couple of years the company has been the target of class-action lawsuits alleging that the company engaged in sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, wage and hour violations and denying employees meal breaks and overtime pay. That is not the only problems that is facing Wal-Mart, last year two union funded groups formed Wal-Mart Watch and WakeUpWalmart.com which have been active with protests and public campaigns urging Wal-Mart to reform their employment and business practices. So now Wal-Mart has a number of hot lines that employees can call anonymously to report a problem and the company has set up investigating teams to address any and all calls. This however according to the union based groups is still not enough and have called on Wal-Mart to increase wages for the full time employees which averages only $9.68 an hour. This low wage makes it very difficult for full time employees to afford the health care deductions.
Wal-Mart however seems to think that by keeping the employees happy is the best way to defend itself. In order to do this the company has embarked on a major management reorganization by hiring more than 300 human resource managers. Once this staff is in place the company hopes that they will be able to communicate with its associates and better engage them in the goals of the company. Another thing is that Wal-Mart has never been resistant to change, but they are now embracing change as necessary because customers are changing and they have to retain and hire the best talent possible to stay number one.
References
Marquez, J. (2006, August 14). Wal-Mart puts on a new face. Workforce Management, 85(15),
28-32. Retrieved August 9, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.
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