Persuasive Speech: Executive Management in Walmart to Increase Resources

How do we survive, maintain competitive advantage, and enhance employee and customer safety during this pandemic here at Walmart? Since the onset of the pandemic Covid-19, governmental directives have resulted in many companies closing up and suffering many losses. However, Walmart is an essential service that must serve the population but is susceptible to health and safety issues such as the customer-employee transmissions. Walmart and its associates are continuing to serve the community and support one another during this period, which is a heroic action. The Leadership and Executive Management, it is essential to revise the corporate budget and add resources to help support our employees as well as their families financially and non-financially. This will help them work safely, increase motivation, and observe family support during this pandemic. Building on last week’s HRM meeting, three main recommendations, and changes were outlined and concluded, including granting the associates exclusive bonuses, changing the working schedules to make them more flexible, and installing health and safety measures in and out of the stores. This is in response to employee-related deaths seen in one of our stores in Chicago, where two employees died of covid-19 (Smith, 2020). We believe through these measures and changes, adding an extra budget and resources of $5 million to facilitate effective associate performance and promoting health safety will be a worthwhile and sound investment.

Lack of investing in associates’ health and safety is likely to cause chaos in Walmart stores, where employee-related infections and deaths may escalate. Nevertheless, proper motivation boosts their heroic actions, which shows support to them and their families. Many supermarket chains and retail stores have closed due to a lack of safety measures to protect their employees from contracting the virus covid-19. Since the onset of the pandemic, we have seen an influx of people shopping and seeking basic needs, products, and services. This shows that employees interact highly with many customers, carts are widely used, store bars are touched, and all these can be infected with the virus. Without proper care, health, and safety among employees, they may accidentally contract the virus and spread it amongst themselves. Therefore, there is a need to allocate an ’emergency’ or added budget and resources to help improve health and safety measures among our associates as well as keeping them engaged and motivated. The corporate culture here at Walmart prides in the workforce, as they are valuable resources, brand ambassadors of our services, determiners, and drivers of success. Chicago store was closed due to the two deaths experienced, if these safety and health measures are not integrated in our remaining stores, the same fate is likely to be experienced, which is an adverse situation to control or manage. If associates are not protected to work in safe and healthy environments, they may easily contract the virus, spread it among millions of clients’ coming in and out, and we are not immune, we could contract or transmit through our interaction (Smith, 2020). Moreover, the directive to maintain social distancing is a challenge to effective working among employees, hence installing more stringent and plausible safety measures will protect their health, enhance the safety of all involved stakeholders, and display a win-win situation.

Addressing this menace and dilemma will require granting the associates special bonuses, changing the working schedules to make them more flexible, and installing health and safety measures in and out of the stores. Giving associates special rewards such as weekly access to their wages other than the standard two-week pay period and bonuses will help them plan and focus on keeping themselves and their families safe and healthy. This will provide more financial support to maintain their families and provide for basic needs. Installing flexible work schedules will include adjusting working hours to avoid congestions in the stores, providing shifts for each associate. This will ensure they have adequate time to spend with their families and reevaluate their health status, which will be granted through safety measures to be adopted (Smith, 2020). Finally, health and safety measures to be taken include having the associates and their families’ free access at Even telehealth mobile app and doctor services, hence getting rid of the $4 access cost. Their mental wellbeing will also be supported freely through the Resources for a Living channel where they can access counseling at no charge. Operational wise, sneeze guards can be installed, adopt sprayer kits to help sanitize the carts, and install floor decals at entrances and checkout lanes to make social distancing easier. These recommendations increase the operational costs of the company, as they require added resources. Yes, however, investing in the health and safety of our employees and customers’ means protecting Walmart and us.

Integrating the recommendations will result in increased operational costs in the financial statements of the company, as financial and resource support will be required and will increase scheduling complexities, as they will be rushed. Introducing shifts among associates may result in overworking and burnouts, especially during peak hours and days. Freeing telehealth costs may contribute to decreased sources of corporate revenues, as waving the $4 among over 1 million associates is a large-scale action. However, integrating these solutions will save the human lives of not only us but of the associates, their families, and clients (Smith, 2020). A business cannot run or survive without customers; therefore, the investment will increase sustainability, competitiveness, and general performance. Healthy associates are in better positions to serve customers and have high levels of productivity. Increased productivity translates into corporate gains and profits. When the Executive management is responsible and accountable for employee wellbeing, safety compliance maximizes. Concisely, issues of increased costs will be counteracted by increased profits resulting from boosted productivity among healthy and safe associates. Burnout problems among employees can be addressed through rescheduling working hours and counseling sessions for mental and physical wellbeing. Hence, adding resources is plausible and feasibly compelling for Walmart.

Safety and healthy wellbeing are more crucial during this period for our associates, customers, and Walmart. Installing barriers and safety measures protect the physical, mental, and health wellbeing of our valuable resources. Let us implement these changes and allocate adequate resources to our teams to address the needs adequately for sustainability, survival, and corporate social responsibility. We must serve the people and planet as we source for profits, just as the Triple bottom line theory argues. Maximizing health and safety procedures with immediate action will protect the people (associates, clients), improve the planet (environment, earth, save humanity), and will maximize profits (boosted productivity, increased performance). This speech is a summary of the main report that outlines and describes qualitative and quantitative data and information about the strategic plan. The distribution of the intended $5 million figure is well analyzed in the main report, which, as seen, was emailed to you individually for perusal, comprehension, clarification, and reference.

References

Smith, D. (2020, March 24). Walmart Continues Focus on Health and Safety. Retrieved from Walmart U.S.: https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2020/03/24/walmart-continues-focus-on-health-and-safety