HR Training & Development
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT 7
Background and Introduction
Established in 1962 by Sam Walton, Walmart has grown over the last five decades into the largest retailer across the globe (Muñoz, 2017). The first store of this company was situated in Rogers, Arkansas with a unique concept of selling more for less and single discount approach. Today, the enterprise attracts more than 260 million customers and has established more than 11,500 stores under 65 banners in twenty-eight nations. It also has e-commerce platforms operating in eleven countries. In 2015, the company recorded a net sale of $482.2 billion which was regarded as the highest volume to have been witnessed in the company’s history. Currently, over 2.2 million associates are employed in Walmart where 1.4 million are from the United States. All these associates are committed to creating opportunities as well as ensuring value to clients and the society as a whole.
Moreover, Walmart Company recognizes its retail stores as a great place to work (Lombardo, 2017). The enterprise employs customer care representatives, cashiers, sales supervisors and floor sales associates to make sure that the regular operations of the business are run efficiently without any hurdles to meet the set goals. Inventory management, cash handling, client relations, sales, customer service, and retail skills are crucial to the company’s success since they assist the clients as well as the business in generating revenue and meeting their daily sales targets.
Besides, the environment of Walmart’s retail store needs workers to be skilled in handling basic as well as complex tasks in the most cost-effective, safe, and efficient manner. The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA) enables the staff members to carry out their duties efficiently as well as provide excellent customer service. As such, training is the paramount performance tool that is needed for the employees when they are hired and when they are not meeting a particular performance standard.
Usually, the discrepancy between the actual job performance level and the anticipated job performance level portrays a training need (Phillips & Phillips, 2016). Therefore, this study will analyze the reasons behind Walmart’s high turnover rate, poor customer service, and low employee morale. It will also look at how development and training can assist to effectively attract, motivate, and retain workers who have the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required to attain the business objectives of the company.
Group Receiving Training
The job descriptions of Walmart Company are considerably varied. The staff members must have necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities to fit in the job position pertaining to the standards and needs of Walmart. However, the human resource department mostly designs job descriptions that entail sales activities since the majority of Walmart's employees are sales personnel. Therefore, Walmart’s job descriptions comprise those for sales supervisors, customer service personnel, sales personnel, store managers, sales managers among others. This group of employees is spread across the retail stores of the company and comprise of both male and female workers. They make the largest number of the company’s staff. They receive a minimum wage of $ 9 per hour (Caraway, 2016). Moreover, this group comprises of diverse individuals regarding their origin, race, age, culture, expertise, and language who bring diverse ideas to the organization to assist in enhancing sales performance as well as the attainment of company objectives. They are from different parts of the world. Some of these staff members expect that the company will provide the training and development opportunities to enhance their knowledge as well as their profession.
Training Issue
The current skill level of customer service personnel is relatively low and not congruent with present market skills. They seem not to have mastered the various vital techniques to handle the ambitious and much-informed clients. As a result, poor customer service has been witnessed through multiple customer complaints of mistreatments. This has caused some customers to seek the services of competitors, thus reducing the sales of the company. Moreover, some of the sales managers demonstrate knowledge gaps within the business as they seem not to understand appropriate management and sales concepts. These managers are too naïve and even fail to provide sufficient leadership in their respective areas. Consequently, the company has been experiencing low sales volumes which have adversely impacted the profitability as well as the performance of the enterprise. Besides, the store managers in particular branches have experience frequent stock-outs a situation that has seen the company lose essential clients, thus lowering the overall sales of the firm. Additionally, some stores often overstock soothing that has contributed to an extended stay of products in the inventory and even damage of some items. The blame has been on the decisions and approaches that the stores' managers adopt.
Training Needs Assessment Questionnaire
The questionnaire is intended to identify the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the selected group of employees (sales personnel) to establish the reasons behind the performance gaps on the company. It is purposed to determine the reasons why there has been poor customer service, low employee morale, small sales volumes, and high turnover. The staff members will be given an opportunity to explain the possible causes. Therefore, from the responses and other necessary observations, the training needs of the workers can be determined which will facilitate performance improvement in particular areas that indicate unexpected results. Please see the questionnaire in the appendix.
How the Questionnaire will be Utilized
The responses from the survey will be crucial in training need analysis and establishment of development and training program for the employees of Walmart. All the opinions of the employees will be taken into consideration to identify the specific training needs regarding knowledge, skills, and abilities to provide in order to enhance organizational performance (Gupta & Goel, 2017). From the analysis of the questionnaire, the reasons behind poor customer service, low employee morale, high turnovers, and low sales volumes will be established. Therefore, the organization through the human resource department will ensure a training program to enhance particular performance deficiencies to make sure that the company attains its objectives.
References
Caraway, B. (2016). OUR Walmart: a case study of connective action. Information, Communication & Society, 19(7), 907-920.
Gupta, D., & Goel, R. (2017). Training Need of Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturing Sector–An Intimate Study. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 3(4).
Lombardo, J. (2017). Walmart: Organizational Structure & Organizational Culture. Panmore Institute.
Muñoz, C. B. (2017). Building Power from Below: Chilean Workers Take On Walmart.
Phillips, J. J., & Phillips, P. P. (2016). Handbook of training evaluation and measurement methods. Routledge.
Appendix
QUESTIONNAIRE
This questionnaire was intended to identify training needs of the sales personnel in Walmart Company.
What areas listed below would you like to see additional training programs?
Customer Service Skills
Employee Performance Management
Inventory Management
What technology areas interest you?
How do you feel working at Walmart?
Why do you think there are multiple customer complaints?
Why do you think there is a high turnover in the sales personnel department?
Why do you think employee morale is low?
Do you think the current processes and policies enhance performance?