One More Reason Not to Shop at Wal-Mart

I know people who want to work part time and would be excited to work peak shopping hours allowing them flexible time for family. Before one makes rash judgments about Wal-Mart's scheduling of people one should see how the workers react to it. They might welcome it. Not everyone wants to work straight 8 hour shifts.

Yes, let's see how the the workers react to it.

Too many people are bashing Wal-Mart for their practices. What people don't realize is that a lot of people would be in a heap of trouble WITHOUT Wal-Mart. The company provides the cheapest prices possible. Many struggling families are scraping the bottom of the barrel even with the low prices. What would happen to them without Wal-Mart? And there are many smaller, even privately owned businesses who treat their employees much worse but don't get bashed for it simply because they are not huge like Wally World. Personally, I shop there. I will continue to shop there. Is it my favorite environment??? No. But you can't beat their prices. I don't live in poverty and I STILL can use those savings. If people don't like the working conditions, then look for another job. You know, through all of this I really don't hear any Wal-Mart employees complaining. I just hear the bleeding hearts of people who have too much money in their pockets to worry about anything else... like how they are going to feed their kid because their checking account has $1.36 in it.

Right you are Amy. There are certainly many reasons for shopping at Wal-Mart. Each person has to weigh their decision based on their situation and their values. Wouldn't it be great if Wal-Mart could offer low prices and also treat their employee and suppliers well? Thanks for bringing balance to the discussion.

Where would we be without WalMart? Perhaps shopping somewhere that values quality of product as much as Cheap prices. Maybe we'd all learn to consume a little less. The thing that makes the "WalMart helps the poor folks" argument a little hard to swallow is the fact that they stock items like big screen tvs. Our greed / perception of what we "need" to get by in this country has usurped our decency and compassion for people. I'd rather pay an extra $.25 for my toilet paper and feel that the person selling it to me is getting treated like a human being... and that they can afford to buy their own toilet paper.

To be upfront, I happen to be associated with Asgard Systems, who are publishers of employee scheduling software. We are not the suppliers of Wal-Mart’s employee scheduling software and are unaware of what product they are using.

Even if Wal-Mart (or any employer) used a pencil and paper to produce their employee schedules, they might still implement policies and procedures that could be viewed as promoting their own corporate interests. The promotional literature that we provide regarding our product, does directly address organizational scheduling needs.

However, such needs include taking the employees personal life into perspective as well. An example is the priority given to personal conflicting events such as night school, taking care of sick parents, weddings etc. Such issues are promoted at our website (www.asgardsystems.com), in our free trial version and our instructional movies. I am very pleased to say that, most employers express the need of having to contend with the humanistic aspects of managing an organization. Their needs dictate our products design. In the end it really is about how management elects to use any tool that counts.

I found a ten dollar electric toaster at Wal-Mart the other day- with a five dollar rebate coupon attached.

A five dollar electrical toaster may not seem like a problem at first, but after some thought I realized that low priced Chinese goods manufactured using incredibly underpaid workers is helping to preserve some semblance of buying power to the lower classes who are not being given raises for their work.

And, were that not enough to make one angry, that very toaster is produced in Chinese factories which hold environmental impact in low regard.

Somehow, I just feel that middle class is fast disappearing into a massive lower class with each new gain in productivity at Wal-Mart and it's trading partner, China.

I remember life before WalMart. Product quality was poor and when you complained to the store you were told to send it to the manufacturer. There was no (or very little) over-the-counter exchange. This was the one item that set WalMart apart in the beginning - CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. They set the example that most retailers follow today.

There were few selections to choose from as well. You bought only what the store had in stock and special orders or different sizes took weeks to get. If you wanted clothes, you went to a clothing store, hardware - a hardware store, appliances - an appliance store, etc. You paid a premium and spent the day driving between stores. WalMart brought products to rural America that were previously unavailable. I had to drive 60 miles to purchase some things that are now available locally. Can you imagine the additional cost of gas today? Most of the people I hear complaining aren't old enough to remember.

In addition, prices were high in relation to wages. Lay-a-way was commonplace.

One more item...
Why do we not hear the same complaints about Target, K-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot and others? They all have the same or similar practices and suppliers.

Firstly, I'm a big fan of Wal-Mart and I fully intend to keep shopping at their stores for certain items.

Many of the points raised in the commentaries above are fantastic and valid. However I would like to add.

That from my observations many of the Wal-Mart suppliers now appear to have double standard, a wal-mart product and a general market product both look the same but are very different in terms of quality. With the Wal-Mart product being of a much lesser quality. I've now started to shop at several different stores to find the best deals for items based on a price quality trade off.

Unfortunate I've had to stop buying certain products at Wal-Mart due to the disparity in product quality.

However I wish that many of the Chinese suppliers could supply directly to me. After watching a PBS documentary that highlighted the fact that the actual price of any product is about 10% of the retail price. You can't get away with this type of profit margin if your selling B2B thats for sure.

Re: Walmart's "optimization" and fine-tuning of hourly-worker schedules. I stumbled onto this site while doing research on Haier (the Chinese white-goods maker); thus, this comment is from a non-professional, non-academician. Back in 1987, I held two jobs, a full-time hotel night-audit job, supplemented by a week-end part-time job at (of all places) Wendy's. Even 20 years ago, "gemba" burger managers ran register tape reports, every hour on the hour. Because I lived out in the country back then, I had a 30-minute drive to get to my two jobs (which were co-located). I drove in to Wendy's one Saturday to report for work at 3:00 pm, as I had been scheduled. Upon walking in the door, my manager appeared and said, "I ran a tape report; the numbers are low, so you don't have to work this shift if you don't want to. I tried to call you a few minutes ago but I only got your answering machine." I was furious because it was true, I didn't want to work the shift (who wants to work a shift at Wendy's, for God's sake?). I told her, "If you had called me in the morning, I wouldn't have driven in. As it is, I've spent as much money on gas just coming in as I'll be making for my whole shift." By that time, my anger had really kicked in and I added, "As a matter of fact, I tell you what. I quit, and that way this problem won't come up again." Walking away from what was, at that time, a $3.35-per-hour minimum-wage job probably helped rather than hurt my finances. But I can't help but think that Walmart is going the same way, and at some point, it's attempt to institute all this "Lean" philosophy will invite Congressional regulation, ultimately impeding implementation of Lean principles...which I would assume is counter-productive to the philosophy. And of course, assuming you need workers with some semblance of education and ability, having them line up like day laborers waiting to see if they will get to work that day or not will lead to exactly that: your employees will be day laborers, with all the connotations associated therewith...

If Wal-Mart sold quality products, and offered decent wages/benefits, you might not fault them for this sort of dynamic resourcing over the course of the day. After all, many other businesses do this, namely restaurants (not just Wendy's). What I cannot excuse is that Wal-Mart is propagating poverty not only in their underpaid employees, but in those who buy their cheap products. 30 to 90 days is our expectation of quality when we get something cheap at Wal-Mart (the $5 toaster), and we are not surprised AT ALL when it breaks. If it has been more than a few weeks, we are likely to just buy another one. People are not taught, let alone given the chance, to invest a bit more in something that will last their lifetime. Maybe even pass on from generation to generation. To me, this speaks to the very existence of Wal-Mart, and is a worse crime than utilizing resources only when you need them.

My thoughts go two ways on this issue.

1. I agree that software has gotten out of control over the last decade. First it was the .com boom and then it was the "I can do anything with software" boom. The later of the two has yielded tremendous discoveries, but has also presented us with an enormous amount of graphs, charts and diagrams that take days to figure out, and really deliver very little additional value.

So Wal-Mart spending millions of dollars to implement a system, that could be done via some intelligent analysis of business flow, and a whiteboard (I liked that reference); certainly makes this seem like over kill.

2. On the other hand, employee scheduling software when done correctly can lead to increased speed and efficiency. Which as an end result, eliminates time managers spend toiling over an employee schedule, and instead puts them back out on the floor managing people, interacting with customers, and most of all, helping greet everyone with a nice big smile and "Welcome to Wal-Mart.