Introduction
Walmart is one of the largest American retailers, and it is a successful business that has brought billions of dollars in revenue to the American government. The Walton family has different challenges in development. This paper discusses the underlying issues of customer service and working conditions that undermine the business’s success and tries to elaborate on solutions.
Walmart is facing different issues that directly affect its expenditures, so its main emphasis should be improving working conditions for low-wage workers and improving working ethics and security. There are four parts of challenges and problems to be discussed:
- Customer service.
- Working relationships between managers and employees.
- Security.
- Sales.
Challenges of Walmart
Customer Service
One of the crucial challenges in customer service is the high level of dissatisfaction. Long queues, lack of products, and staff absence worsen the customer experience. Besides that, Pandey (2021) describes the challenge in satisfying customers as the fact that products are not different from those of its main competitors, like Amazon, which provide faster delivery and better performance overall. Customer service directly depends on the production in the example of customer satisfaction. Retail corporations are endangered in the US due to this fact.
Understaffing and Working Relationships between Managers and Employees
One of the problems that Walmart faces is understaffing. A lack of staff directly impacts the quality of customer service. Many Walmart customers are dissatisfied with the service or lack thereof, which directly affects sales numbers. Phillips and Rozworski (2019) argue that Walmart, like any other large entity, is trying to reduce costs, and the most significant expenditure stands for labor costs. Thus, low wages provided by Walmart is a common practice for any large corporation, and thus, it is a challenge not only for the one supply chain but for the whole sector of the economy.
This directly affects the working relationships between managers and employees. The high turnover rate provided in the company is usually associated with low wages and high demands from workers. Although there is no official data on the Walmart employees’ turnover rate, graph 1 provides the overall turnover rate in the US, with retail being the highest among turnover rate employees. It shows poor conditions and low engagement of workers in retail companies that try to maximize their profit.
Security in Walmart
One of the problems for Walmart’s physical stores is security. The crime in the store is the usual process that leads to revenue loss for the corporation. Cook and May (2020) stated that Walmart faces the highest crime rate in small rural areas of the US, which impacts its sales revenue in these places. There were different attempts to improve security, but Walmart still bears expenditures due to minor crimes.
Sales
Although Walmart faces different challenges, it is still considered a successful retail business model that brings high sales to the company, as shown in Figure 2. However, ethical and moral considerations regarding the issues they create within sales exist. Although sales have significant growth each year, it has no real implication on the working conditions and wages, being beneficial only for the corporation itself. The problem here is the continuous growth that can be interrupted by the decrease in the popularity of Walmart due to poor working conditions and labor exploitation.
Recommendations and Conclusion
Walmart is currently facing several challenges in its development. However, the described issue has one of the most vital roots – poor working conditions. The working conditions that are not protected by labor unions affect Walmart’s whole system – customer service, security, and sales.
To resolve the issue, it is recommended to have both financial and human resources solutions. Raising the wages for the lowest-level workers in retail stores is essential. Enhancing working relationships between managers and employees also implies organizing team-building events and providing communication training. However, together with that, Walmart should create a more viable and friendly environment for these workers to reduce the turnover rate and, in the end, provide better working satisfaction.
References
Aon. (2020). 2020 Salary Increase and Turnover Study [graph], 2nd eds.
Cook A., May D. C. It’s just shoplifting (or is it?): examining court processing of shoplifting before and after the passage of Mississippi House Bill 585. Actual Problems of Economics and Law, 14(3), 571-597. Web.
Ozbun T. (2023). Walmart’s net sales worldwide from the fiscal year 2006 to 2023 [graph]. Statista.
Pandey R., Dillip D., Jayant J., Vashishth K., Nikhil., Qi T.J., Hung Kee D.M., Mei T.C., Xin R.Y., & Qhi L.Y. (2021). Factors influencing organization success: a case study of Walmart. International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality in Asia Pacific, 4(2), 112-123.
Phillips L. & Rozworski M. (2019). The people’s republic of Walmart: How the world’s biggest corporation are laying the foundation for socialism. Verso.