Thread regarding Walmart layoffs

GE isn’t doing the best these days. Why would we want to emulate them?

GE came up with the Yank/Rank schema

Whose brain child was this whole rank and yank thing? Some executive who won’t be subject to it?

This is true

How embarrassing that Walmart is adopting an outdated and dysfunctional system like rank-and-yank

Most leading companies do not do this any more.

Have they started the layoffs yet this year?

I don’t think the big wigs get ranked do they? Anyone know?

So does this forced ranking also apply to the board or all the VP’s?

Or is it just the people doing the work that are getting terminated if they cost too much?

How embarrassing that Walmart is adopting an outdated and dysfunctional system like rank-and-yank. Modern companies, especially in tech, are either dropping it or not adopting it in the first place because it builds a terrible culture that sinks quality and progress.

Adopting rank-and-yank is saying, “we give up on performance management”

How embarrassing that Walmart is adopting an outdated and dysfunctional system like rank-and-yank. Modern companies, especially in tech, are either dropping it or not adopting it in the first place because it builds a terrible culture that sinks quality and progress.

Adopting rank-and-yank is saying, “we give up on performance management”

There’s definitely age and length-of-service discrimination going on at Walmart re: layoffs. If most of those people also happen to be white males, that says a lot about the company’s past hiring practices.

@sdj Citation needed on the “bonuses for layoff of white males” thing

The purge is coming. Every year.

One of the store managers at my place was running a line at the 5 pm meetings: 'If you're not engaged to this company, you need to go somewhere else.' Ten minutes of kool aid flavored drivel, all based on fear and intimidation and guilt, leaving us speechless and looking down, just waiting for him to stop talking.

That was the 'culture' I experienced.

That same guy, barely a year later, abruptly left to take over a family business. I'd always wanted to ask him at what point he no longer felt 'engaged' to Walmart.

Whose brain child was this whole rank and yank thing? Some executive who won’t be subject to it?

It creates such a toxic work culture. One of Walmart’s strengths has always been associates willingness to help each other. We always figured out the impossible together.

Now you’re putting people in the position where their co-workers are their competitors for their livelihood. Culture can only go so far when folks have families and bills to pay. If you have to chose between helping a struggling coworker and staying ahead so that you can keep the lights on for your kids...well that’s not much of a choice is it?

Instead of getting rid of people who 'do the work', why not trim the executive pool?

That's where you've got the fat. You pay tons of money and promote pieces of sh-- like Kath McLay to EVP and layoff tenured 20+ year associates who have worked day in day out for you.

I feel like this rank and yank system is very aligned with Christian and family values, don’t you?

Not all companies treat their employees like sh-- like Walmart. Walmart is not a people friendly company.

@tre You don't get it. You have associates in the HO with 15, 20, 25+ years. They must have brought value to WM if they have remained at the same company for that long. Now all of a sudden leadership decides they make too much money. Or maybe their new manager doesn't like them. Or the project they were assigned to failed. Or a trusted teammate threw them under the bus to make themselves look good. So now, WM now has a legal excuse to terminate them by giving them a bad rating on their eval.

If a termed associated had 25 or more years with WM, there's a good chance they are in their 50's. Believe it or not there is age discrimination going on out there in the work force. (I do know that age discrimination has been going on in the HO for the better part of 5 years now.) If these people can't find a new job are they in a position to retire? Are their skills current for the work force? Should they go into debt learning a new career in college at a job they may or may not get hired for (due to age discrimination)? Minimum wage jobs are a dime a dozen. Should they get one of those?Unemployment is extremely low right now so employers can be choosier on who they hire so they could be unemployed for a decent amount of time.

It's so easy to say 'quit whining' or 'just find another job' when you're not facing the reality of this. These are real people facing an uncertain future due to leadership's greed, incompetence and lack of foresight to be competitive with Amazon.

The ones that really need to be purged are the ones who are so sh--y to their employees that don't kiss their a--. It's sad that it doesn't matter how well you perform it matters how much you're willing to put away self pride and kiss a-- to survive.

You guys are so dramatic. If I you lose your job, you go and find another one for better or for worse. If you don't like the company you work for, you submit your resume trying to find something better to get out of there. Sitting around crying about it and speculating doesn't do you any good. You can't change Walmart. You can seek employment elsewhere. They say to plan ahead for the future, so maybe now it's time for that "Plan B" and "what if?"

You forgot to mention that executives get 15% of their incentive bonus from reducing the percentage of white males. Combine this with forced ranking and you get a forced layoff of white males.

It started years ago when the hourly associates lost their seniority dates for Evals Everyone receives Evals by a certain time frame. Same raises. No one is special ! The team meets to decide what % of top/mid/below you will give in your areas. It’s all decided rather steril !! So management don’t feel like you are any different we did it to them now it’s being done to us !! I’m pleasantly working elsewhere !!

Didn't GE (General Electric) utilize the same rank and yank system up until a decade ago? Looks like WMT is following suit....if they continue the GE methodology in a couple years they will do away with annual evals and provide feedback via some other avenue.....then they will continue their downhill slide much like GE.....check out the GE stock performance.

@cqz It's the 'Hunger Games' because of the environment that the HO is creating with their new evaluation process. The bottom 10-25% of each team will be given a MANDATORY poor rating regardless of their contributions to their team. This is the kiss of death resulting in the loss of their job. This poor rating also means no promotion, no pay raise and no RSRs.

This will cause less cooperation between team members - survival of the fittest. No training of new associates joining the team. No sharing of knowledge. It becomes a dog eat dog dysfunctional environment where associates will be back-stabbing each other and making everyone else look bad while doing things to make themselves look good. Every person for themselves.

Are we calling it the Hunger Games because if you get yanked, your family goes hungry?

It’s just business though, I guess.

If this is happening at my old store, there's a few assistants I'd love to watch squirm like toads on a hot grill. Might have to text a coupla friends over there and get a 4-1-1. These people are arrogant, greedy, lazy witch warts on the rectum of the world.

Check the replies and comments in the "Hunger games style purge coming soon to a walmart near you." post below this one. It pretty much sums up the Rank and Yank evaluation process nicely.