As the nations largest retailer, second-largest corporation, and largest private employer (with 1.

3 million workers), Wal-Mart made headlines this past year at an unprecedented rate. All too often, these headlines revolved around Wal-Marts infamous employment practices. While Wal-Mart isnt the only big box store criticized for its policies, it has become a symbol for much of what is wrong with employers. Wal-Mart reported a net income of over $11 billion last yearsurely plenty of money to remedy some questionable workplace practicesyet stories persist about wage law violations, inadequate health care, exploitation of workers, and the retailers antiunion stance. Altogether, some 5,000 lawsuits are filed against Wal-Mart each year, or roughly 17 suits per working day. Heres a look back at the year according to Wal-Mart. Its not pretty. Wal-Mart Documentary: Public Relations Nightmare November saw the release of the film Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Through interviews with employees and former managers, the documentary presented a critical view of Wal-Marts policies, particularly with respect to treatment of Wal-Mart employees. In response to the films release, Wal-Mart hired several former presidential advisers to establish a rapid-response public relations team. In December, Wal-Mart formed an advocacy group, called Working Families for Wal-Mart, which was headed by former Atlanta mayor and UN Ambassador Andrew Young. Unfortunately for Wal-Mart, this public relations campaign hit a snag in August, as Young told the Los Angeles Sentinel that Wal-Mart should displace traditional mom-and-pop stores. Young elaborated further: You see those *small store owners+ are the people who have been overcharging us, and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think theyve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now its Arabs. Young resigned hours after the interview was published. Anti-Union Stance Wal-Marts anti-union stance made headlines once again this year. After workers at a Wal-Mart store in Qubec successfully unionized, Wal-Mart announced that it would close that store, citing economic reasons. Last September, Qubecs labor relations board rejected Wal-Marts argument and found that Wal-Marts firings were illegal. Wal-Mart employees had some success this past year in organizing non-union groups. In the fall of last year, Wal-Mart employees in central Florida formed a workers group, the Wal-Mart Workers Association, in an attempt to improve working conditions and air grievances against the company. By January, the group had enlisted approximately 300 employees from 40 stores. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Union is among the sponsors of the new group. So far, the group has been able to restore hours cut by the store, reinstate a fired employee, and get the company to install a bike rackall through non-unionized collective action campaigns. In November of last year, Wake Up Wal-Mart, a UCFW-sponsored group critical of the retailer, formed a national association, called the Wal-Mart Workers of America, in an attempt to organize Wal-Mart workers, albeit without forming a union.

In January, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals handed Arkansas Wal-Mart employees a victory, reinstating a lawsuit alleging that Wal-Mart engaged in anti-union activities. In August, at the same time Wal-Mart was agreeing to work with Chinese officials to establish unions for 30,000 store employees, the retailer reaffirmed its anti-union stance in North America. Wal-Mart explained that its motivation for permitting unions in China was to comply with Chinese laws, while the company's critics argued that the move was not done for the interests of workers and instead only demonstrated Wal-Marts desire to please its biggest trading partner. Exploitation of Workers Last September, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart for violating workers rights in foreign countries, alleging that Wal-Mart denied minimum wage, required overtime, and punished union activity. In some cases, workers alleged they were beatenby supervisors. If certified, 100,000 to 500,000 workers could be included. Specifically, the suit alleged that one Bangladesh worker worked seven days a week from 7:45 a.m to 10:00 p.m. without a day off in six months. In another instance, Wal-Mart was accused of failing to provide adequate safety equipment (gloves) for its fabric cutters and seamstresses overseas. According to one report, in Wal-Marts cost-benefit analysis, it was cheaper to wash workers blood from clothing before shipping the clothing overseas for sale than it was to provide gloves. In any event, Wal-Mart appeared to take notice of the public outcry over rights exploitation. In October of last year, Wal-Mart announced that it would start holding suppliers more accountable for workers rights violations. In March, it was reported that Wal-Mart was increasing the number of unannounced inspections at foreign factories. Critics urged the retailer to use outside experts to verify the inspections. In November, the Office of Inspector General released a report critical of the Department of Labors settlement agreement with Wal-Mart over child labor violations, claiming that the Department made significant concessions and that serious breakdowns in the negotiation and approval of the agreement were present. Under the agreement, Wal-Mart was fined $135,540 for child labor violations occurring between 1998 and 2002. Lawmakers and child advocate groups questioned the agreements provision that Wal-Mart would receive 15-day advanced notice before certain stores would be investigated. When Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf region, Wal-Mart contributed $17 million to the relief effort, in addition to more than $3 million in merchandise, which led one commentator to observe: A company capable of operating in such a coordinated, humane way should do so not just in a disaster but every day. There is no reason Wal-Mart could not operate in an equally streamlined, wellorganized manner to make sure that labor laws (on overtime, child labor, discrimination) are followed. There is no reason its impressive resources could not be marshaled to remedy the daily, ongoing disaster that so many of its workers face: low wages and inadequate healthcare. In November, a federal agency affidavit revealed that Wal-Mart executives were aware of systematic hirings of illegal immigrants by Wal-Marts cleaning contractors. In 2003, immigration officials conducted a raid on 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states, arresting 245 workers. Wal-Mart settled the

case for $11 million in March of last year, but claimed that corporate executives were unaware that illegal immigrants were hired. Wage Law Violations In California, some 116,000 Wal-Mart employees joined in a class-action lawsuit against the retailer, claiming that Wal-Mart violated a California law requiring employers to provide an unpaid 30-minute lunch break to employees who work at least six hours. In December, three days before Christmas, California Wal-Mart employees prevailed on their claims in front of a jury, collecting $57 million in compensatory damages and $115 million in punitive damages. The California verdict came on the heels of a $50 million settlement in Colorado and a separate victory in Oregon. By June, however, lawyers of Wal-Mart employees were back in court, asking for an injunction to compel Wal-Mart to follow the same state lunch-break laws. A California judge has since ordered the retailer to obey these laws and provide compliance reports for the next 3 years. Similar wage and hour class-action suits were filed in other states against Wal-Mart. In January, a Pennsylvania judge certified a class-action lawsuit against the retailer that alleged that workers were not compensated for hours workedin one instance, one employee claimed 8 to 12 unpaid hours a month, on average. Wal-Mart denied the allegations, which could include 150,000 Pennsylvania workers, claiming that Wal-Mart's policy is to pay associates for every minute they work. This innovative and progressive Wal-Mart policy was first revealed when Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott made a similar statement in the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, which drew the following response from Jon Stewart, host of the television talk show "The Daily Show": That's the best you can do? If you work here, we'll pay you. Meanwhile, in April, Wal-Mart announced plans that it was testing a flexible scheduling policy, which would require workers to shift rotationsinstead of having steady shifts. Workers claimed that the policy was designed to force full-time workers to change to a part-time schedule, thereby saving Wal-Mart the cost of salaries and benefits. In May, California Wal-Mart managers were dealt a legal setback when a federal judge refused to certify a class-action lawsuit, saying that the managers claims needed to be addressed individually. The lawsuit claimed that managers were illegally exempted from overtime pay. By the end of the year, the many lawsuits and public outcry seemed to have a slight effect. In August, Wal-Mart announced that it would raise starting wages at one-third of its stores by about 6% in an effort to stay competitive with other retailers. Just weeks after this announcement of a modest pay raise, Wal-Mart was once again making headlines for all the wrong reasonsthis time for a Texas class-action lawsuit alleging hour and wage law violations. After letters were sent to Wal-Mart employees inviting them to join the classaction suit, some Wal-Mart store managers allegedly pressured employees, by threat of termination, to hand over the invitations and sign a statement saying that they did not work off the clock. Lawyers for the Wal-Mart employees have requested that a federal judge order that Wal-Mart cease this practice. Health Care

Last October, Wal-Mart announced that it would introduce a cheaper health insurance plan for employees, with monthly premiums as low as $11. Critics questioned whether Wal-Mart was attempting to boost its sagging image by offering health care to more workers while neglecting the quality of the health care itself. Later that month, an internal memo from a Wal-Mart executive recommending numerous ways to reduce health care spending was discovered by the New York Times. The memo noted that WalMart workers were sicker than the national population and tended to overuse emergency rooms instead of visiting doctors. Among the memos recommendations to reduce health care spending: Discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart; one way to accomplish this goal: require that all jobs involve some physical activity Hiring more part-time workers Reducing 401(k) contributions Putting health clinics in Wal-Mart stores

All told, as a result of these recommendations, Wal-Mart estimated it would save more than $1 billion in health care costs by 2011. Wal-Mart was apparently so impressed by the executives suggestions that itpromoted her to head the human-resource division the following April. In February, the New York Times also revealed several candid internal discussions between WalMart CEO Lee Scott and Wal-Mart managers on a private website. When one Wal-Mart manager asked the CEO why the company could not provide medical retirement benefits, Scott snapped back that the manager was disloyal and suggested that the manager quit. In April, the Change to Win labor federation staged demonstrations in 35 cities to protest Wal-Marts inadequate health care, with up to 350 protesters reported in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the most significant development over the last year involved attempts by state and city governments to mandate health care for Wal-Mart employees. At the beginning of 2006, the New York Times reported that lawmakers in 30 states were considering legislation that would require large corporations to increase spending on employee health insurance. Maryland would be the first to enact such laws. In January, Maryland legislators passed the Fair Share Health Care Fund bill, overriding Governor Robert Ehrlichs veto. The law requires private companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend 8% of their payroll on one of three options for health care: spend the money on health care directly; spend the money on an improved ERISA plan; or pay the money to the state for health care costs. Maryland was the first state in the country to pass such a bill, unofficially dubbed the WalMart bill because the company was the only one of the four employers in the state which had 10,000 employees but which was not already spending 8% on employee health care. Workers rights advocates hailed the bills passage and, in an attempt to bolster momentum for employee health care, urged other states to pass similar bills.

In July, however, supports of the movement were dealt a setback when a federal judge invalidated the law, holding that it was preempted by federal law (ERISA). While the ruling only affected the Maryland law, thus preserving similar laws passed in Massachusetts and Vermont, it likelyhalted states' efforts to require large employers to provide employee health care. Despite its invalidation, the law did have one positive outcome, as its passage and the ensuing litigation spurred much public debate on the health care issue. Meanwhile, Chicago was the other major battlefield between Wal-Mart and its governmental critics. In July, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance, by a 35-14 vote, that would require big box stores to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour by 2010, along with $3 worth of benefits. A big box store is defined as a store with more than 90,000 square feet that is part of a company that grosses more than $1 billion annually. The 35 supporting votes would be enough to override a veto by Mayor Richard Daley. Daley has until September 13 to decide whether to veto the bill, which would the first veto in his 17-year tenure. Experts believe this type of bill could spread to other communities outside of Chicago, much in the same manner as the Fair Share bill. The Good, The Bad, and Wal-Mart was written by Timothy Jordan, Class of 2008, UC-Hastings College of the Law, and legal intern for Workplace Fairness. Tim would like to acknowledge the research and editing assistance of his colleagues Paula Brantner, Glenn Simpson, and Eva Silverman, and the web design assistance of Midwest New Media, LLC. For comments on this report or expert commentary on workplace trends or employee rights for your next business, career, or labor story, contact Workplace Fairness Acting Executive Director Paula Brantner by email at paula@workplacefairness.org or by telephone at 4153627373. For more information about the issues raised by this report, please visit the Workplace Fairness website, www.workplacefairness.org. For the most comprehensive information about your legal rights in the workplacefree of legal jargonplease visit our site's "Your Rights" area. In our feature series ShortChanged, we present a comprehensive view of today's most important workplace issues, like the widening income gap, crises in healthcare and retirement, workfamily imbalance, and a justice system that is closing its doors on workers. Our free enewsletters, In the News (daily) and Workplace Week (weekly) provide the most current information available on the cuttingedge issues that affect working people and their advocates. By visiting our Action Center, you can make your voice heard immediately on the workplace issues you care about most. Workplace Fairness is a nonprofit organization that promotes workplace policies and practices that work for everyone. Through our website at www.workplacefairness.org, we provide information, education and assistance to individual workers and their advocates nationwide and promote public policies that advance employee rights. Our goal is to bring together workers, employers, advocates and policymakers to achieve fairness in the workplace.

http://www.workplacefairness.org/reports/good-bad-wal-mart/credits.php

http://insights.onavo.com/blog/black-friday-2012/

As was reported in TechCrunch, we found out that on Black Friday 2012, 7.36% of iPhone users in the United States made use of at least one shopping app. While Groupon and LivingSocial, respectively, had the highest market shares in usage, we see that the Best Buy, Walmart, and Kohls applications actually had the greatest increase over normal usage on Friday. Walmart and Target enjoyed the largest marketshare among brick and

mortar establishments, with Target having an established user base for their app and Walmart apparently pushing new usage.

http://fisher.osu.edu/supplements/10/9160/Final%20Report%20-%20Wal-Mart.pdf

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/03/20/wal-mart-losing-out-to-online-retailers/

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.s customers were latecomers to online shopping. Now increasingly theyre trolling for deals at Amazon.com Inc., putting pressure on Wal-Mart to fix its lagging e-commerce operation. Five years ago, the worlds largest retail chain didnt have to worry much about the worlds largest online mall. After all, only about a quarter of Wal-Mart customers shopped at Amazon, according to data from the research firm Kantar Retail. Now half say they do. Thats changing as two trends converge: Wal-Marts traditional customers bargain hunters making less than $50,000 a year are getting more tech savvy, and less-strapped shoppers who began frequenting Wal-Mart during the recession are now rediscovering Amazon, said Bryan Gildenberg, a Kantar analyst based in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Amazon has moved from being this unusual niche competitor for Wal-Mart to a force that can reinvent the industry, Mr. Gildenberg said in a phone interview. Young people are tech savvy and theyre unemployed, too. The affluent shopper is trading back out of Wal -Mart and Amazon is a bigger part of their life than before. The changing habits of Wal-Marts customers and Amazons growing clout have Wal-Mart executives and e-commerce managers focusing on the Seattle-based giant as never before. Amazon is always in our sights, said Jeremy K ing, hired in July as chief technology officer of @WalmartLabs, the retailers e-commerce skunkworks in Silicon Valley. In the U.S., Amazon is a very big competitor. My biggest issue is playing a catch-up game.

Lagging Operations For years, Wal-Marts online operations have lagged behind those of its brick-and-mortar rivals. In the past decade, Wal-Mart has tried hiring outside firms to develop its Web store and deployed a

rotating cast of executives to find a solution. Yet last year online sales amounted to less than 2% of revenue, according to Kantar. Meanwhile, Amazon is on the march, successfully moving into merchandise that Wal-Mart traditionally has sold, from diapers to vacuum cleaner bags. In its last fiscal year, Amazon posted 41% revenue growth compared with 8% at Wal-Mart. Amazon shares have advanced 15% in the past 52 weeks, while Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart has increased 18%. Last year, Wal-Mart was the No. 1 destination for holiday shoppers with 53% of consumers shopping there, down from 59% in 2009. The percentage of consumers doing holiday shopping at Amazon.com rose to 46% from 38% in the last three years, according to Kantar research. Shopping Destination By next year, Amazon, now the No. 2 holiday shopping destination, may be No. 1, said Anne Zybowksi, a Kantar analyst. Wal-Mart is going crazy over this, Mr. Zybowski said. Wal-Mart is doing a lot with dot-com but they havent figured it out yet. Now Wal-Mart is doubling down. Since May, it has spent more than US$300-million acquiring Webrelated companies to build the talent base and expertise at @WalmartLabs. They include Kosmix, a social-media firm, and iPhone app creator Small Society. The retailer has hired more than 200 people and is upgrading its Web platform. Internally, Wal-Mart has a new motto, Anytime, Anywhere. Soon it will be the online marketing slogan, Walmart.com U.S. President Joel Anderson said in an interview. Anytime Anywhere Eventually, Wal-Mart consumers will be able to shop for anything thats available online or in stores, using smartphones or traipsing the aisles. Wal-Mart, like other retailers, aims to use its stores as pickup centers, said Venky Harinarayan, @WalmartLabs senior vice president of global e -commerce, a former Amazon executive who worked at Kosmix. While Amazon has a pricing advantage on some items partly because it charges no sales tax in many states, Wal-Marts same-day, in-store pickup gives the retailer an edge, executives said. Already, online shoppers pick up more than half their purchases at a store, according to Mr. Anderson. Price has been a key component of our strategy, but its not the only thing, he said. Next month, Walmart.com is starting Pay With Cash, aimed at the 20% of Wal-Mart customers who cant shop online because they dont have bank accounts or credit cards. Using the new program, these

core Wal-Mart customer can reserve products online and pay cash at their nearest store. Wal-Mart is reaching out to more affluent customers by piloting WiFi in some stores and by selling more expensive items high-end Sony and Samsung televisions, for example only online. Scan Items Wal-Marts physical stores and huge inventory also can work against it. It has become commonplace for shoppers at many retailers to scan items with phones or look them up online and then buy elsewhere. Wal-Mart calls this scan and scram. To battle the scan and scram phenomenon, Wal-Mart is working on a pilot concept called Endless Aisle. If consumers locate an item in the apparel department, say, and the store doesnt have the desired size or color, they can order it when they want on a smart phone. Its going to be hard to live in such a world, said Mr. Harinarayan. You cant ask people to leave their phones at the door. So you have to give them value and an experience. Wal-Mart hasnt yet figured out exactly what suite of online features and phone apps will make its Internet site the go-to place for consumers, Mr. Harinarayan said. At the same time, no one else has, either. There is no dominant business model, he said. Matching Wal-Marts online technology to the emerging needs of customers is still a ways off, Mr. King said. The company needs a whole new online infrastructure to manage the global sales volume and host new features and apps, he said. Mr. King is currently hiring 87 engineers and coders to get the job done. From Scratch Were starting from scratch to build a foundation, said Mr. King, who spent several years at EBay Inc. Ideally, wed have this platform built a couple of years ago. At first Mr. King wasnt keen on joining Wal-Mart, telling recruiters Wal-Mart was nowhere in online retailing. Only a conversation with Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke persuaded him management was behind the effort. I said, You guys arent even in this game, Mr. King said. I talked to Mike Duke. He said he will double down, or even triple down on this. He said well be in it to win it.

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/02/walmart-nears-half-trillion/ Half a trillion dollars. That barely comprehensible number has entered the sights of the worlds largest retailer.

Walmart recently reported net sales of more than $466 billion for its fiscal year 2013, which ended January 31. At its current growth rate of 5 percent, the company still wont reach a half-trillion next year.

That sluggish curve is clearly one reason the Arkansas-based company has started devoting so much time and attention to its Silicon Valley operations. Headquartered just south of San Francisco, Walmart.com is heavily recruiting tech talent. And in some ways its investment is starting to pay off. The companys wide-ranging experiments in clicks-and-mortar retail have put it at the forefront of merging online, offline and mobile commerce.

Online is also starting to contribute to the bottom line. In a conference call with analysts, Walmarts president and CEO of global e-commerce, Neil Ashe, boasted that the companys online strategy was working.

The investments weve made so far in our e-commerce business are delivering, Ashe said. Revenue growth is accelerating and ahead of our plans.

As others have pointed out, delivering in this case would likely mean Walmart is on track to meet or exceed the $9 billion online sales goal Ashe set at Walmarts shareholders meeting in October. (Walmart doesnt break out its online sales figures separately.)

In many contexts, thats a lot of money. But not in the context of $466 billion. Walmart undoubtedly looks at that $9 billion and sees nowhere to go but up. The other figure theyre looking at is $61 billion: Amazons net sales for its most recent fiscal year. According to the most recent Internet Retailer estimates, Staples is the only other company that has exceeded $9 billion in online sales. Amazon so vastly outstrips all other comers, including Walmarts online operation, that it in some ways appears to have the market locked. But if anyone can challenge Jeff Bezos battering ram, its likely the only other company besides Exxon that can say a half-trillion dollars with a straight face.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/04/17/walmart-pays-workers-poorly-and-sinks-whilecostco-pays-workers-well-and-sails-proof-that-you-get-what-you-pay-for/ Costcos most recent quarterly earnings report reveals a fairly healthy eight percent rate of growth in year-on-year salesincluding a five percent rise in same store sales. Whats more, with membership fees rising from $459 million in the same quarter last year to $528 million this year, its pretty clear that a significant number of customers are moving over to the retailer to do their discount shopping.

Meanwhile, Costcos primary competitor, Walmart, saw an anemic 1.2 percent rise in sales, while other competitors such as J.C. Penny and Target TGT +1.54% experienced even greater disasters in their sales results.

In an identical economy, how do we explain Costcos growth vis--vis the failures over at Walmart?

Heres a crazy thoughtmight it have something to do with the fact that Costco pays nearly all of its employees a decent living (well in excess of the minimum wage) while Wal-Mart continues to pay its workers as if their employees dont actually need to eat more than once a week, live in an enclosed space and, on occasion, take their kids to see a doctor?

And just in case the occasional Walmart employee finds a way to squeak by, the company has sought to put an end to that by cutting their employment roster by 1.4 percent, even as they increased their store count by thirteen percent.

The result?

Walmart service now pretty much sucksand customers dont like it.

Without enough employees to get the basic work of a retail operation doneand with those on site being paid a wage so low that it is difficult to expect much in the way of pride or motivationWalMart merchandise remains stacked on pallets in the warehouse rather than making it to the floor where customers can find the products they want. At the same time, check-out lines are painfully long and annoying as the overall shopping experience continues to deteriorate.

One is left to wonder about the value of offering products at a lower price if those products are not on the shelves when the customer needs to buy them?

Per Bloomberg Businessweek:

Wal-Mart Stores WMT +1.65% (WMT) has been cutting staff since the recessionand pallets of merchandise are piling up in its stockrooms as shelves go unfilled. In the past five years the worlds largest retailer added 455 U.S. Walmart stores, a 13 percent increase, according to company filings in late January. In the same period its total U.S. workforce, which includes employees at its Sams Club warehouse stores, dropped by about 20,000, or 1.4 percent. The article continues, A thinly spread workforce has other consequences: longer checkout lines, less help throughout the store, and disorganization. Last month, Walmart placed last among department and discount stores in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the sixth year in a row the company has either tied or taken the last spot. The dwindling level of customer service comes as Walmart has touted its in-store experience to lure financially strained shoppers and to counter the threat from online rivals such as Amazon.com AMZN +1.34% (AMZN).

So, does paying an employee a living wage make a difference when it comes to profits?

Harold Myerson writes in a terrific piece published in todays WashPo

One lesson that emerges from the experience of low-end retailers is that putting workers in crummy, low-wage jobs tends to yield crummy service as well. McDonalds earnings have fallen, the Wall Street Journal reports, and a management webcast to franchise owners acknowledged that customer dissatisfaction is rising in part because service is broken. Myerson adds, Some of the most successful retailers follow a different path. As MIT management professor Zeynep Ton argued in Harvard Business Review last year, Costco and Trader Joes pay their workers far more than many of their competitors, offer their employees opportunities for promotion and enjoy markedly lower worker turnover and far higher sales per employee than their low-road counterparts. Sales per employee at Costco are nearly double that at Sams Club.(emphasis added)

As the old saw goes, you get what you pay for. Costco pays their employees a livable wage and gets sales per employee at double what Walmart subsidiary Sams Club gets from their employees who work for lousy pay.

Maybe the time has come for Wal-Mart to take a lesson from Costco and consider the potential upside of treating employees like human beings.

It might just prove to be good for business.

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/05/02/target-vs-walmart-which-one-is-a-better-place-to-work/

Attention Target Team members, did you ever wonder how your job stacks up against similar positions at the world's largest retailer, Walmart? Though the two chains may have different corporate cultures, according to PayScale, the rivals' rank and file have plenty in common, in addition to stocking scads of discounted merchandise.

Online salary database PayScale.com recently released a new set of employer information, based on survey responses from employees from a variety of companies, including large retailers. For instance, did you know that Target and Walmart are nearly equal in terms of the gender split between their employees? Fifty-three percent of Target's work force is female, while women make up 59 percent of Walmart's staff.

And though their respective headquarters are on opposite sides of the map (Walmart in Bentonville, Ark.; Target in Minneapolis, Minn.), the two count the great state of Texas, especially Houston, as having the biggest concentration of employees. And, according to PayScale, both groups of employees report that they have been schooled at University of Phoenix more often than any other institution.

Among both work forces, the skill sets are also aligned. Most of the staff at both retailers is wellversed in Microsoft Office and Microsoft Word. Use of customer service metrics is also common, however more of Target's employees are proficient in project management and leadership skills while Walmart staff concentrates on developing its sales and retail pharmacy knowledge.

Where the two differ - but not by much -- are in what they pay employees. Target offers bigger wages for salaried workers, but hourly employees such as cashiers earn the same at both retailers. Here's a comparison of eight popular positions and the median wage for each.

1. Greeter/Floor Sales Representative Target: $6.77 - $12.06 per hour

Walmart: $6.98 - $12.18 per hour

2. Cashier Target: $7.38 - $10.27 per hour

Walmart: $7.30 - $10.40 per hour

3. Retail Store Assistant Manager Target: $48,003 per year

Walmart: $42,134 per year

4. Retail Store Manager Target: $65,960 per year

Walmart: $60,326 per year

5. Retail Pharmacist Target: $114,492 per year

Walmart: $106,138 per year

6. Department Manager, Retail Store Target: $48,457 per year

Walmart: $29,211 per year

7. Customer Service Sales Associate Target: $7.34 - $16.76 per hour

Walmart: $7.79 - $12.75 per hour

8. Laborer, Freight, Stock, Material Mover Target: $6.93 - $14.08 per hour

Walmart: $7.35 - $14.90 per hour

As for time off, Target starts out by offering slightly more vacation for workers with less than a year's tenure. Those with one year of experience at the store typically get a week off with pay. At Walmart, it's the same.

The biggest disparity between Walmart and Target are in employee bonuses. Walmart is much more generous for some positions, offering its assistant store managers $2,948 as opposed to Target's $2,457. Store managers at Walmart get a whopping $9,958, nearly double Target's $4,880 for the same job.

There's one other discrepancy to note. More than half of Target employees, 51 percent, report that they are overachievers. Walmart, on the other hand, had only 44 percent declare themselves highly motivated, dedicated workers.

http://dailyinfographic.com/wal-mart-vs-amazon-infographic

http://money.msn.com/retirement/why-i-work-at-wal-mart
Americans 55 and older make up nearly 22% of the work force, up from 15% a decade ago, and many of them work at Wal-Mart. The retail chain is the nation's largest private employer by far, with about 1.4 million people on the payroll, earning an average of $12.67 an hour. About 400,000, or 29%, of Wal-Mart's workers are 50 or older.

http://www.walmartbrandcenter.com/logorequest/brand_logo_faq.aspx
Can we use variations of the tagline to fit our business need? A: No. Save money. Live better. should never be changed or modified by, for example, the addition or substitution of other words. Any unauthorized variation can be subject to legal action for damages and other remedies. Q: Are there any variations on the Spark placement or design? A: There may be variations used or authorized by Walmart. Please make sure that you include in your request the specific form of the mark that you want to use. Q: Why the Spark? Does it have a special meaning? A: Yes, it has several. Its a symbol of the spark of inspiration Sam Walton had when he opened his very first store. Its a symbol of all of the great ideas that have helped to develop our company over the years. And Its a symbol of the inspiration thats inside all of us. Really? Thats very interesting. Does it stand for anything else? A: Were glad you asked. The 6 spokes of the Spark also represent our 3 Brand Pillars and our 3 Basic Beliefs. The bottom 3 spokes are our foundation on which the company was built our 3 Basic Beliefs: Respect for the Individual. Service to our Customer. Striving for Excellence. The top 3 spokes reach upward communicating our commitments to our Customers our 3 Brand Pillars: Quality Products. Unbeatable Prices. Easy Shopping.

https://walmartethics.com/home.aspx?LangType=1033
"Personal and moral integrity is one of our basic fundamentals and it has to start with each of us" Sam Walton

http://ethics.walmartstores.com/

"Walmart started out with a single discount store in Northwest Arkansas and in less than 50 years grew to become the worlds largest retailer, with thousands of stores and clubs and millions of associates. Our culture of ethics and integrity has been a constant throughout that transformation. From the beginning, it has defined who we are as a company, and how we as associates treat each other, our suppliers and our customers."
Mike Duke, CEO

The 3 Basic Beliefs

Respect for the Individual Service to the Customer Striving for Excellence