Management

Revisit the organization selected within the Week 2 assignment. Focus on the performance issues that could be resolved through effective training. Describe your suggestions for using the most effective training that is available to answer the unique performance issues of your selected organization. Using the aforementioned “Guidelines for Writing Papers”, write a 3-5 academic paper that describes your suggestions for a viable training and performance improvement plan. Include a minimum of two credible references that were used in your research.

Guidelines for Writing Papers

Your papers should be:

• word-processed using Microsoft’s Word (extension .doc or .docx)
• double-spaced

Your papers should have:

• one-inch margins
• a font size of 12
• a cover page that includes your paper’s title, your name, the date, and the course identification
• an introduction that states the purpose of the paper, and provides a roadmap of the paper’s contents
• paragraphs that develop and support your ideas
• section titles or headings, that help to organize your presentation
• a conclusion that summarizes the paper
• a logical flow
• smooth transitions between ideas
• in-text citations and a reference (bibliography) page using APA style (no footnotes)

No grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors

Attached is the paper from week two

ANSWER

Walmart Performance Issue

Introduction

Walmart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 where he opened the first store in Rogers, Arkansas. Walmart began as a single discount store which has grown over the last decades into one of the largest retailers in the world. Walmart is considered as one of the biggest retail companies in the world. Currently, over 260 million consumers are visiting more than 11,000 stores in 28 different states. The company is a market leader and a major competitor in the different geographic markets its located. The vision of the company is to offer the most effective retail experience since it is stated to the best retailer in the world. However, the company has faced challenges linked to employee performance. This paper will focus on the performance issues at Walmart and how these performance issues could be resolved through effective training programs. A feasible training and performance management plan will resolve the performance issues at Walmart through successfully retaining, attracting, and motivating employees who gain the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities that are required to achieve organizational objectives.

Performance Issues

Strategic Human Resource Management is an indispensable facet for the performance of a company since it supports the daily activities and operations. The responsibilities of human resource management are aimed at continuous performance improvement of the organization. Walmart’s HRM team plays an essential role in performance management within the organization (Andrew, 2019). Walmart is not only one of the largest organizations in terms of revenue but also boasts for its large workforce. However, various performance issues have influenced the productivity of employees within the organization. Walmart encounters performance problems such as poor customer service, high turnover rate, absenteeism, tardiness, and low employee morale (Andrew, 2019). These performance issues have reduced the financial performance of the firm, effectiveness, and efficiency of processes, productivity, and quality of customer service.

Employee morale can be considered as the overall outlook, attitude, and satisfaction that people have in the workplace. Considerably, low employee morale is considered as a killer of performance and workplace productivity. When workers feel disengaged and down, they might fail to meet the deadlines, lack innovation, and offer uninspired work. Low employee morale causes people to drag themselves to the workplace, lead to conflicts, lack of motivation, loss of revenue as well as poor performance (Andrew, 2019). Employee morale has led to low customer service at Walmart. Therefore, without reasonable service, the company will low the sales thus squeezing the margins which become challenging to pay employees better benefits and wages that may boost morale.

Some of the productivity issues at Walmart have been linked to absenteeism and tardiness. Ideally, punctuality and regular attendance are essential attributes for all employees. All employees need to arrive at the workplace on time and work regularly. This is because failure to arrive on time affects the productivity and morale of co-workers. When some of the workers are absent, services and operations are interrupted and an extra burden to replace the worker is encountered. Employees at Walmart are complaining of frequent absenteeism which has caused tension and conflict amidst the co-workers. Considerably, an employee that arrives at work regularly feels demotivated and frustrated that an absent or late employee is leading to the increased workload by forcing them to fill in to avoid productivity gaps. Relatively, employee absenteeism has also impacted both the physical and mental wellness of employees who repeatedly have to deal with the poor work attendance of the co-worker.

Poor human resource management has led to an increased turnover rate at Walmart. Improper recruitment and poor working conditions have been the main cause of the high turnover rate at Walmart. Considerably, job satisfaction influences the turnover intention and in turn impacts the performance and organizational productivity (McMann, 2019). High turnover has led to high financial losses associated with recruiting new employees, poor customer service, and failure to reach the business goals and objectives.

Training Programs

Training is considered as an effective way of strengthening skills that every employee requires to improve. Training allows employees to sharpen their skills and knowledge, perform better, become better leaders, and increase productivity (Ndulue, 2012). Training will play a great role in resolving the performance issues at Walmart since training improves employee morale, engagement, and stability to work effectively. Training offers the employees an opportunity to acquire skills that lowers the rate of labor turnover. This means that there will be a high consistency in the organization since retaining workers for a longer period will improve productivity and employee performance.

A low turnover rate means there is increased stability and flexibility. Flexibility and stability ensure that employees are placed in various departments and acquire necessary skills over time through sufficient training. Training leads to increased morale for employees since there is reduced dissatisfaction, reduced absenteeism, fewer complaints, and increased interest at work (Ndulue, 2012). Therefore, human resource management at Walmart needs to focus on effective training to resolve the performance issues within the organization. The training and development programs at Walmart needs to focus on job rotation and mentorship programs to resolve the performance issues.

Lack of mentorship can be among the major reasons why Walmart is encountering the various performance issues. Therefore, mentoring will be an effective training approach since the senior staff offer guidance and support the junior staff. Mentors offer emotional support and advice to the employees. Mentoring can encourage employee loyalty and help the employees feel comfortable within the management thus resulting in positive work experience. Mentoring as a method of training entails telling someone what they are required to do and working with the employees to solve problems, develop skills and make decisions

Mentorship programs will help the employees feel ready and prepared for the assigned tasks. For instance, employees will acquire knowledge and new skills through mentorship from the existing supervisors with the organization. This will play a big role in improving their work skills, increasing their job satisfaction thus boosting their morale and capability to work. Additionally, mentorship programs will act as great communication tools, effective first-hand learning tools, and tools for developing basic skills on how to progress within the career field (Noe and Kodwani, 2018). However, inadequate mentorship can lead to employees abandoning their positions within the company to seek employment in other organizations. Walmart managers and supervisors need to offer guidance to the new and existing employees on how to effectively complete their tasks to reduce turnover rates and increase employee satisfaction. Mentorship programs will ensure that the employees are empowered and encouraged through their personal development.

Job rotation programs can help lower turnover, improve productivity, and boost employee morale. Job rotation guides the current employees on how to conduct various jobs and develop various skills (Noe and Kodwani, 2018). Through learning various skills and acquiring more knowledge, employees feel valued by the organization. This increases job satisfaction and reduces the turnover rate. This is an effective technique to boost employee motivation and learning. The supervisors and managers can be the main reason for low employee morale, poor customer service, and a high turnover rate. This is because they fail to motivate employees within the organization. Therefore, through Job rotation, the managers and supervisors reduce the boredom of employees and increase their morale and satisfaction through boosting their performance level and enhancing their competitiveness. Job rotation is a tool to boost knowledge and skills thus reducing the workload and increasing abilities for completing the tasks.

Job rotation will let the employees understand that the company values them and is interested in their personal development thus leading to a reduction in turnover and increased productivity (Noe and Kodwani, 2018). Considerably, employees at Walmart require adequate skills, knowledge, and abilities to fill their positions. Walmart also needs to maximize employee job rotation to reduce financial losses associated with absenteeism, low productivity, poor customer service, and a high turnover rate. High turnover rates can be reduced by offering adequate job rotation for employees that are seeking training and development as well as career advancements within the organization.

Conclusion

Walmart needs to match the organizational needs and individual needs through training and development programs to ensure that the organization satisfies the needs of the employees. Training will offer an opportunity to resolve the performance issues through improving skills and knowledge, boosting morale and satisfaction thus reducing the high turnover rate. Mentorship and job rotation programs will focus on improving the performance of the employees in the different job descriptions within the Walmart workforce.

References

Andrew, T. (2019). Walmart Human Resource Management. Available at: http://panmore.com/walmart-human-resource-management-hr-management#:~:text=Walmart%20encounters%20performance%20problems%2C%20such,’%20achievements%2C%20among%20other%20approaches.

McMann, S. (2019). Turnover Rate: Walmart. Available at: https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1367&context=acadfest

Ndulue, T. I. (2012, September). Impact of training and development on workers’ performance in an organization. In Book of Proceedings, Proceedings of International Congress on Business and Economic Research (ICBER2012), International Association for Teaching and Learning, Granada (Vol. 1, pp. 135-148).

Noe, R. A., & Kodwani, A. D. (2018). Employee training and development, 7e. McGraw-Hill Education.