I have yet to walk into a Walmart and receive good customer service; however, their pick up and delivery is outstanding. Well, maybe not outstanding, but it’s great. No matter whether it is a low-income area or a high-income area, never has a Walmart associate asked me “May I help you?”. I always have to chase them down to ask them for help, or for someone who can help me. Once, I was in desperate need of a nose ring retainer for work. I stood at the jewelry counter for thirty minutes waiting on an associate to assist me because the retainers were under lock and key. I purchased two packs; therefore, I won’t have to wait at the jewelry counter any time soon.
Walmart’s uses internal and external recruitment sources. External recruitment sources have the benefit of accessing the labor market to address the human resource management objectives. This combination helps provide Walmart flexibility of satisfying the human resource needs. Walmart’s uses current employees, trainees, and transfers for internal recruitment. Their human resource management supports the promotion of hourly sales employees to managerial positions. More than seventy percent of their managers were promoted within the ranks and started as hourly employees. Walmart’s method of recruitment is through structured interviews and job knowledge evaluations by way of personality tests and situational judgment tests. Their selection criteria depend on the job position (Thompson, 2017).
Walmart’s Current Recruitment Strategy Walmart’s basic criteria for recruitment comprises of education, training, background experience, and the results of a criminal background check. No resume required for hourly employees, just work history. Walmart uses analytical and problem-solving capabilities and conflict management skills for supervisory and managerial positions, and previously used knowledge retention and interpersonal skills for hourly employees as they are in constant contact with customers. Walmart’s most used strategies for recruitment is through advertising on their website and promoting within the organization. What to consider prior to the recruitment process According to Marie August, before recruitment begins, Human Resource Management should think about (August, 2014):
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- Where you advertise a role and by which methods – Walmart’s strategy is to advertise on their website and promote within. My plan would be to hire headhunters and temp agencies to obtain qualified candidates. By using headhunters, Walmart would obtain qualified professional managerial applicants. As for temp agencies, make the employee work for it. Hire them as temps for the first ninety days or so, and if they have received a positive evaluation, offer them a permanent position. This process will weed out the bad and lazy employees, which is almost guaranteed to boost customer service ratings
- How simple it is for individuals to apply – almost anyone can fill out an application or have someone complete it for them. This creates a large amount of applications to sort through looking for qualified candidates and causes the un-necessary waste of revenue. “Employees are your best ambassadors” (August, 2014).
- How they plan to respond to candidates – Walmart uses the indirect method of recruitment, by advertising on their website. However, they use the direct method when it comes to communicating with the chosen candidates. They reach out directly to the candidate and invite them in for an interview. My strategy would be to communicate by email. By checking his/her email daily, shows a sense of responsibility on behalf of the candidate (Application Process Step By Step, 2018).
- The number of interview stages – Walmart holds only one face to face interview. If you do well with the interview, you are offered a position, in contingent upon a positive background check and a negative drug screen. This is a good strategy; however, I would conduct a number of interviews, which would include scenarios to measure good customer service and conduct written test to measure knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) (Application Process Step By Step, 2018).
- Where interviews will be conducted – Walmart hold interviews at their stores. This is a good idea mainly because Walmart stores are already handicap friendly. You have parking up front, electric carts available, and ramped walkways. I would not change a thing in this aspect.
- How will they handle rejected candidates and the final offer of the chosen applicant – According to bloggers, not very well. “You can always call the store an ask, but if you applied for a job position that was currently open at the time of your application, let me save you the trouble and say that you didn’t get it. I know it defies logic, but you cannot apply for open positions at Walmart because the application process is a little backwards. Here is how it works. Store manager or co-manager put in a request (req) for a position that detail what is open and how many people are needed, the job is then listed as open in the application system, the personnel manager drops the req and gets a list of people who have already applied for the job in the past 90 days, those job applicants are called in and interviewed” (How do you check a Walmart job application status?, 2016). I am not sure how true this statement is; however, my strategy would be to mail out rejection letters to those candidates who did not make the cut and place a phone call to those candidates that were chosen to be offered the position.
- 7. How they plan to stay in contact with the new recruit until their start date – By keeping the line of communication open, insures that the employee will keep you abreast of any changes. Changes such as, if another job offer becomes available to the employee, open communication will allow that person to inform you if they decide to accept the other position, instead of just not showing up for work. Recruitment methods utilized to ensure diversity among applicants Diversity at Walmart is greater than race, gender, religion, or disability. It’s about acceptance people who stand for diverse things. People that have different viewpoints and ways of thinking. This type of diversity aids in unlocking an inspired atmosphere. New and diverse concepts can help drive innovation and business growth.
To assure diversity in recruitment, an organization should advertise on popular sites like Indeed, Monster, and Glassdoor. They should offer competitive salaries and benefits. They should advertise a positive work environment. Walmart has more than one and a half million employees of which twenty-two percent are African American, fourteen percent are Hispanic or Latino American, four percent are Asian American, one percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and one percent American Indian or Alaskan Native. Fifty-five percent of all employees are women, which includes forty-three percent in management and thirty-one percent in administration positions (Diversity & Inclusion, 2017). Challenges that might occur during the recruitment process Some of the challenges that may occur during recruitment are finding top talent, streamlining the hiring process, and managing new hire onboarding. Many corporations now offer employee referral program where current personnel are rewarded for referring applicants who are hires by the organization. Outside headhunters or specialized function recruiters are also valuable resources (How to Deal with 3 Common Recruiting Challenges, 2013). Recruiting processes can be simplified and optimized using applicant tracking software.
This type of software can make it easy to post new job openings, check the progress of current applicants, and match candidates to available positions. Using technology in the recruiting process saves valuable time and energy and offers a better hiring experience for recruiters and candidates (How to Deal with 3 Common Recruiting Challenges, 2013). Onboarding can be a hassle. Using today’s technology, an employer can eliminate most of those problems. With recruitment software, once an applicant is hired, their information can be transferred to an HR application. This type of application will allow employers to see their new hires position in their orientation programs with training, which allows the human resource management team to plan training courses and track attendance of employees. With support from the right technology, new hire onboarding can be a smooth process (How to Deal with 3 Common Recruiting Challenges, 2013).
In conclusion, Walmart needs to revamp their recruitment strategy. First by advertising not only on the Walmart website, but on other well-known and popular websites as well in order to capture quality applicants. By offering competitive salaries and benefits will attract well qualified candidates. They should provide intensive customer service training for their employees. Assign employees areas and require them to man those areas until relieved by another employee. Hiring on a temporary basis will weed out the bad employees and allow management to focus on the good employees and offer those that are worthy a permanent opportunity. Walmart has traded its previous training programs with something they refer to as an academy. These academies include a mixture of classroom and on-the-job training and are intended to train department managers and assistant managers to become more customer-focused (Hyken, 2016).
