The supermarket giant, Walmart, has steadily been establishing itself as the top retailer in the industry. However, in terms of optics, things have not been looking too good for the retailer recently.
A boycott of the retailer is currently underway and it is expected to last for a full week, from April 7 to April 14. This movement has been organized by The People’s Union USA and is aimed highlighting the importance of making conscious choices about how and where you spend your money as a consumer. This is the second boycott of its kind against Walmart since the year began, with the first stemming from consumer and shareholder outrage after the retailer distanced itself from all DEI policies.
The retailer has since issued a statement regarding this boycott, the main gist of which reiterated the company’s commitment to earning its business from Americans.
The retailer also made the decision to shutter some of its underperforming stores at the end of last year and perhaps an amalgamation of all of these issues caused a dip in employee morale. In the hopes of aiding this, the company recently announced that employees — though mostly those in managerial positions — would be receiving pay raises.
Walmart employees now earn more
Walmart CEO John Furner decided that the most appropriate way to show his employees appreciation would be with a pay raise and as a result, it was announced late last year that employees in higher managerial positions could earn up to $620,000 annually.
“What we did last year was make managers feel like owners,” Furner explained recently at a retail and consumer conference. “This includes shareholding, which has positively impacted their approach to the company’s profits and losses.”
When working in a giant corporation such as Walmart, it could be quick easy to get lost in the chaos of it all as you become just another cog in the machine. As such, these pay hikes are aimed at “combatting supervisor attrition and disengagement.”
During the pandemic, the retailer was faced with retention due to fighting turnover and manager shortages and now that things have once again stabilized for the company, the managers across the nation now get to enjoy a pay bump that will have them earning between $420,000 and $620,000 which came into effect this January.
Now, the average base pay has been increased from $130,000 to $160,000. The remainder of the total earnable amount is made up of stock options and annual bonuses.
“This is the latest wage investment in our people,” Walmart spokesperson Anne Hatfield said to Fortune. “This has been a yearslong journey with increases in hourly pay that started in 2015.”
This move could be viewed as a bet on culture on the company’s part when you consider the 4,000 store managers nationwide, who make up a fraction of the whopping 1.6 million total of employees. This bet is proving successful for the $689 billion retailer who snagged first place on the Fortune 500, in addition to being named on Fortune’s Best Companies To Work For list two years in a row for 2024 and 2025.
The importance of good pay and raises
Whilst benefits like generous PTO or flashy office amenities are good way to boost day-to-day morale, at the end of the day what workers, and even CEOs for that matter, want is more cash. According to a 2024 report from BambooHR, if a higher paycheck was offered by another company, around 73% of workers would leave their current employment.
Additionally, it was stated that around 40% of employees have not received a salary raise in the last year.
Inflation rates are skyrocketing and cost of living expenses continue to increase whilst salaries seems to remain stagnant so it is truly not surprising that more money would sway employees.
“The cost of getting compensation wrong is easily realized in multiples later,” Kelsey Tarp, director of HR business partners at BambooHR, stated.
“When employers need to go to market for talent, they might find the salary ranges to be inadequate to attract the talent that is needed; there is wage compression to address—all of which will be more costly in the long run.”