- Group Discussion 1 - Wal-Mart Socialization
Wal-Mart Socialization - Group Analysis 1 (50 points)
The purpose of this exercise is to analyze Wal-Mart’s onboarding process and identify interventions to improve retention. You will be graded based upon your ability to identify problems and solutions using concepts from the book and articles (e.g., appropriate socialization tactics, outcomes of socialization).
1.1 Read through the two blogs describing Wal-Mart’s socialization process in the attached file below. Based upon this limited information, how would you characterize Wal-Mart’s socialization strategy using the six socialization tactics (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979)? Is Wal-Mart primarily institutional or individual? A mixture of both?
1.2 Next, identify at least two content areas (e.g., things we learn about an organization during socialization) that appear absent in Wal-Mart’s current strategy. Based upon assigned readings (primarily Jex, SHRM, and outcomes of socialization tactics), why would failure to learn these areas lead to premature departure?
1.3 Based upon your assessments and the readings, what are some unique things Wal-Mart might do to reduce the amount of reality shock managers’ experience? How might Wal-Mart encourage newcomers to leverage their unique strengths while also adopting the Wal-Mart way?
Wal-Mart Socialization (50 points)
Group Discussion 1
The purpose of this exercise is to analyze Wal-Mart’s onboarding process and identify possible interventions to improve retention. You will be graded based upon your ability to identify problems and solutions using concepts from the book and articles (e.g., appropriate socialization tactics, outcomes of socialization). It is important you define and use the terms correctly.
1.1 Read through the following two blogs describing Wal-Mart’s socialization process. Based upon this limited information, how would you characterize Wal-Mart’s socialization strategy using the six socialization tactics (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979)? Is Wal-Mart primarily institutional or individual? A mixture of both?
1.2 Next, identify at least two content areas (e.g., things we learn about an organization during socialization) that appear absent in Wal-Mart’s current strategy. Based upon assigned readings (primarily Jex, outcomes of socialization tactics), why would failure to learn these areas lead to premature departure?
1.3 Based upon your assessments and the readings, what are some unique things Wal-Mart might do to reduce the amount of reality shock managers’ experience? How might Wal-Mart encourage newcomers to leverage their unique strengths while also adopting the Wal-Mart way?
Wal-Mart’s Culture Shock
One of the most critical benchmarks of a recently recruited executive’s track record is how well he or she fits into the new organization’s culture. Although newly hired executives may have achieved stellar accomplishments with previous employers, and worked at the “right” companies, their leadership styles, interpersonal skills, and decision-making processes may not mesh well at all with the way their new employers do business.
This is often a fatal mismatch.
Such was most likely the case with Julie Roehm, the former senior vice president of marketing communications for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., who was abruptly fired in December after an 11-month tenure amid allegations of personal and professional misconduct.
A much-acclaimed executive who had established a track record for cutting-edge commercials when recruited away last January from automaker DaimlerChrysler, Roehm had been expected to spearhead a similar resurgence for stodgy Wal-Mart by adding glitz to an advertising strategy that focused primarily on price-cutting smiley faces and downscale merchandise. However, her unconventional management style, combined with her risqué advertising methods, ultimately matched neither Wal-Mart’s folksy organizational culture nor family and bargain-oriented core customer base.
In hiring Roehm and adopting such a marketing strategy, Wal-Mart was intentionally stretching the limits of “cultural fit” in an effort to shake up both its culture and image. But subsequent allegations that Roehm accepted gifts from clients and engaged in a relationship with a colleague violated company prohibitions, and hastened Wal-Mart’s “organ rejection” of her.
Whatever the true story behind such accusations, executive recruiters generally agree that she and Wal-Mart were a bad match from the start.
Lack of “cultural fit” is by far the biggest reason why so many newly recruited executives fail in their new jobs. Usually, the hiring company shares as much of the blame for the mismatch as the ousted executive.
Companies may be unrealistic about their true organizational culture and customer base, and how suddenly introduced dramatic changes might be received. In the case of Roehm, it’s possible that those who hired her mistakenly believed results are all that would matter, and that the means she would employ to achieve them would be irrelevant. When Wal-Mart failed to achieve the sales turnaround it had been anticipating from this radically different strategy—and saw its critical “same-store sales” indicator actually decline slightly in November—things began to unravel quickly.
From the outside looking in, Roehm seemed to possess a management style that mirrored her marketing and advertising approach – unconventional, highly creative, and aggressive. This style seems to be in direct contrast to values that others in the Wal-Mart organization prize most—a sense of family where coworkers are called “associates,” and a culture where “rocking the boat” is not in the corporate vocabulary. One has to wonder whether she and the organization took the time to build the consensus with bosses, colleagues, and subordinates that is so critical in the initial “onboarding” process.
Adding a new executive to your company’s senior team from outside the organization is never easy. Predictably, many companies and new hires consider the recruitment process finished when the new executive arrives for his or her first day of work. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, cultural fit and executive assimilation involves much more art than science—and needs to be built in to the recruitment process from the very beginning.
Here are some critical factors and strategies that can be used by companies to enhance the success of their newly recruited managers and executives:
Being realistic about their organization’s culture, and allowing their executive search firm to get to know it. The best way to evaluate cultural fit is to be sure the search firm has the opportunity to meet with and experience many executives in a variety of environments. Let them sit in on a sales meeting or planning session. Allow them to interview people in the organization who are "stars,” regardless of their functions, as well as talk to a few people who did not succeed in the company. Also, ask executives who have recently joined your company to describe the culture to you, and the experience of joining the company. They will likely have a more accurate view of your culture than you do.
Don’t just look at what candidates did. Look at how they achieved it. While you would never want to downplay an executive’s ability to achieve results, you need to understand how he or she gets them. A sales leader who hits100% of his or her target on a yearly basis—but has a turnover rate 40% above the industry average because he or she manages by intimidation—may or may not be the person you want running your sales organization.
A strong on-boarding process will help newly recruited executives during their first months on the job. New executives need access and exposure to the organization's leaders in a variety of settings. They need mentors or guides to help them understand what is going on in the company, and to help "interpret" what they see and experience.
A comprehensive on-boarding process will significantly decrease the ramp-up time and can turn a potential hiring mistake into a key contributor to your leadership team.
Source: http://www.amanet.org/training/articles/Wal-Marts-Culture-Shock.aspx
How Wal-Mart Trains Managers
Brave walmart workers say fear is the main thing stopping their fellow retail workers from organizing. As an assistant store manager at Walmart, I saw how managers were trained to put that fear into hourly workers’ heads.
When I was hired four years ago, new assistant managers had to complete eight weeks of training. We got a $500 prepaid credit card for meals and were thrown into a hotel, with weekends off to go home.
I thought we would get a crash course in Walmart history and then get into learning the computer systems, the policies, how to schedule people. I was far off track. I was now in an eight-week indoctrination into how Walmart is the unsurpassed company to work for, and how to spot any employee who was having doubts. I was supposed to be happy at all times.
The training was done at “Stores of Learning.” The assistant managers were new hires to Walmart, like me, or about one-third had been promoted from within.
Training activities included the Walmart cheer. Every morning, as store associates do, we would participate in the cheer. A few people stood up to read the daily numbers, then break out into a chant—“Give me a W-A-L-M-A-R-T,” with the rest of the people in the room shouting back the same letter. Back then, Wal-Mart still had a hyphen, so between the L and the M they would yell, “Give me a squiggly!” and everyone would do a butt wiggle.
Whenever it was my turn to lead, let’s just say I was less than thrilled, an early warning system for upper management on who was not Walmart material.
You, Too, Can Rise
Most days we watched videos of the CEO telling us what a good choice we’d made to come to Walmart. Other videos showed folks who are now top management in Bentonville, Arkansas, but started out as a cashier when they were young.
We were all given Sam Walton’s book to read: Sam Walton: Made in America. We were allotted 15 to 30 minutes a day for silent reading, or instead you could help out in the store. I was one of the few that chose to fetch carts in the parking lot or help throw freight around in the back. Since the Store of Learning was also going to be the store I would work at, I wanted to take the opportunity to get to know the workers and other managers. I wanted to see if anybody could tell me what an assistant manager’s role was, considering there wasn’t much of that going on in the classroom.
We had a week-long schedule of anti-union sessions. They didn’t call them that, but essentially it was how to spot uprising employees.
We had an entire day devoted to word phrasing, looking at how employees use words and what key words to look for. A computer test consisted of a “what’s wrong with this picture?” game. You were shown the area near a time clock, and different handmade and computer-made signs. One sign said “Baby shower committee meeting Jan. 26, 8 pm.” Another said “Potluck Wednesday all day in break room.” Which one of those signs should raise alarms with management?
“Baby shower committee.” Because of the word “committee,” a manager would have to find the person who made the sign, find out why they used that word, then determine if the action got a warning or a write-up. If it was the store manager who found the sign, a write-up was almost guaranteed. They called it unlawful Walmart language, unbecoming a Walmart employee—words like “committee,” “organize,” “meeting.” Even “volunteer” was an iffy word, and they would raise an eyebrow at “group.”
The anti-union training was the biggest part of our reading and training material. We watched videos about why unions are bad and how proud Walmart was for not allowing unions into its system. I let all that go in one ear and out the other. I felt that if I gave those videos even five minute’s worth of attention, I was betraying my union parents.
We did get a day and a half of loss-prevention training; how to spot shoplifters, what happens if you catch an employee stealing, and routine loss-prevention. They brought in a loss-prevention district manager whose 30-minute talk was to put the fear of Sam Walton in us. He told the class that if he found out we let anything fall through the cracks, he would show up at the store with a pink slip in hand.
Nothing from that eight weeks of brainwashing was geared to help you do your job as an assistant manager. Essentially it was more of a police academy, training the managers to be police officers for Walmart. We were being trained to put fear into the hourly workers’ heads. Step out of line, and you lose your job.
After graduating (they held a makeshift ceremony), I had no clue what exactly my job was. I had to learn from the other assistant managers in my store how to operate the scanner, how to schedule my departments, and the other operational items that weren’t covered in the training. The only thing I learned was how to fake being happy around customers and my subordinates.
Segregation
The trainers told us that assistant managers are only allowed to hang out or go to break or lunch with other assistant managers, not with hourly associates, not with co-managers, not the store manager. Once I was on the job, half the time I went to a diner with another assistant manager. If I stayed in for lunch, I would turn my walkie-talkie off, sit in the break room with the associates, and talk with them. That was frowned upon.
One day of training was about attire. There were separate rules for dress policy according to job title. Assistant managers and higher have to wear a collared blue shirt. No collar, no job.
Hourly people get a little more free play and are not required to wear a collar shirt. Management has to wear khakis; hourly can wear jeans. I heard one trainer say, “Well, the hourly folks probably can’t afford khakis, even with their discount.”
How anti-union is Walmart? I wore a UAW jacket that my mom had bought for me. When I wore it into the store, the store manager broke into my locker and took it. He said it would encourage others, and I was written up for conduct unbecoming a Walmart employee. I called Human Resources, but I got nowhere. Walmart says they have an open-door policy, but like other members have testified, it’s closed to most of us.
Prior to my employment with the largest retailer in the world, I worked for a union-friendly Midwest competitor, in the same management position. The differences were amazing. It was nothing for me as a manager to go out for a few beers with my people. At the competitor, the hourly workers are union. As a manager, it’s a breeze to write out your weekly schedules when you follow the contract!
Source: http://labornotes.org/blogs/2011/08/how-walmart-trains-managers
