At a time when hiring and retaining hourly retail employees has never been more costly or challenging, Walmart is raising the stakes in the industry’s wage war with a new plan to recruit and train store managers for a role it said carries an average annual salary of $210,000.
To get there and attract and retain the people it needs to run its 5,000 U.S. stores and warehouse clubs, as well as its network of 210 distribution centers, the Arkansas-based retail giant is appealing to students still in high school and college to see a job at Walmart as a starting point on a long career path.
“Working at Walmart provides a path for everyone to unlock their potential, drive their purpose-driven career and enjoy the great benefits and wages that come with the job,” a weekend blog post stated. “We offer opportunity at any stage of your career. Whether it’s your first job, next step or second career, there is a place for you here.”
In a specific pitch to recent or pending grads, Walmart said in the post it is piloting a new “College2Career” program this summer that will give young workers much-needed work experience, calling it an “opportunity to jump-start their careers by helping to run a multimillion-dollar business — one of our Walmart stores.”
“Participants go through a comprehensive mix of classroom training, hands-on experience and one-on-one mentoring with company leaders as they learn the ins and outs of Walmart and train to be a salaried member of management at a local store,” the post stated.
Upon completion, top performers in the pilot program would be offered at least $65,000 for a newly created management position that is seen as a pipeline for future store managers within two years.
“We see the emerging coach role as an additional pipeline to develop high-potential talent into future store managers, the latter role with an average wage of approximately $210,000 in 2021,” the post stated.
Not Just Stores
Walmart’s new store management trainee push comes just one month after it drew national attention for the launch of a fleet development program that lifted starting pay for truck drivers to $110,000 a year.
Read more: Walmart Hikes Driver Pay, Launches Private Fleet Program
“Throughout Walmart’s history, we’ve been committed to turning ambition into opportunity,” an April blog post stated.
“Now, we’re taking that same approach to the very foundation of our supply chain: the Walmart Private Fleet,” the company added, alongside its plans to raise pay for 12,000 existing and new drivers.
At the same time, the retailer is also building up its fleet of local drivers to handle the projected growth of its expanded same-day and in-home delivery services.
As much as Walmart is in a long-running battle with Amazon to capture share of overall spend, it is also facing new competition to hire daily delivery drivers too, as it increasingly goes up against the likes of Uber, Lyft and Instacart. Last week, Instacart announced that it is moving ahead with plans to go public via a deal that could see it closing its initial public offering (IPO) by the fall.
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