Walmart Academy is one of the largest employer training programs in the country. The training teaches supervisors and managers skills such as merchandising and how to motivate employees (At Walmart Academy, Training Better Managers. But With a Better Future?). After a few weeks, participants walk across the stage for graduation, and for many of them it’s the first time they have graduated from anything. I wonder if the skills learned at the Academy are actually valuable to the employee as an individual and if they can help them get jobs at similar stores.
There are now more of the various dollar stores than Walmarts (approximately 5 to 1) in the United States (Join the Booming Dollar Store Economy! Low Pay, Long Hours, May Work While Injured). It seems that customers and employees of Walmart and Dollar General are similar in demographic profile.
The typical Dollar General shopper is white, working class... tends to rely on some form of government assistanceand is a supporter of President Trump (The profitable business of selling to the hard-up). It would be useful then, if the skills learned at Walmart gave employees a leg up for jobs at dollar stores, such as Dollar General.
Dollar General has been widely successful due in part to the fact that the store caters to these people who live in rural areas still feeling the effects of the recession (The profitable business of selling to the hard-up). Walmart, on the other hand, faced some backlash from the working class rural for forcing small local businesses to close, and for selling products that weren’t made in America. Walmart Academy may be part of an effort to rebrand the company as one that cares about its people (Walmart Acadmy, Training Better Managers, But With a Better Future?). When compared to Dollar General, it seems like the store does treat its employees better, at least.
...the stingy payroll required by the dollar store business model leaves many employees overworked, underpaid and even injured, according to workers and litigation filed over labor practices. While further promotions await some managers, for many the leadership job they longed for isn’t a road to the middle class so much as a glorified manual labor gig that quickly burns them out. In interviews and court documents, former and current store managers claim major dollar store companies classify them as managers merely to evade overtime obligations and to pay them less money (The profitable business of selling to the hard-up).Some managers at Dollar General
feel no different from the people they supervise, except that their hours are longer. The per-hour pay rate often works out to be roughly equalto those they are managing (Join the Booming Dollar Store Economy! Low Pay, Long Hours, May Work While Injured).
So, it seems that even if one tried to use skills learned at the Walmart Academy to get a job at Dollar General, it would not do him or her much good. Dollar General probably could not care less if its 'mangers' know how to merchandise or motive an employee, as long as they can do the manual labor and keep labor costs down.
Some argue that what both Walmart employees and Dollar General employees really need is higher starting wages. However, others argue,
if the starting wage is too high... employers will be less likely to hire unskilled, inexperienced workers (At Walmart Academy, Training Better Manages. But With a Better Future?).But who would they hire instead; skilled and experienced workers that they have to pay more anyway? I am not sure what it is yet, but something about this feels like a trap. An employee trained at Walmart may be effectively unskilled (or overqualified) for Dollar General's scheme. It seems like higher starting wages are the employees only hope.
Maybe the more important concern is: what leads some white working class people to rely on Walmart for skills training and education opportunities? Is it the failure of some other system: perhaps public education or healthcare? Or a symptom of both upper and lower class whites' tendency to ignore the existence of a white working class? Animus between the white working class and elites, which turns the former off to higher education?
I don't fault Walmart for wanting to train employees and I think there are certainly morale benefits for those employees who complete the program. Walmart is far from the only corporation who has an internal training program, and it may be especially effective given its size and scope.
ReplyDeleteThat said, there is still something especially troubling about Walmart Academy. I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about Walmart's negative publicity for gutting small towns of small businesses and making these towns dependent on Walmart for economic survival. This seems to be a symptom of the shifting labor markets of rural economies more generally. Rural economies are becoming more service-oriented but the service jobs in rural areas are low-skill and low pay. Sure, Walmart employees could go to school but what sense does it make when the costly education doesn't result in higher pay unless you move somewhere else.
At a bare minimum, I just wish there were more diverse job opportunities for people in rural places. It's sad to me that towns can be so dependent on a single corporation to sustain the economic survival of their citizens.
I always find it amusing when corporations like Wal-Mart publicize employee training programs. I believe they genuinely do want to help their employees gain valuable skills. However, any good intentions are almost certainly overshadowed by less noble considerations.
ReplyDeleteFirst, they are looking to train their employees to do a better job at Wal-Mart. By training low-educated employees in retail, service and management skills they are really just creating a class of managers that they can exploit. They will gain skills that do not seem to translate outside of Wal-Mart (or the even lower paid dollar stores). Instead of hiring college educated managers who they would need to train anyways, Wal-Mart can train lower-educated managers and pay them less. Because their skills do not translate, they face little salary competition and can keep wages low.
Second, as you mention, Wal-Mart is looking for a publicity boost. The mean old big box store is now training up the next generation of managers in communities whose local businesses they decimated. The fact that they are publicizing their education efforts makes their intention even more transparent. It almost feels like Donald Sterling donating to the NAACP. In my opinion, it is an act of convenience rather than sincerity.
It seems clear to me that Walmart's training program is a failed effort by the company to re-brand itself as a socially responsible organization. Most people do not see the academy as an actual opportunity to achieve upward social mobility. The 2-6 week training course workers receive through the academy is not relevant to any career outside of the retail industry. And as mentioned in your post, organizations such as Dollar General are not willing to pay more money for "trained employees", as it doesn't help them lower the bottom line. However Walmart does not seem deterred by the lack of utility its service provides. According to the the company it just opened its 100th academy in Edmond, Oklahoma, and plan to open 100 more by the end of 2017. https://blog.walmart.com/opportunity/20170417/what-is-a-walmart-academy-how-theyre-building-confidence-and-careers.
ReplyDeleteThe only value I see in Walmart Academy is that it helps individuals gain some entrepreneurship skills to run their own small business. But for rural communities where capital is restricted and new businesses have a difficult time establishing themselves, entrepreneurship skills are useless.
My first "real job" was as a cashier at Wal-Mart—yes, before it became Walmart. Although I was young and naïve at the time, I detested the way that middle management treated employees, especially the way they would demean employees in front of customers. That made me wonder about the type of training management received. I figured that like every other employee, they viewed a series of videos on a computer, and took a quiz at the end of each video. But I never figured there was such a thing as an Academy.
ReplyDeleteStill, I can see why Walmart would want to provide additional skills to some of its employees through its Academies. (Link 1) In 2014, Walmart store managers made an average of $92,462 per year, which is more than Wholefoods paid its store managers. (Link 2) And that's a hefty sum to pay someone who isn't required to hold a college degree. (Link 3) So it makes sense that Walmart would invest money in training a few of its employees who could be promoted from within.
I'm not sure the benefits a select few accrue outweigh the heavy collateral costs linked to Walmart's lower entry wages, however. In fact, data suggests that "Walmart's low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance." (Link 4) California's share of that cost is estimated at $355.2 million. (Link 5) Thus, I'm skeptical that Walmart Academies, on average, do more good than harm.
On a separate note, I'm troubled by the proliferation of Dollar General-like stores in poor neighborhoods. Although these stores provide a variety of affordable goods, including non-perishable foods, to low-income customers, they also create stiff retail competition for full-service grocery stores. This has led to full-service grocery store closures in rural areas, making healthier foods even less (geographically) accessible to low-income individuals. (Link 6) And there's a racial dimension to this problem as well, since blacks are about four times less likely than whites to "have a supermarket in [their] census tract of residence." (Link 7) I don't doubt the confluence of these factors is aggravating the obesity epidemic.
In short, ALL service sector employees should have affordable access to educational programs that would allow them to promote up at their respective companies. Walmart should redirect the money it spends on its Academies into higher wages for its lower paid positions so that taxpayers aren't indirectly subsidizing the company. And we should encourage low income and working class communities to oppose the uncontrolled proliferation of dollar stores in their communities, while pushing their full-service grocery stores to lower their prices.
Link 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJivCX2sUmc
Link 2: http://time.com/3026504/wal-mart-managers-average-salary-higher-than-starbucks/
Link 3: https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=store%20manager&page=1&sort=rank&jobDepartmentCode=1576543834&expand=brand,department,type,rate&jobCareerArea=all
Link 4: https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/#38d5abe0720b
Link 5: https://americansfortaxfairness.org/files/Walmart-on-Tax-Day-Americans-for-Tax-Fairness-1.pdf
Link 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6IqsG-Iiik
Link 7: http://thefoodtrust.org/uploads/media_items/grocerygap.original.pdf