Fortunately, there had been a lot written about Wal-Mart and its history. Sam Walton died in 1993 – still held up as a hero to employees and managers. Conduct Weekly “Culture” lessons for employees which Includes teaching many of Sam’s ideas about business. Museum in Bentonville with his office, his pick up truck and his old dog. Bentonville – anybody ever been there? town no larger than Mos-co. 12K No Starbucks. 3200 stores in the United States – including Sam’s Club chain. Because of its extraordinary success, WM was the darling of Wall Street and the business press. That has Turned around dramatically in the past two years. Echo chamber of BAD PRESS.
The Support Manager, Department Manager, and CSM (Customer Service Manager, which is supervisor of Cashiers) are the main supervisory hourly jobs. This was weird. Why did women disappear as you move up the ranks? Is there something about retail management jobs that women don’t like? Was this some kind of statistical anomaly? Pattern was true in 49 of 50 states. Very very important for class certification. Undertook to Compare WM to Other Major Retail Chains – Benchmarking. What we found was startling.
We were contacted by hundreds and hundreds of women. And what they told us Relocation - Told that if you wanted to go into management, had to be willing to move yourself and your family on 48 hours notice. Potentially presented a real problem for women. On the other hand, was it really a requirement? Some men didn’t have to move. Was this really needed? More Later. Sexist Attitudes. Was the Social Science Theory in Fact Validated by their Experiences? Read some of the stereotypes. Melissa Howard – Indianapolis. Depth of the Insensitivity. A single mother – made it to Store manager lunch meetings at hooters. Road trip to Bentonville New DM – told her that she should be home raising her daughter. Demoted within a month, despite years of perfect performance.
In every job, in nearly every store. How could that have happened? Pay bands but store managers free to set within range and then add on Various special bonuses. Enormous pressure to keep labor costs down. [Off the clock litigation, use of undocumented workers for janitorial] Read more stereotypes.
