Interview information
To complete the study, I engaged Eric Snieski, who is the Vice President Human Resource at Walmart Inc. through a phone interview. Serving as a vice president human resource department is vital because he helps employees to be happy and create a conducive environment for them to work. Furthermore, his role in the company plays an essential role in promoting corporate culture for all the stakeholders. Therefore, his role is critical because to achieve a good corporate culture the ethics and integrity of all stakeholders must be upheld. It is essential for the company to achieve effective customer engagement because it facilitates the organization to be more productive. The interview involved a structured format with multiple questions that the students had to answer that would help in understanding how Walmart upholds integrity and ethics towards stakeholders. The interview took place via a Zoom call that lasted for 20 minutes, which started at 9.00 A.M.
Summary of interview notes
The interview aimed at evaluating how the company builds and maintains integrity and ethics among different stakeholder, which led me to ask Eric Snieski some questions revolving around the issue. Eric Snieski expressed that the company demonstrated its commitment in engaging in all duties and responsibilities responsible for enhancing the relationships they share with their stakeholders. They do this because they acknowledge the importance of stakeholders in enhancing continued growth of the organization and achieving intended objectives and growth. Consequently, the company has laid down strategies that intends to improve the working environment for their workforce and motivating them through fair compensation and other incentives (Talaulicar, 2009). Such measures are vital because they help the human resource department in achieving employee satisfaction, which plays an essential role in enabling the company achieve customer satisfaction. Moreover, Walmart management has designed its corporate culture to be in such a way that it achieves customer satisfaction and creates a good relationship between the company and its executives. The management also recognizes the role of effective communication in stakeholder engagement including shareholders and members of community and works towards achieving a successful engagement between the two parties.
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Walmart also runs an ethics compliance program that collaborates with the board of governors in establishing new goals concerning the ethics and compliance program in the organization. Furthermore, the members assigned the role of running the program collects relevant information from all the stakeholders and help to establish whether the company faces some emerging issues concerning ethics and integrity of the organization. The committee helps in analyzing data and advising the board of directors when making decisions likely to influence stakeholders in any way. Furthermore, the ethics program ensures that it provides training programs to its associates intended at achieving career growth and development an aspect that enhances satisfaction among employees.
The management recognizes the importance of corporate social responsibility within the organization, which led to the establishment of a CSR policy aimed at promoting company engagement in community activities. The mission of the CSR policy is using the company’s strengths in making a difference among various members of a society. The company believes that engaging in such activities give rise to projects that are not only beneficial to the society alone, but also to the operations of the company. The mission of the company is to integrate CSR practices into its core businesses, strengths, and also enhances stakeholder engagement. Examples of CSR projects initiated by Walmart include the integration of 100% renewable energy in all stores where the company operates (Armstrong & Green, 2013). Furthermore, the company has also initiated a project where it creates zero waste in its operation, aimed at contributing to conservation of the environment. The company also focuses working with suppliers committed at manufacturing products that will enhance conservation of the environment. The company has also contributed to multiple projects that target to solve specific challenges in a given community.
Bulleted points of additional research
Based on the responses acquired from the interview as demonstrated above, Walmart has performed extremely well in promoting ethics and compliance within the organization. However, building and maintaining integrity in an organization is diverse and involves a wide range of practices. For instance, a company must have an effective hiring process that has capability to recruit individuals that share the vision and mission of the company. Such a strategy will enable the management to only hire individuals that will fit in the company’s corporate culture. Furthermore, the firm must also establish a good communication strategy that will enable all stakeholders to share their opinions freely without intimidation. Hence, each of the stakeholder must understand the importance of different aspects of effective communication like active listening and giving feedback. Organizational values are also vital in promoting integrity and ethics within an organization and influence the conduct of stakeholders based on the laid down corporate culture. Examples of essential values that promote the well-being and outlook of an organization include respect, trust, accountability, and practicing honesty. Furthermore, it is essential to understand employees play an essential role in facilitating the success of an organization and the overall attitude of other stakeholders associated with the company. Achieving employee satisfaction involves different strategies that include promotions, salaries, incentives, and conducive work environments. It is essential to note that when any of these attributes lack, it is possible that employees will not achieve satisfaction. Finally, the management plays an essential role in creating a foundation of integrity in an organization. If the management engages in unethical practices, it is possible that the rest of the stakeholders will adapt them and make them part of their organizational culture. Therefore, leaders must take the leading role in engaging in practices that promotes ethics and integrity within the firm.
Outline of recommendations
It is evident that there are several strategies that organizations can adapt and make them part of the company’s corporate culture aimed at pursuing ethics and integrity. Some recommendations that can help in enhancing what Walmart is already doing include checking the plight of its employees. While the company has done much in enhancing the welfare of its employees, it has also largely failed on the issue of compensation. The company pays its employee’s low wages compared to its competitors, which is likely to influence employee satisfaction. The HR department should consider increasing the salary range since such a measure will reduce turnover rate among employees and also reduce the amount used by the organization in facilitating training programs for its employees. Furthermore, the company should also adapt values that will help in promoting a healthy corporate culture within the organization such as accountability, respect, and honest. Furthermore, the company should also enhance its CSR programs such that they connect more with their customers and reach more communities globally given that their customers are all over the globe.
Final Project Check-In
I chose Walmart in completing this project because the company operates across the globe and it seemed interesting to determine how well the company relates with its stakeholders who are spread all over. Furthermore, even though the company experiences challenges due to the high turnover rate among its employees, there are no other complaints concerning stakeholder engagement experienced from the organization. The interview targets to evaluate how the management does to ensure that the company observes ethic and integrity aimed at achieving satisfaction among all the involved parties. Furthermore, the interview focused on identifying challenges experienced in the organization related to ethics and integrity among its stakeholders. It was critical to collect adequate information that would later help in determining possible recommendations that would help Walmart to improve stakeholder engagement and its productivity by promoting ethics and integrity.
I interviewed Eric Snieski who works as the Vice President Human Resource Department at Walmart. I preferred to engage an individual working in the HR department because they have the sole responsibility of determining the corporate culture in an organization and oversee engagements between different stakeholders in an organization. Subsequently, Eric was better positioned to provide the nature of information required in completing the project. Alternatively, I also considered information available on journals and credible websites on the practices that organization should engage in to achieve ethics and integrity within the company. The information acquired from other sources was essential in evaluating the performance of Walmart in implementing ethics and integrity within the company.
References
Armstrong, J. S., & Green, K. C. (2013). Effects of corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility policies. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1922–1927. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.02.014
Talaulicar, T. (2009). Global retailers and their corporate codes of ethics: the case of Wal-Mart in Germany. The Service Industries Journal, 29(1), 47–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642060802116388
