Walmart Inhumane Practices

The issue: We aim to make each of our associates feel “uniquely fulfilled, challenged and capable of successfully accomplishing.” However, Jordan’s (2016) statement that approximately “5,000 lawsuits are filed against Wal-Mart each year, or roughly 13 new suits per day,” makes our HR mission seem like a tall tale.

The class-action lawsuit for violating workers’ rights in foreign countries for denying minimum wage and overtime by the International Labor Rights Fund (Barbaro, 2005) is an apt example. When workers alleged they were physically abused by their supervisors and that one Bangladeshi worker was forced to work almost fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, for a period of six months (Barbaro, 2005), our employees across the world begin to question Wal-Mart’s ethics. Such inhumane practices are not just prevalent in undeveloped countries, but also in America. A Wal-Mart employee’s request to her supervisor to accommodate her by assigning her to the cashier register was denied (Schulte,

Thus, our need to implement methods to change our ways is a business necessity. Since discrimination against employees has been a prevalent issue, the best way to eradicate this discrimination at Wal-Mart will be to resolve the core of the issue, which is a lack of knowledge on the supervisor’s part. Hence, supervisors and managers need to be trained specifically for discrimination and diversity. An outside consultant with expertise on federal laws that protect employees such as Title VII and ADA (American Disabilities Act), and explain types of discriminatory behaviors at work should conduct the training. Hopefully, such a training will equip our managers with the right approach in dealing with sensitive issues and also make them aware of their unconscious biases. With a healthy work environment that appreciates diversity, employee satisfaction will