Table of Contents
Introduction
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is a public corporation in America that runs huge discounts stores and warehouses in many of the large cities across America. Forbes Global named Wal-Mart as the largest public corporation by revenue for the year. It is also recognized as the biggest private employer among the public corporation. Wal-Mart has been criticized from the staffing perspective because critics argue that it does not provide a growth opportunity. It has also been found out that the provision of more and better staffing to all the stores has improved the growth of the corporation. Shrinkage has been considered as the major issue that need to addressed in order to have a better staffing strategy. There has been a disparity on how men and women employees are treated in company. This paper will discuss some of these issues in relation to statistics. The paper will also consider whether it is worth for the managers to address these issues.
Wal-Mart’s Workforce
There were 930, 000 people working for Wal-Mart stores in the United States by the year 2001. This was a 50% increase in employees from the year 2001. However, even after the number of employees increased, the number of female employees fell from 67% to 64% (Konrad & Mark, 2004). This issue was considered by the managers as a serious case because of the sheer in the work force and the implications it had on the financial position of the company. The staffing issue was also considered to be critical by analysts because the salaries were approximated to be equivalent to the total operating, administrative and general expenses. Wal-Mart workforce is composed of retail stores employees who are either paid on hourly basis or salaried. There are also managerial employees who are in charge of different regions of operations starting from store managers to regional vice-presidents.
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The acceptable hiring practices prior to the implementation of title VII
Wal-Mart’s People Division had the responsibility of formulation of the human resources policies and any other issue related to employment. The Executive Vice President (EVP) was responsible of overseeing the committee that was undertaking the recruitment process. Before the implementation of the Part VII, women employees of Wal-Mart did not benefit from the basic benefits of working like training, promotion and equal pays with their male counterparts. In 2003, one of the executive vice presidents was interested in determining how Wal-Mart performed in terms of employment. A survey conducted by the People Division to find out about this issue found out that the men were paid better salaries than women. It was established that the number of men employees was far much above that of women. Wal-Mart considered men employees as being useful resource in the human resource sector. Another major policy that Wal-Mart had employed in its hiring process was to reduce the number of full time employees and turn them into part time workers who were paid on hourly basis (Konrad & Mark, 2004).
The issue of gender equality today
The last few decades have seen the reduced discrimination of women Wal-Mart Workers. The Human Rights Campaigns Corporate Equity Index carried out by Wal-Mart in 2006 indicated that the figure had gone down. The figure has gone from 14% in 2002 to 65% in 2006. This has been attributed to antidiscrimination policies that protect the rights of gays, lesbians and women workers. On family matters, the policies treat both parents as equal partners in the family and therefore their salary should be unified.
Gender representation
Wal-Mart has recognized the need of diversity in work. According to Konrad & Mark, (2004), “this arose after the draft policy on the ‘A Call for Action: Diversity in the Legal Profession was adopted”. This draft law intended to challenge corporations and law firms that did not considered hiring women and minority groups. These corporations were expected to end their relationship with companies that were not willing to diversify their human resource departments. Wal-Mart was one of the 95 companies that signed up on the A Call to Action website. In 2005, Wal-Mart announced that at least one woman and one person of different color to be included in the list of the top five attorneys responsible of overseeing its business. In 2006, there were about seven Business Resource Groups representing: African-Americans, Asians, women, gays and lesbians and the disabled (Konrad & Mark, 2004).
Salary equitability based on job performance and or seniority
A survey conducted in 2001 indicated that women received a lower pay than men. For instance, there were 39 regional vice presidents; out of these only 10 percent was female and the average earnings in United States dollars for male and female was 419 435 and 279, 772 respectively. The same survey also established that there were 508 district managers; 9.8 percent were women and the average salary of male to female was 239, 518 and 177,149 respectively. Current statistic by the United States bureau of statistics indicates that the salary gap between the two genders has remained stagnant for a long period of time. The female employees earn 77 percent of what their male counterpart earn. This figure has risen from 59 percents forty years ago. However, women employees at Wal-Mart have shown interest in holding senior positions at the company. The salary gap still exists irrespective of the level of performance.
Recommendations
Wal-Mart managers are supposed to address the issue of the differing statistics. The professional employers have proved to be effective in their works irrespective of gender. This calls for them to be rewarded uniformly. Wal-Mart should specify the number of positions to be specified by the female employees and ensure that the recruitment guidelines are observed. In matters of salary, the women employees should not be discriminated as long as they have the same duties as their men co-workers.