Situation Description
Walmart is one of the leading retail gurus, as seen from a global perspective. The company has over 2.2 million employees and over 11,500 branches located in 27 different countries under different banners. The headquarter of Walmart is located in Bentonville, Arkansas, in the United States. Due to a solid customer base, Walmart has over the recent past dominated the retail market, a move that has also been aided by the reputable name. Statistics indicate that over 100 million customers visit various establishments every week. By the end of January 31, which marked the end of a fiscal year, the company's total revenue was 524 billion dollars. It is also good to note that Walmart runs its eCommerce websites in over ten countries (Walmart Inc, 2020) . When the company was founded in 1962, the main goal was to offer authentic services and quality goods efficiently to its customers. Through diversification, Walmart has retained an inherent culture of efficiency in the same.
Walmart's performance management system thrives under three pillars which include, Customer service orientation, analysis, and problem-solving as well as decision-making and results orientations. Ideally, the company utilizes facets of customer service orientation in the bid to address management concerns in the human resource department as well as assess the input in this area. The retail business is more of a service business even though it encompasses the selling of different merchandise. Because of this attribute, the concept of service orientation is widely emphasized in its performance management dynamics (Thomson, 2010) . The reason for this consideration is to ensure that the company constantly offers exceptional services to its customers. On the docket of analysis and problem-solving, Walmart seeks to ensure that managerial positions are effective enough in their performance from the input and impact they create in their respective areas. The impact of these managerial positions has a great influence in terms of overall performance towards effective customer service. Decision making and results orientation is also another major pillar utilized by Walmart under the initiative of stabilizing its performance management. Here the company applies to performance facet to all positions, including supervisory orientations. The human resource management also ensures that its objective of utilizing results orientation meets the goal of optimizing organizational resilience, which is done through effective decision making. Ideally, the mentioned facets have been widely used by Walmart to actualize its performance management system. They are used as guiding factors by human resource management to plan and ensure optimal workforce performance.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Performance Management System Diagnosis
Strengths
The application of meritocracy is one of the greatest strengths in the performance management system at Walmart. This ideology seeks to evaluate the impact and input of various positions and rewarding the most outstanding one. In other words, the human resource is mandated with assessing and selecting the most effective workers based on their performance. This move enhances the effectiveness of the performance management system as every position strives to ensure that they portray and give their best. Another strength is allowing different positions as per the human resource management to explore different priorities which are mainly the goals and objectives of Walmart and working towards them (Thomson, 2010) . Giving workers a common goal to work towards to has aided in ensuring that the performance system is effective. Typically, this facet is a strength because it is also used as a metric of evaluating the most effective and impactful positions and departments as assessed by human resource management. This information then guides the decision to reward the distinct dockets of the workforce within the company.
Another defined strength the performance management system used by Walmart is job standardization in the different areas of the organization structure. For instance, the company embarks on evaluating productivity standards in the quest to weigh whether the warehouse personnel is impactful enough to the overall output of the company. In essence, through financial performance standards, it becomes practical to assess the productivity of managerial positions (Thomson, 2010) . Another effective strength is the segregation put across by Walmart's human resource to assess employees who deal directly with sales on an hourly basis. From a general viewpoint, the culmination of these factors acts as the key strengths and pillars of Walmart's performance management system.
Weaknesses
While the performance management system of Walmart is attributed to dimensional factors of strength, there are various areas of weaknesses that are still evident. One of such areas is the absence of talent evaluation metrics. Ideally, while the performance system is active and effective in identifying optimal input in the various workforce sectors, it fails to assess the presence of distinct talents. This facet is primarily important as it spearheads the move of innovativeness and efficiency of servings, especially in the kind of industry that Walmart is located. In connection to that, it helps to increase productivity as employees work in the specific areas that they are best in, thus giving optimal output. Walmart has widely dwelt on monotonous scheduling, where several employees are expected to provide input under the surveillance of managerial sub-bodies.
Another weakness is the lack of a practical feedback loop to collect fundamental data from the different managerial and supervisory positions in line with the performance management system. Collecting feedback information is important, especially as it relates to different spectrums within the operations of the company. In connection to that, it aids in assessing key areas that need efforts either by making adjustments or complete changes on the same. Walmart is an established company with a large base of employees. Such a big number means that most of them have distinct views on how operations run in the company. Also, there is a dire need to give feedback in terms of hindering work conditions or anything that relates to their input. Walmart ought to have this loop if the performance management is to be effective in its course.
Additionally, the lack of rigorous and diverse ways of how the human resource evaluates performance from the different supervisory and managerial positions is a key weakness. As identified, Walmart's performance system primarily focuses on the concept of input from different workforce sectors. Apart from the input, the system fails to assess other performance metrics that can be accrued to input to either make it better or hinder its optimum possibilities. In connection to that, Walmart fails to incorporate the ideology of breaking down the evaluation of input to individual performance. Such is ideal as it helps to easily identify unproductive persons as well as identify the measures that the system can take to alienate hindrances. Walmart should incorporate this tool to make the performance system more effective in enhancing quality customer care delivery.
Improvement Options
Having evaluated the various deficits in Walmart's performance system, it is fundamental to come up with effective options that can help it to be more practical. One of such is to incorporate the practice of awarding and appraising outstanding talent. Here, Walmart should seek to identify exceptional skills and capabilities exhibited in the different managerial areas, narrowing down to the employees. Appreciating outstanding skills by rewarding them helps to ensure that a company does not lose valuable assets because highly talented workers fall under this bracket (Schleicher et al., 2018) . In connection to that, the integration of this facet will also aid in placing employees or defined groups of workforces to work in the areas where they serve best. If a defined group of talent is selected to offer an output in what they know and do best, then it becomes a key trigger of ensuring quality delivery of services by the company. Apple Company is a good example of a business entity that effectively utilized this concept. From time to time, Apple seeks to identify outstanding talents, which are a culture that was introduced by the founder, Steve Jobs (Lev-Ram, 2014) . The main motive for this is to help in innovation, enhance customer delivery, and retain valuable workers. In connection to that, recognizing exceptional talent places human resource management in a better place to exercise innovativeness within a given work setup.
Another important improvement option is having different performance evaluation metrics incorporated into the dynamics of the performance management system. Ideally, the use of a monotonous method of evaluating success based on input and other accrued facets might hinder the comprehensive understanding of workforce input as well as the ability of the system to ensure quality services (Schleicher et al., 2018). Thus, it is fundamental for Walmart to develop actionable facets that comprehensively concentrate on different areas of performance other than what the system currently entails. Having a rigorous evaluation kit is essential as it will help Walmart, especially the human resource, to identify key areas of failure or ineffectiveness of the system at hand. This diversity of evaluation will help retain the efficient delivery of quality service and aid in retaining the same, even with the competitive influence in the grocery industry.
Another working strategy is the allowance of mentorship criteria to impact the performance management system better. Notably, the key essence of having such a system is to ensure that all the efforts of the entire workforce are channeled towards the main goal and objective of a company. It is also the mandate of the system to make sure that operations run smoothly under minimal interruptions are different workforce sectors collaborate to ensure this efficiency (Pollitt, 2006) . Therefore, if Walmart needs to experience a positive move towards quality delivery, it should seek to establish the different ways of allowing mentorship in the different managerial and supervisory positions. In other words, those of a higher hierarchy under the spectrum of management should be allowed to mentor those below them. This move is practical as it helps to diversify the conduct of operations and the accomplishment of mandated tasks in a given company. Therefore, bearing in mind the accruing benefits of this strategy, the company needs to consider it.
Recommendation
From the effective evaluation and analysis of the suggestive options of implementation that Walmart has to make its performance management better, allowing mentorship to stands out as the most practical and effective. Here the system needs to allow managers to become coaches even as they serve their managerial duties. Walmart should make this initiative a mandatory part of its operations, especially on how managerial operations are conducted. Coaching should be one of the main responsibilities of managers as they instill wisdom upon their juniors on the effective mechanisms of improving on quality delivery as well as improving efficiency in the company from a holistic approach. With the settings and dynamics of the performance system, allowing managers and supervisors to become coaches means that employees are shaped towards achieving optimal strengths. They can later apply this knowledge practically in the different areas of input. In addition to that, it is also good to note that good coaching can be accompanied by enough resources in the case where the need arises. Ideally, this move will serve a practical purpose of revolutionizing the performance management system in the spectrum of helping employees to become more competent and reliable in the workplace. Another notable thing is that managers spend less of their time guiding their followers as more in spent evaluating their input as well as to conduct as they complete their tasks. Therefore, under all considerations, this move is practical and can be effectively integrated by Walmart.
Implementation Plan
Timing: Training should be integrated within the working period of the company. To ensure efficiency in the running of work operations, shorter breaks should be recommended to save time on training. The goal here should be to reduce the length of breaks like lunchtime and utilize it to pass knowledge to the employees. Managers should use a minimum of 30 minutes in training to prevent disruption of company operations.
Stakeholders: The involved stakeholders here are the employees and the customers. While this training will help workers to better their skills in quality delivery, it will also serve as an enhancement ground on the kind of services that the customers will receive. The company will then benefit at large since better services mean increased profitability. The owner of the business will benefit in the course of having a business that offers exceptional quality services, thus winning a reputable brand image.
Resources needed : Ideally, the resources needed here are minimal. Bearing in mind the time constraint factor, managers will only require presentation tools for coaching the workers on the dynamics and changes needed to make service delivery better. Such resources can include several laptops and projecting screens as well as sound systems. The company should be able to find a conducive space within the establishment perimeter where workers can gather and gain these insights. It is fundamental to note that the input of managers during the coaching periods will be considered as additional work, thus the need for the company to set additional funds of compensation.
Costs: Since the company will utilize its employed personnel, the costs will not be high. For example, laptops and projecting screens will be purchased based on the number of employees per shift of training in a given Walmart branch. In addition to that, it is good to note that additional funds must be put aside to compensate the coaches, in this case, the managers. Other funds can also be set aside to offer the workers as compensation for the reduced break time, which will also act as a sign of motivation.
Articulately, the implementation of this plan will contribute significantly to framing the performance management system better. It will push the company in a better place of serving its customers, and employees will be motivated to work in their respective areas.
References
Lev-Ram, M. (2014). Apple unveils new employee perks to attract top talent. Retrieved April 12, 2020, from https://fortune.com/2014/10/02/apple-employee-perks/
Pollitt, C. (2006). Performance management in practice: A comparative study of executive agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory , 16 (1), 25-44.
Schleicher, D. J., Baumann, H. M., Sullivan, D. W., Levy, P. E., Hargrove, D. C., & Barros-Rivera, B. A. (2018). Putting the system into performance management systems: A review and agenda for performance management research. Journal of Management , 44 (6), 2209-2245.
Thomson, G. S. (2010). High-Performance Organizations: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Case Study. Case Study (March 27, 2010) .
Walmart Inc. (2020). Our Business. Retrieved April 12 2020, from https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-business
