Thread regarding Walmart layoffs

Senior leadership with no experience

Walmart has historically put people in senior leadership roles that have absolutely no experience, or education for the jobs they are given, then wonder why they get bad results. Recall years ago when they used to play musical chairs with the executive ranks, it was crazy stuff. Some absolutely absurd decisions were being made and the vendor community was laughing all the way to the bank. The company is still trying to recover, and not just in ISD, other support areas too.

Agreed completely, @PaQ9eXA-4mfr. This is not a thing of the past, though, nor is it limited to ISD. Just look at the management of today both in ISD and wider. Same mistakes are being repeated all across the company.

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| 4601 views | | 13 replies (last September 21, 2017) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+PerNwuf

13 replies (most recent on top)

@PerNwuf-1oou That sounds just like the leader of my dept in the RE division. Perhaps it's part of the new game plan.

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Post ID: @9gbz+PerNwuf

4eut, but the honest truth is disappointing. Kinda obvious how disappointing AA has turned out coming from a white male

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Post ID: @5wke+PerNwuf

Well this thread says a lot about why good diverse talent wants to avoid Bentonville.

It's not only that they have historically not hired enough diversity, it would appear that there is plenty of bigotry in the broader Walmart community as well.

With the internet as one big white hood, people boldly spew the hatred and ignorance that is in their hearts. How disappointing.

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Post ID: @4eut+PerNwuf

Well said 2ykn!

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Post ID: @3hle+PerNwuf

@2uuc, thank you! The original post was never about diversity or non-diversity leadership, sorry people took it there to pit one group against the other. It is true what you said, when people are scared they often lash out and denigrate others, it is disappointing. I believe though the majority of us feel we are better and stronger working together, diversity and non-diversity associates. #BetterTogether

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Post ID: @2lhy+PerNwuf

2ykn,

And yet the facts remain that some of the worst decisions made in Walmart history were made by non diverse leadership.

So clearly adding diversity to the company isn't the cause of Walmart's problems.

It's sad that when change happens, some people get scared and to feel better they begin to denigrate entire groups of people. The ugliest form of ignorance is that which is driven by fear. It's also the hardest to cure.

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Post ID: @2uuc+PerNwuf

Strange how diversity never applies to merit, accomplishment, or judgment. MLK wouldn't be proud. Amazon, on the other hand is run by and hires white people, and they are just a year away from collapsing Walmart into the ground. There is a reason why people from 3rd World Countries are from 3rd World Countries.

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Post ID: @2ykn+PerNwuf

So who made the decision to co-locate half of Sam's Clubs with WMT Supercenters to reduce costs and not position Sam's to compete for a different member base? Definitely not the prior Sam's CEO. Now you have an expensive real estate proposition when you want to pursue members with a higher income base. As for the Tax and Treasury area, who led the successful mitigation of the $1B tax grab by Puerto Rico against WMT? Additionally, WMT just purchased Jet.com, which was essentially funded by the working capital improvements over the past 18 months. WMT clearly has a favorable cash flow position.

The fact that the prior CEO of Sam's just accepted another prominent role at a premier company is a clear indication of her qualifications. Additionally, she has 22 years of CPG experience prior to WMT. Many of the EVPs at WMT are capable of being C-Suite executives elsewhere, given the breadth and depth of the organizations they are running. One of Sam's Club's biggest opportunties has been in differentiating it's merchandising assortment from WMT US. If you understand the relationship dynamic of the prior head merchant with the Sr. Leadership of WMT you can see the conundrum the prior Sam's CEO was in, with regard to making organizational changes.

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Post ID: @1hml+PerNwuf

To be fair it was the two prior Caucasian male CEOs of Walmart that allowed us to get behind in ecommerce, logistics, infrastructure, and store experience.

They basically harvested the company for everything it was worth and got us into scandal after scandal. They returned unearned value to shareholders and bonuses to employees while letting the company stagnate and even fall behind. They had zero vision for the company other than to ride expansion as far as it would take them and harvest the company for as much profit as they could get. And when that stalled, they made the merchants raise prices. Talk about a case study in buffoonery...

The company can't do any worse having diversity when you put it in perspective.

Now there just needs to a process for upper management to get unfiltered feedback that doesn't result in retaliation. It's needed both for ideas on how to improve the business and regarding bad managers.

I can't tell you the times I've been told NOT to tell senior leadership something. They don't get even a quarter of the picture of our business, which explains why they seem clueless. Middle managers keep Sr leaders in the dark. Then we all kvetch when the Sr bosses make idiotic decisions. They're not dumb people. The institution just conspires to keep them ignorant of the reality of the company because middle managers are constantly in CYA mode.

Just a peons opinion though.

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Post ID: @1qxu+PerNwuf

Yes, along with the former CEO of Sam's and the former Treasurer of WM (I can't name names, but you know who I'm talking about.)

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Post ID: @1kvs+PerNwuf

Which Affirmative Action hires are you referring to? Are you speaking to the ones that underinvested in the store experience and allowed WMT to get behind in Ecommerce, which placed the enterprise at risk?

Interestingly enough, one of the CGS consultants indicated that she was surprised at the number of people without college degrees or resumes that she encountered during the outplacement process during all the displacements.

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Post ID: @1swi+PerNwuf

Can we get an AMEN!

And let's not forget the pleathora of Affirmative Action hires-almost all of whom were severely unqualified, untrustworthy, or just plain stupid. Some were so bad, that they had to hire additional associates, just to get the work done! So much for EDLC, right??

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Post ID: @1oou+PerNwuf

This is absolute truth. I was terminated recently with no previous coachings, no bad evals, etc out of retaliation, and the idiot they have running the department I was in was brought in from outside the company. He had an esteemed career at a few other larger companies - which he was fired from - and although he had a lengthy gap in his resume between employers and before he came to Walmart, the leadership hired him. Now over 200 years of combined experience has left the department either due to being forced out or because they hate him, and more are looking to leave. All because of one person.

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Post ID: @1hni+PerNwuf

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