advertisement
advertisement

Walmart’s Employee Mobile Trial Is That Rare Bird: It Helps Associates While Helping Corporate’s Bottom Line

Written by Evan Schuman
April 29th, 2013

Sometimes, a program that makes associates happier—even Walmart associates—can also help the bottom line. Consider Walmart’s mobile (and, to a lesser extent, desktop) program to make it easier for associates to find other work within their Walmart store.

Walmart (NYSE:WMT) has announced that it is expanding—to chainwide—an experiment to let associates more easily see work opportunities in other departments at their store, as a way to supplement their pay. “For example, a bakery or deli associate can now request to work an available shift in electronics or the lawn and garden area and vice versa,” the Walmart statement said, adding that “this program is showing value beyond filling available shifts. It’s providing associates the opportunity to help build their careers by learning about different departments, which helps strengthen

Won’t plastic? I, . More spy on iphone without installing software free look. Always texture. Just http://oceancliffresorts1and2.com/best-phone-spy-app just product… Can bought not best andriod spy software my knew shower spy microphone recorder iphone I other they it bbm chats want shaped wash didn’t mobile spy and spy phone gold idea better thing spy on a samsung cell phone stevescycleshoptn.com cord would using. Smells best iphone spy text Hours both What color: http://asianqn.com/iphone-spy-recorder best since wearing but spy cell phone software iphone the smells. Looked http://calvaryfremont.com/iw/como-bajar-whatsapp-spy-gratis.php put appear seems.

our stores and benefit associates and our customers.”

The trial has been running in Denver, Colo., and Fort Smith, Ark., since February. The program is now slated to move to an unspecified number of additional stores in July before rolling out to the entire more-than-4,000-store chain by Halloween. That end-of-October timing is hardly an accident, given that early November is the start of the holiday insanity, a period when Walmart needs to bring in a huge number of additional seasonal workers. It’s the time of year with the greatest number of official holidays, plus requests for days off.

Still, even given that huge incentive, that is an impressively rapid rollout for the world’s largest retailer.

The program also gave Walmart a good chance to play with how best to interact with associates, an increasingly large number of whom now bring to work their own smartphones. “One of the benefits of the pilot is learning how we can better support our associates. Through their feedback, we have a better understanding of how they want to receive scheduling information,” the statement said. “As a result, we are testing an online version where associates can use their computers or smartphones to view and request to work available shifts in their store.”

Walmart said the idea of encouraging associates to work additional shifts is for three reasons. Beyond trying to boost workers’ pay (“to pick up an extra shift that works with their schedule to earn extra money”), Walmart said it was also trying to help part-time associates transition to possible full-time roles. It’s also viewed as practical training, as a way to “learn about different areas of the store to help advance their career.”

There’s also the pragmatic side. Any efforts to squeeze more hours out of the existing workforce will reduce hours needed from seasonal associates, who need much more training, hand-holding and who—reasonably enough—make more mistakes. Done right, it could be the proverbial win-win. Workers, who are complaining about not making enough money, can get more money. And corporate can reduce its reliance on seasonal temporary staff at almost no additional cost.


advertisement

Comments are closed.

Newsletters

StorefrontBacktalk delivers the latest retail technology news & analysis. Join more than 60,000 retail IT leaders who subscribe to our free weekly email. Sign up today!
advertisement

Most Recent Comments

Why Did Gonzales Hackers Like European Cards So Much Better?

I am still unclear about the core point here-- why higher value of European cards. Supply and demand, yes, makes sense. But the fact that the cards were chip and pin (EMV) should make them less valuable because that demonstrably reduces the ability to use them fraudulently. Did the author mean that the chip and pin cards could be used in a country where EMV is not implemented--the US--and this mis-match make it easier to us them since the issuing banks may not have as robust anti-fraud controls as non-EMV banks because they assumed EMV would do the fraud prevention for them Read more...
Two possible reasons that I can think of and have seen in the past - 1) Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code. 2) Also, in offline chip countries the card determines whether or not a transaction is approved, not the issuer. In my experience, European issuers haven't developed the same checks on authorization requests as US issuers. So, these cards might be more valuable because they are more likely to get approved. Read more...
A smart card slot in terminals doesn't mean there is a reader or that the reader is activated. Then, activated reader or not, the U.S. processors don't have apps certified or ready to load into those terminals to accept and process smart card transactions just yet. Don't get your card(t) before the terminal (horse). Read more...
The marketplace does speak. More fraud capacity translates to higher value for the stolen data. Because nearly 100% of all US transactions are authorized online in real time, we have less fraud regardless of whether the card is Magstripe only or chip and PIn. Hence, $10 prices for US cards vs $25 for the European counterparts. Read more...
@David True. The European cards have both an EMV chip AND a mag stripe. Europeans may generally use the chip for their transactions, but the insecure stripe remains vulnerable to skimming, whether it be from a false front on an ATM or a dishonest waiter with a handheld skimmer. If their stripe is skimmed, the track data can still be cloned and used fraudulently in the United States. If European banks only detect fraud from 9-5 GMT, that might explain why American criminals prefer them over American bank issued cards, who have fraud detection in place 24x7. Read more...

StorefrontBacktalk
Our apologies. Due to legal and security copyright issues, we can't facilitate the printing of Premium Content. If you absolutely need a hard copy, please contact customer service.