Addressing Wage Disparities, Discrimination, and Diversity at Walmart: A Managerial Perspective

Abstract

Managerial actions within an organization can profoundly affect its success or failure. Even Walmart Inc., the world’s largest retailer, has unique problems to solve daily. Employee unhappiness, poor wages, authoritarian management, and bias and discrimination complaints have all been cited as problems for Walmart.

Despite employing over 2 million people, Walmart has a low salary rate. There is a lack of two-way communication between upper and lower management in the company due to the limited time and opportunities employees have to voice their concerns about job challenges and other issues. This can lead to concerns, such as employees feeling overworked and unappreciated.

At the same time, women make up a sizable portion of the workforce, although they are frequently paid less than men. Given that Walmart is a global company, its employees come from many different cultural backgrounds, making cultural diversity a promising area for growth. Organizational performance can be improved by the right kinds of behavior in the workplace. It might be a game-changer for Walmart if it addresses low wages, the lack of diversity, and employee discrimination.

Introduction

Considering the modern volatility of political and economic fields, it is vital to look at major organizations and how these address inherent business issues. Walmart is a multinational retail mogul that has to fight progressively to gain more competitive advantages and maintain the globalization trend.

One of the core factors that stand behind the need to review Walmart’s management issues is that the current direction of the company is shaped by profit maximization and market supremacy (Scott & Davis, 2015). The prevailing nature of Walmart makes it harder for the company to remain objective when generating wage requirements and making sure that diversity is supported and discrimination is eradicated.

The current paper is going to address each of these three issues to establish respective solutions that can lead to positive outcomes. Potential solutions will be developed with the aid of Weber’s bureaucracy theory and Fayol’s administrative theory. Considering the overall pressure on Walmart, it is safe to say that the solutions above are required to mediate economic fluctuations and make sure that the company’s practices become significantly more transparent.

Identification of Issues

Low Salaries

The first issue that must be addressed is low salaries across the whole Walmart network. One of the main reasons why this particular notion remains an issue for the company is that Walmart’s leadership strategy is based on idealistic worldviews. For instance, the core vision of the retail mogul is focused on catering to customers, while employee treatment is a lower-tier issue, even if it is not communicated openly (Mendly-Zambo et al., 2023).

The low-cost benefits offered by Walmart have transformed into a means of attracting customers while, on the other hand, remaining one of the key contributors to lower wages. The rising costs of utilities and various products have forced Walmart employees to reconsider their needs and aspirations, causing a wave of dissatisfaction among workers after the COVID-19 outbreak (Pandey et al., 2021). With some of the lowest hourly salaries across the US, Walmart does not seem to consider external variables or even the given worker’s gender. This division led to women being paid notably less than men, even though Walmart’s structure does not require specific male skills that have to be paid at a higher level.

Discrimination Against Women and People with Disabilities

The issue of low wages slowly flows into the problem of discrimination at Walmart, especially knowing that women are not employed by the retail mogul as enthusiastically as men. Recently, the company even had to settle a nationwide sex discrimination lawsuit in order to satisfy the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Penrod & Crow, 2018). Female applicants are often ignored by Walmart management, even though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited any kind of disparate impact on workplace employment practices.

Even though there are cases where testing physical abilities would become an irreplaceable prerequisite, order filling is not one of those job positions. The company agreed to discontinue its physical ability evaluation and paid a $20 million settlement to remain in line with the interests of women who have been discriminated against and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Penrod & Crow, 2018). This situation also shows that Walmart still experiences several rough edges that cannot be overcome easily. Job requirements and third-party validation procedures are yet to be reviewed to determine if the retail giant is ever going to resolve discrimination-related issues.

Lack of Diversity

The ultimate problem that Walmart tends to experience is the lack of diversity. One of the main reasons why this is a major problem is the reduced number of opportunities related to career growth and the creation of value. According to Xie and Cooke (2019), diversity is primarily absent from Walmart because of leadership shortcomings that stall employees. Hence, the likelihood of a person becoming available for promotion might be seen as dependent on who the supervisor is and how used they are to promoting people.

Given the history of unfair employment, many representatives of diverse populations do not want to associate with Walmart and, therefore, cannot be expected to recommend this employer to other minorities or vulnerable populations. The existence of competitive benefits does not represent an advantage because there is only a limited number of employees who could become middle or top managers. Hence, race and ethnicity remain sensitive issues for Walmart due to the consistent need for diverse talent and timely recognition.

Analysis and Evaluation

Weber’s Bureaucracy Theory

Even though Walmart is used to applying a bureaucratic approach to its operations to alter how the company’s top management tends to think, it discloses how many of the corporate goals remain unaccomplished. For the most part, it can be related to low levels of employee satisfaction and little room for professional and personal development.

Weber’s bureaucracy theory suggests that organizational management has to be balanced perfectly between worker empowerment and strong corporate decision-making (Haque et al., 2021). Accordingly, if someone expects a higher salary, they should invest a reasonable effort to streamline the workflow and generate more efficiency.

Instead of omnipresent bureaucracy, Walmart should capitalize on improved resource management and involve employees in the decision-making process. Over time, it will improve the company’s salary cap and communication between different hierarchical levels across the organization. It can be argued that resource management is a vital implication that has to be considered if Walmart expects to eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Fayol’s Administrative Theory

Planning

There are four key elements that have to be reviewed when applying Fayol’s theory to Walmart’s case. The first is planning because the organization has to think about foreseeing potential issues and strategies required to accomplish corporate objectives. Therefore, the idea would be to step away from an approach with the main focus on the consumers and pay closer attention to what employees need to remain motivated and effective. By doing this, Walmart would create an environment where organizational competitiveness is defined by the company’s attitude toward workers and not customers.

Organization

The next element is the organization, where the process of accomplishing objectives is perceived as dependent on the company’s capacity. When organizing, the team would have to capitalize on business exercises and the chance to revise the heavily authoritative structure employed at Walmart. According to Kapoor and Wilde (2023), it would be vital for the organization to focus on cultural values and promote integrity on all organizational levels. Marketing campaigns and promising internal operations should revolve around how the management can channel workers’ loyalty instead of looking into the financial outcomes of innovation.

Leadership

The third element pertaining to Fayol’s administrative theory is leadership. Walmart’s vision has to be reviewed and extended to support globalization-based worldviews and multi-industrial partnerships. As a retail giant, Walmart could easily sign deals with smaller providers to establish an environment where neither authority nor innovation is neglected. In line with Kapoor and Wilde (2023), leadership is vital because it can extend the pool of loyal workers and consumers while providing all stakeholders with a source of shared motivation. With this information in mind, Walmart has to transform the current state of affairs by perceiving everyone as providing crucial feedback.

Controlling

The ultimate element of Fayol’s theory is the process of controlling performance and management efforts. Walmart’s output can be improved if the organization chooses to mitigate its dominance to attain realistic objectives, focus on what can be done to restrict wage minimization and ensure that operational expenses do not get out of control. At the same time, this element of Fayol’s theory is vital because it protects the idea that Walmart’s corporate values could be adjusted to employees’ expectations and make job contracts significantly more attractive. On a long-term scale, it is also a means of battling discrimination because custom controls can be deployed to enhance the existing program.

Solutions

Low Salary

The core idea for Walmart should be to focus on new hiring and recruitment procedures to expand access to higher-paid roles and extended education and training. It would increase the company’s salary cap and prevent the management from leaving high-performing employees underpaid.

Even though there could be structural obstacles on the way to increasing hourly wage for every Walmart worker, promotions could become an interim measure for managers who want their employees to benefit as much as they bring to the company. In line with bureaucracy theory, lower wages would be reserved for employees doing minimal work without any motivation to improve their performance (Haque et al., 2021; Mendly-Zambo et al., 2023).

It is a known fact that frontline workers get more recognition and receive additional benefits, so it is reasonable to appeal to employees with the help of an unbiased promotion system. This would help Walmart avoid segregation while leaving enough room for workers to build skills and switch jobs. With motivation and purpose, more knowledgeable workers will appear ready to promote Walmart and its core values.

Discrimination

The core means of coping with discrimination across Walmart would be to deploy a workplace program based on anti-retaliation. Most discrimination claims in the workplace pertain to retaliation, so it is vital to address this problem proactively (Penrod & Crow, 2018). Walmart has to make sure it can defend itself against unreasonable charges or unlawful claims that can destroy the company’s image and affect its economic security on a long-term scale. With this information in mind, anti-retaliation should become a human resource management trend intended to motivate fewer employees to violate the law.

After being accused of discrimination, Walmart should have engaged in deep investigations to learn more about reactive behaviors and the roots of discrimination as a concept. According to theory, Walmart managers should receive relevant training to promote people based on their performance while collecting enough proof to support the selection process (Xie and Cooke, 2019). When a worker is denied a promotion, a detailed explanation should be attached to help managers avoid further issues and protect the retail mogul from negative backlash.

Lack of Diversity

Another workplace program would have to be developed and deployed to help the team cope with the lack of diversity at Walmart. For instance, the management could begin by evaluating individual involvement in the company’s daily operations to see if there is any bias in how the organization reimbursed the given individual’s efforts. This could eliminate unconscious and conscious sources of bias while also providing the team with insights related to behavioral patterns characteristic of Walmart employees.

According to Xie and Cooke (2019), the next step would be to address the lack of diversity at the group level and provide employees with training to help them maintain reliability and an impartial outlook on employment strategies. Conflict resolution skills would have to be present in managers and workers to ensure that diversity training will be successful.

Externally, Walmart would have to focus on adhering to a balance between diversity principles and affirmative action. The controlling principle in Fayol’s theory suggests that corporate leadership has to be enhanced and organizational behaviors have to be altered to an extent where workers would recognize the company’s values more often (Kapoor & Wilde, 2023). Without motivation and loyalty, diversity would not be achieved and maintained.

Conclusion

Based on the results obtained within the framework of the current paper, it can be concluded that Walmart has enough room to implement several strategies to fix some of its core problems. For example, Weber’s bureaucracy theory could be employed to ensure that workers are paid based on performance while cultivating healthy competition among employees and showing a good example to the market.

To address the lack of diversity and a high discrimination rate, the retail giant could make the best use of Fayol’s administrative theory. It would be necessary for the team to gain control over how hiring procedures are organized and what kind of training is expected to benefit both employees and managers. Hence, the overall value of Weber’s and Fayol’s theories has been validated, making it safe to suggest that Walmart is able to introduce timely changes and capitalize on human resources instead of financial profits.

References

Haque, M. S., van der Wal, Z., & van den Berg, C. (2021). Comparative studies in public administration: Intellectual challenges and alternative perspectives. Public Administration Review, 81(2), 344-348.

Kapoor, R., & Wilde, D. (2023). Peering into a crystal ball: Forecasting behavior and industry foresight. Strategic Management Journal, 44(3), 704-736.

Mendly-Zambo, Z., Raphael, D., & Taman, A. (2023). Take the money and run: How food banks became complicit with Walmart Canada’s hunger producing employment practices. Critical Public Health, 33(1), 60-71.

Pandey, R., Dillip, D., Jayant, J., Vashishth, K., Nikhil, N., Qi, T. J.,… & Qhi, L. Y. (2021). Factors influencing organization success: A case study of Walmart. International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality in Asia Pacific (IJTHAP), 4(2), 112-123.

Penrod, C., & Crow, M. (2018). The biggest “have” of them all: Wal‐Mart and its litigation outcomes in slip‐and‐fall cases. American Business Law Journal, 55(2), 223-259.

Scott, W. R., & Davis, G. F. (2015). Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. Routledge.

Xie, Y., & Cooke, F. L. (2019). Quality and cost? The evolution of Walmart’s business strategy and human resource policies and practices in China and their impact (1996–2017). Human Resource Management, 58(5), 521-541.

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StudyCorgi. "Addressing Wage Disparities, Discrimination, and Diversity at Walmart: A Managerial Perspective." November 3, 2024. https://studycorgi.com/addressing-wage-disparities-discrimination-and-diversity-at-walmart-a-managerial-perspective/.

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StudyCorgi. 2024. "Addressing Wage Disparities, Discrimination, and Diversity at Walmart: A Managerial Perspective." November 3, 2024. https://studycorgi.com/addressing-wage-disparities-discrimination-and-diversity-at-walmart-a-managerial-perspective/.

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