The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

Our 1998 book, Contented Cows Give Better Milk, called attention to the substantial advantage in business outcomes achieved by companies with sensible leadership and employee relations practices. In it, we compared the difference in business results for a group of 6 companies with reputations for being great places to work (Contented Cows) versus a half dozen of their direct competitors with not quite the same workplace reputation (Common Cows). One of the companies profiled as an exemplar was Wal-Mart.

Despite very good business results, in the intervening years Wal-Mart has suffered more than its share of reputational black eyes inflicted by competitors who’ve endured countless beatings at the hands of the beast from Bentonville, labor unions that have grown weary of the company’s strident union-free posture, and yes, some mis-steps of its own.

Through it all, we’ve defied popular sentiment, maintaining instead that Wal-Mart is still a pretty good place to work, not to mention a convenient place to shop for a huge assortment of items at relatively low prices. Is it sexy? Nope, not one bit. Though I’ve never worked for the company, I get the distinct impression, gained from hundreds of store visits, interviews, and talking with acquaintances who do work their, that the work can be taxing (think long hours, hard floors), not especially lucrative, and, with  2.1 million people on the payroll (fully 50% larger than the active U.S. military), not particularly flexible. Moreover, consistent with lessons learned from other high performance workplaces, evidence abounds that employment at Wal-Mart is not for everybody. But it is right for a lot of people, and if you’re currently looking, you might give it some consideration.

What Wal-Mart lacks in “sexy” it makes up for in “steady”, something a lot of us are finding renewed appreciation for as the economy continues to quake and quiver. To wit…

• Unlike employees at 3 of the 6 designated “Common Cow” companies (Consolidated Freightways, United Airlines, and General Motors) and a long list of others that have gone through bankruptcy since the book was published , Wal-Mart employees have enjoyed growth, relative prosperity, and job security.
• Despite all the carping from organized labor about the company’s conservative approach to pay and benefits, Wal-Mart is now among the retail industry leaders in workforce health care insurance coverage. Indeed, the industry’s largest trade group, the National Retail Federation is apoplectic that Wal-Mart has endorsed congressional proposals that would require employers to provide health insurance for their employees
• And, they actually are doing some exciting stuff on the environmental front. The company is currently working with environmentalist and entrepreneur  Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia) to develop and produce recyclable clothing

*****
A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

P.S. Bill Catlette does not currently own Wal-Mart stock, nor has he ever taken a dime from the company.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.