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Walmart Employee Stories-1
Stories related to Veterans and Walmart are mixed with some having positive experiences while other have had negative experiences. All identified articles about environmentalism/sustainability are positive in nature.
Stories on Veterans
ELISE HACKSTALL
- This article provides a story on Elise Hackstall who was transitioning off active duty while married to a fellow soldier.
- After completing the military on boarding program, she started working for Walmart in 2008.
- Over the next decade, she served in managerial roles in stores throughout Georgia and Tennessee. Today, she's the Developmental Market Manager in Memphis.
- The article states, "Walmart has offered Elise more than just support" and "her career here has been a perfect match for the skills she honed in the army — like decisiveness and leadership."
- The full article can be found here.
DONALD HOWARD
- Army veteran Charles Collier relied on social security disability checks for income and could not afford to buy an air conditioner.
- After hearing Collier's story, Walmart department manager Donald Howard helped Collier to buy the air conditioning unit he needed. Howard asked Collier to pay what he could and covered the rest of the bill.
- The full article can be found here.
BRITTANY WALTON
- Brittany Walton, an employee of Walmart, was recognized for helping a blind customer.
- The blind man was identified as veteran Mr. Roy, who was new in town and had come into Walmart to buy a mug.
- Brittany's noble gesture was celebrated on social media and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon also shared the post.
- The full article can be found here.
JAMES
- James, a 63-year-old Vietnam veteran looking for a job at Walmart was extremely disappointed by the way his recruitment process was handled. The process ended in him not getting the job.
- According to James, he was asked to meet maintenance supervisor, Duke, for the job interview but was never interviewed by this person and was only given a 10-minute interview.
- The full article can be found here.
WALLY LYNN
- According to Wally Lynn, who is a veteran and former Walmart employee, it was disappointing to see Walmart not offering proper discounts to service members and veterans who have sacrificed so much for the country.
- Wally believes that Walmart has a long way to go on showing commitment to service members and veterans and that a discount is just the first step.
- The full article can be found here.
Stories on Environmentalism/Sustainability
REDESIGNED VESTS
- Walmart recently redesigned its employee vests. The new vests are woven from fabric made of recycled bottles.
- Apart from being made in an environmentally sustainable way, the vests come in various colors such as green, blue, hot pink and orange.
- The full article can be found here.
LEE SCOTT
- Lee Scott ran Walmart from 2000 to 2009 and was credited as having started the discussion around environmental sustainability in the company.
- His efforts resulted in the implementation of Walmart’s sustainability program, where executives from the CEO on down traversed the globe to better understand the company's impact on the environment.
- Several company leaders made trips to parched cotton fields, landfills covered with Walmart shopping bags and melting Arctic glaciers, all with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of sustainability and engaging with environmental groups, journalists and critics.
- The full article can be found here.
JACK SINCLAIR
- The executive Vice President in charge of all the grocery operations at Walmart, Jack Sinclair, oversaw the deal that brought Wild Oats organic fare to Walmart.
- According to Sinclair, since Walmart sold more food than anybody else, it was imperative to do it in a sustainable way.
- The full article can be found here.
ANDY RUBEN
- Andy Ruben, the company’s Vice President of Corporate Strategy, was one of the first to start discussions about "sustainability," rather than the more prevalent notion of "corporate responsibility."
- Ruben, along with Scott Ellison of Blu Skye Sustainability Consulting, convened a group of executives for a two-day offsite meeting at the Shewmaker Center for Workforce Development.
- Those meetings later became the basis for what were later called Sustainable Value Networks at Walmart.
- The full article can be found here.
SANGUINETTI ROAD TEAM
- Employees of the Walmart on Sanguinetti Road In Sonora, CA volunteered alongside a group of homeless residents to reduce fire danger in the area.
- While talking about this initiative, Forrest Armstrong, Manager of the auto care center at the Walmart store said, "Anything we could do to help the community and have a better environment, because we don’t want any fires out here."
- The full article can be found here.
Research Strategy:
The research team was able to find both positive and negative stories related to veterans as well as positive stories about environmentalism/sustainability from or about Walmart employees. We were unable to find any negative stories about environmentalism/sustainability. Due to the likelihood that Walmart would not promote negative stories about itself, we focused on looking for employee discussions, comments and feedback on the company's social media pages, such as those on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram along with relevant Reddit threads where employees provide feedback on the company. The goal was to find opinions or stories narrated by employees pertaining to any negative or harmful action that may have been taken by the stores or the company as per its policy. However, posts by disgruntled employees were not concerned with the environmental impacts of their employer's actions and were more concerned about pay or working hours. We then looked through stories compiled by sources such as Gawker, Ranker, Whisper, Tickld and Readers Digest, which are all sites which compile true stories as told by Walmart employees and are heavily inclined towards negative aspects of the company. However, among these stories it was again noted that negative stories were mostly concerned with low pay, working hours and work loads. Some stories were also concerned with disturbances on the premises or customers heckling employees. There were no stories relating to environmentalism or sustainability. Finally, we looked into mainstream news sources, such as CNN, CNBC, Forbes, Fortune, NY Times and Washington Post to find articles which either reported on Walmart employees harming the environment or aspects of sustainability, or indicated that company policies ask employees to take actions on the environment or sustainability, but were not fruitful or were deemed counter-productive. However, it was found that Walmart received positive press coverage in regard to its sustainability actions and there were no negative stories. After exhausting all these strategies, we concluded that negative stories about Walmart related to environmentalism and/or sustainability are not available in the public domain.