Managers in Walmart

BUSN 1210-002 – Management Essentials

Term Project for Walmart

Team#1

Keenan Scardina

Ishtpuneet Kaur

Rihdima Jain

Kobe Noda

Juan Diego Gallego

Maksym Kyselyk

Cover page

Table of contents

Introduction………………………………………………………. 3

Management in the Organization …………………………………3-5.

Organizational Culture and Environment …………………………6.

Ethical efforts and challenges into the organizational culture……..7

Social Responsibility ………………………………………………8-9.

Planning ……………………………………………………………9- 10.

Managing Strategically…………………………………………… 10-13

     Organisational Structure of Walmart………………………………14-17

Leadership / Motivating / Managing Groups………………………18-20

Evaluation of Learning…………………………………………......20-22

    Appendix…………………………………………………………... 22-29

    References…………………………………………………………..30-31

We had a huge selection of companies for our interview, but we chose Walmart. The reason why we chose Walmart is that we were interested in how Walmart’s managers operate, what challenges they face and how a typical workday looks like for them. Moreover, Walmart currently is a company with an admirable organisational culture, a highly motivated work environment and is deeply engaged in social responsibility. It is in fact the world’s largest company by revenue. The way it has gained the number one position in the retail business is remarkable. Getting a chance to learn about Walmart is itself very exciting. We also wanted to gain information from the Walmart manager to add to our knowledge and give us a better understanding of a manager’s role in the real business world.

We interviewed managers from two Walmart stores: Richmond and New Westminster Walmart. The name of the manager at New Westminster is Miss Gurinder. She has been the department manager for one year. She also worked as an associate for about two years but then got promoted to department manager because of her hard work and good performance.

The name of the second manager is Derik. He also holds the position of the department manager in Richmond for the past few years. We arranged an appointment with these managers according to their availability for the interview and asked them questions about Walmart’s functioning and their role as a manager. We then analysed the answers and came forward with some conclusions which are mentioned below. This project gave us a chance to learn about a real scenario in the retail business and boosted our understanding of the concepts we learnt in the course.

        Management in the Organization

Walmart is a multinational company that divides its power in different levels. In this case we got access to some information from Walmart through two first line managers. Gurinder and Derik are managers that have direct communication with all nonmanagerial employees. These employees are connected directly with the services, products and clients.

Gurinder and Derik are in charge of coordinating all the employees at work to accomplish a common goal that benefits the organization. They have to establish all the work that has to be done and who is going to do it. They have to make sure goals are achieved in an effective and efficient way. The idea is to accomplish all the goals as planned while spending less money, time and effort as possible. To do this, there are four steps that they have to follow; they have to plan goals, organize people effectively, lead and be involved while working, and make sure that everything is running as planned.

Managers can have different roles among a company. The role used by Gurinder and Derik is the interpersonal role. If they were in a higher position, they could use the informational and the decisional role. At this point of their career and knowing what they obligations are, the interpersonal role is the one that fits best to their needs. Their job in this case is to control people and make sure that everything is running smoothly.

To make sure that everything is running smoothly, playing a good interpersonal role is not enough. Managers have to have a set of skills that enables them to accomplish everything. Technical, human and conceptual skills are required. A person that has some technical knowledge is able to deeply understand what the needs and possible solutions are. This person is able to understand what the employees’ needs are and be more empathetic. Having conceptual skills gives the ability of being able to take decisions when difficult times come; this is a skill that is highly valued when you have the power to decide and the responsibility to give good results. The last skill is one that is highly important for any leader or person working in a group: the human skill. This skill is really important when working in a group. This skill makes a person more appealing and also have a better connection with others. Being a manager means being a leader and being an example to follow. If managers have good connections with employees, their employees are going to be more satisfied. In most of the cases, employees are going to work even more productive because they enjoy the work environment.

Management has to adapt to different kinds of companies, they all differ from one to another in a variety of things. The ideology, the mission and vision, the flexibility and the size of the company are things that define how the behavior of its employees has to be. It creates culture and it is fundamental in the company. Walmart is a company with many stores all around the world. According to employees and front-line managers, the company is stable and command oriented. This does not give much space for flexibility or creativeness. Therefore, this company is defined as a traditional organization.

Walmart has stores all around the world, this means that communication is a really important factor for them. Due to the work force diversity and changing cultures they have to try and understand each employee to be able to succeed in business. According to the managers of Walmart, they face different challenges when working with different employees with different ideologies. They have different strategies to solve these problems. All of them include encouraging socialization. Managers make sure that all employees are networking with others and that they are being heard with equal importance. Communication can be person to person or using electronic methods, like email, webchat, etc. Walmart became an e-business because they wanted to employ fast and efficient communication, at the same time that they needed to employ a method which can connect everyone even on the other side of the world.