Thread regarding Walmart layoffs

Well said.

The drivers behind the intense remodeling and investment in stores are an outcome of not investing in the customer experience and leaning too heavily on price as the 1st priority. It can be hard to visualize Amazon and other DTC players as real threats, as they have no physical locations and NWA is such a prosperous area. However, all the signs are there. Amazon is growing over 20% annually, and the customer is shifting to ecommerce and has been doing so for some time.

WMT has the cash flow to fund the ecommerce, logistics, and IT investments. It may require some reduction in share repurchases to get there, however, given the fact that WMT paid cash for the Jet.com acquisition, I believe the company is on solid footing. At the end of the day, this comes down to the quality of management. Can the company innovate and execute fast enough to reposition the company to deliver a sustainable competitive advantage? I believe the foundation and recognition is there. That "spark" just needs to shine through.

Thanks 2wcg, I agree, I've heard the same comments about what we could do or not do, and all the assorted excuses including no money to make changes. Yet money gets spent in other areas with no analysis, analysis would have shown not to spend the money. I agree with you too about management needing to hold people accountable. In my area we have people who work hard, and we have slackers. The Sr. Director does not hold the slackers responsible for anything, instead he loads up the hard workers with even more work. When leadership doesn't hold people responsible the good people who work hard look to leave, there is no incentive to stay. Bad leadership needs to go.

2rb1,

This stuff has gone on for years. From director up, you have people say how you can't do such and such because (insert a thousand excuses). Then they turn around and blame their direct reports for stagnation. And then upper management believes it and has this attitude that the company has bad talent.

No. What the company has is bad managers and a void of real leadership.

Folks Brought up for YEARS how bad we were behind on dotcom.

We brought up Aldi and the Dollar channel.

We brought up infrastructure and technology.

We brought up how we were falling behind in logistics.

We were told to know our place and that there was no money for these things.

While we are airing out the opinions of the peons, here are some more opinions.

We need to get rid of the bad managers and VPs. But don't confuse the managers holding people accountable with bad managers. Two different things and I've seen that confused.

We need to move faster on improving infrastructure. Particularly logistics.

We still have a long way to go on store standards. A LONG way.

Close more underperforming locations.

Customer service is still subpar.

We still have work to do on our website. I tried to search for a wrench on there a week ago and I got tons of unrelated results.

Improve the quality of our merchandise in certain areas of the store.

Learn not to say, "We can't do that" whenever someone makes a suggestion. Hear people out. If our competitors are figuring it out maybe we should put some thought behind it.

Move faster to compete with the market. Our EDLP heritage is paramount.

Just thoughts from a peon.

For the person posting about Walmart keeping people at the Sr. Director/VP level people around forever (great post, btw), and not weeding out poor performers, why is that? Why does the company keep these people? We used to joke that they must keep their jobs because they have pictures or dirt on someone.

It's fine that people have been with Walmart forever, but what isn't fine is that some of them are poor performers with zero leadership skills, whose failings are compounded by never having kept up with industry relevant technology. I am not talking about ISD, rather, other areas of the company where AI and other technologies should be utilized and aren't. Honestly, when talking with some of these Sr. Directors you can tell they are stuck in the early 1990s when they began their career with Walmart out of high school. They talk about the way they've always done it, or talk about recently adopted concepts as if they are innovative, when in actuality they've been in place since the early 80s. Where would eCommerce be today if the original players were still running the show, those that weren't willing to act on online earlier, and adopt the technology needed. Rather, talking about it like it's just a passing fad??? That is the equivalent which is going on in other areas, people running things who are the antithesis of innovators.

The scary part is there is an idea that bringing in vendors or outsourced partners will solve things. It won't change unless the vendor partner, or a new leader is put in charge. Vendors are too afraid to speak up and tell these entrenched leaders that the way they do things is so antiquated it's beyond ridiculous, and not even worth talking about. Frankly, some leadership lack the brain power, education and background to keep up with the conversation. So instead, vendors have to play along with the foolishness and nothing gets done. It's like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes.

The associates who come in from the outside and are put under these entrenched Sr. Directors, they can't change anything, they don't stand a chance. Speaking up only gets them in trouble. Back to the original question, why do the longtimers get to stay?

I laughed so hard about the example of someone from merchandising heading up HR. Gee. Wonder who that would be.

They really don't hire very much from the outside, period, for upper management roles. Most everyone from the Sr. Director/VP level and up has been around forever, and rather than weed out the poor leaders among them, they just reshuffle them into different positions every now and then. And all regardless of whether they actually have the skills and experience to lead in a particular area (or ANY area). That's how we end up with absurdities like someone from, say, merchandising suddenly heading up HR or something like that. It's a revolving door of incompetence.

I think the message being sent right now is don't plan on building a career at Walmart.

Also think the new slogan should be "Laying our people off makes the difference."

Yeah. I have to say that they don't do diversity hires at the very top where leadership actually calls the shots.

But other than that, the part about all the churn and the ditch to ditch is true.

Why don't you point out the fact that the "Diversity Hires" were not the ones in leadership who ignored Amazon and allowed WMT to get behind in Ecommerce where the customer is headed? And with a pristine balance sheet and high cash flows, WMT has no excuses for getting behind.

^ Can we get and Amen?!!!

Well said! WM is clearly not the same company it was 20, 10 or even 5 years ago! With the exception of McMillion (who is clearly in over his head), every officer goes to work, knowing that they will only serve 1-3 years, 5 max. And what happens when leadership only cares about the short-term? Cuts, reorgs that make -0- sense, huge investments in crap technology or procedures, sociopathic-level empathy for associates, and (saving the best for last) ditch-to-ditch planning. Just look at the stupid investment WM made in small-town Neighborhood Markets? Anyone with at least 5% of a brain could have told you that was a fools errand; but did "they" listen? Of course not, because Ivy Leage MBA's and "Diversity Hires" know more than we do, right?? By the time the chickens come home to roost, these "corporate saints" will be on to the next company, and will wreck it the same way they wrecked Walmart (something about doing the same thing, over and over again and expecting a different result immediately comes to mind)!