Substantial and extreme changes are about to be rolled out that will shake the foundation of the company and drive thru the moral of employees like a Mack truck on speed. Be prepared for a hunger games type purge where managers, salaried and hourly will be axed based on immoral discrimination, and favoritism. All managers will be force ranked into three groups. Group A, congrats you kissed up enough to make the cut. Group B, you have sixty days to find another position but we will not allow you to receive a position so you will be axed anyway Group C, congrats you are fired today but we will give you sixty days pay because the warn act requires it, at least the co managers are already done with their hunger game... for now...Good luck to you all and Godspeed and Merry Christmas
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the guy with the long post on Hunger games and home office good post. I agree. for the person that said stop whining out of 2.2 million associates or whatever, shut up,keep drinking the kool aid, and why are you on this site if your calling people names. Your time is coming guaranteed. your hard work isn't noticed by anyone,your a number like the rest of us, stop thinking your better. we don't kiss as much a-- as you do apparently.
It is the only place that I have ever worked where I have heard racial slurs, seen people assaulted, seen teams of associates spy on entire groups of associates, and been threatened with violence. In all of these instances, Leadership knew and did nothing.
I used to wonder why there would be Bentonville Police Cars in the parking lot at Home Office. Now I understand why, they know that they treat people so badly that some sort of altercation will eventually happen. I have seen people assault people in the Home Office. When reported it to Leadership, nothing happened. Nobody cares about anything substantive. It is all a big game. Politics trumps everything at the Home Office.
You forgot something, 15% of the executive incentive bonus is tied to hitting targets for reducing the percentage of white males. In a force-ranking environment, this means avoid teams with mostly females, as the white male, you will always be the victim. There are some teams in HO that are all female - eventually, they will have to start getting rid of the white women.
Yup. The word is already out. Avoid high performing teams like the plague at Home Office. High performing teams will eat themselves under the new system, while you can have entire teams of mediocre people who will escape judgement.
I’m waiting for the hiring shenanigans to start. You’re going to see either a refusal to train new people or teams conspiring to hire lesser talent so that they can save their own skin.
The training thing will be particularly detrimental as Walmart doesn’t have training programs for jobs. It’s a known part of the culture that Walmart doesn’t train you. At best you ask your peers to help you learn as you encounter problems.
Now imagine a situation where folks are intentionally unhelpful to new people. Or they hear about peers having problems, know how to solve the problem, but keep quiet because helping peers equals harming their own ability to provide for their family.
There is a reason that these major tech companies have abandoned rank and yank. It harms the company and once word gets out, it harms recruiting.
What is truly stupid is that the lowest rated person on a high performance team will be terminated before the highest rated person on a low performing team, even if the high performance team member works circles around ALL of the low performing team members.
But remember...the ones doing the rating and cuts are rated themselves.
I wish I would have emailed the hunger games post to ML on my last day with the company.
@ apt analogy, yes, I agree: great post. Much of what you describe I saw first hand.
....and I'll keep saying it: some of these 'managers' I take great delight in watching squirm in misery :)
Good last post. I certainly agree with it. I was put on PIP a few months ago. Impossible to pass it in the current environment. If you are put on PIP I wouldn't try hard to pass it like I did.
The Hunger Games is an apt analogy to the 'improved' HO employee rating system. They have always been using this eval system but not to this extreme degree. You have a 5 scale grading system - Role Model/Exceeds Expectation/Meets Expectations/Below Expectations/Needs Work.
Before, the Below Expectations or Needs Work grade would allow you to create a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) and correct your deficiencies. You could save your job, improve yourself and elevate your team. You received the 'grade' your manager thought you should receive. (This has always been subjective because if your manager doesn't like you....) You may disagree with your grade but you had that opportunity to improve your performance and stay with WM. You may have had an off year in which people in charge of a project that you were assigned to ran it ditch to ditch (which is the norm) and missed all their deadlines and the stench of that project is all over you even though the failure was not your fault. Guilt by association.
Now, you have a bell curve-type rating system. On each team, and this is an approximation, 10% will be rated Role Model, 15% as Exceeds Expectation, 50% as Meets Expectations, 15% as Below Expectations and 10% as Needs Work.
The bottom 25% will be graded a MANDATORY Below Expectations or Needs Work. It no longer matters if your team has a high degree of performers. Your contributions over the year really won't matter anymore. This is mandatory. These 2 ratings become the kiss of death. You may as plan to retire if you if you can or just start your job search. No PIP. No second chances. Just a "there's the door; don't let it hit you in the a-- as you're escorted out of the building."
Should bottom performing associates be termed? Sure. But should they be given an opportunity first to improve? Of course. But not anymore.
Back to the 'Hunger Games' analogy. If you know you'll be termed for being in the bottom 25%, you will be more inclined to NOT share your knowledge especially if you are a SME (subject matter expert). You will not create how-to documentation on your daily repetitive tasks. You will no longer volunteer information on how to help out on projects. You will no longer be willing to train a back-up in case they become your replacement. You will start to do those little things to make your co-worker look bad going as far as possibly sabotaging your co-worker to make them look bad while you look good.
The HO becomes more dysfunctional (if that is even possible). It becomes that Hunger Games environment where it's everyone for themselves. Screw everyone else. Does this sound like a productive environment? Does it sound like a place you want to work?
It's real. We were told at our Christmas dinner that the stores would evolve to a 6 assistant store. Our store is an 80 million super and we have 9 on days 12 total. Some will be offered a buy out. Basically they are shedding old and high priced help. The comanager that took the step down will now be forced to either become a Z ,cap support or whatever they can find but with the hours being slashed it's better to just leave with the buy out.
Walmart will one day go the way of sears and kmart.
Ah more baseless dribble.
Someone's a drama llama
Why are you being so extra? Hunger games? Seriously? That's.....cute
If the worst 10% of performers company-wide gets axed, that's 220,000 people. No doubt they will show up here and grouse about the terrible unfairness of it all, then show up at other companies where they'll probably show up with their laziness and sense of entitlement and get laid off/fired again. Really, if you can't make yourself useful at a 2.2 million person company, you s---, and end up whining about it at sites like layoff.com.