Walmart Hr Strategic Plan

HR Strategic Plan

Principles of Human Resources

Heather S. McCarthy

June 20, 2016

Business Needs

As of 2015, Wal-Mart has well over 2.2 million employees across the globe. There is no denying they a are a retail giant on this planet.  Annual revenues have topped out over $485 billion in 2015. This success is based on the effective application of strategies to reach the company’s vision and mission. Wal-mart’s generic strategy and intensive strategy are both based and aligned with the firm’s vision statement and mission statement.

 The company’s Mission Statement “Saving people money so they can live better” is directly correlated to their slogan of “Save money. Live Better”.  There is no denying that they definitely follow and succeed in their mission of saving their customers money. The live better portion is hotly debated.   It is almost common knowledge that Wal-mart pays very low wages. So low that these wages are in fact barely enough for employees to make ends meet. There has also been some buzz  about the long term effects of selling cheap and on occasion goods imported from other countries that have been found to be hazardous.

The Vision Statement of the company “To be the best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers” can be directly tied to the ideals of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart. There is no doubting they are the best retailer. The minds of customers have been won over, however the heart aspect has yet to be seen.

Organizational Business Strategy and Goals

Wal-Mart strives for cost leadership obviously making their focus on keeping their cost of goods and services low. They are extremely well known for low prices, this is clearly the selling point for them. Costs are kept low by keeping their operational costs low as well, such as employee wages. Another objective is achieving economies of scale to support this generic strategy of cost leadership, in order to sustain the low costs they need to continue their high sales volume and their operations at a large scale.

Their strategic choices of market penetration, market development and product development along with their strategies follow the value and mission statement. They continue their expansion globally. Continuing to expand helps achieve an even better economy of scale supporting the strategy of cost leadership. In order to succeed in living out their mission and value statements long term the path of expansion must be continued down.

HR Imperatives

It is without a doubt that Wal-Mart has become a cultural and business phenomenon. Millions of people shop here daily and the company is known worldwide. It is consistently ranked number 1 on the Fortune 500 list and even with the issues plaguing them they make substantial profits. They have over 1.3 million employees in the United States alone this makes them the largest employer here. They are also the worlds and the largest corporation. They have been compared to other large and legendary corporations but Wal-Mart with this low pay and unaffordable health benefits falls flat making HRs job extremely difficult.  There is also an astronomically high turnover rate of their full time employees over half of their fulltime employees will leave at a high cost to the company as well. Constantly hiring and training new employees comes at a cost. While investing a little more in employees could cut down on the cost or loss. While the rolls of HR and Unions are vastly different, it is critical that in order for unionization to work they need to be able to work hand in hand.