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Wall-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is headquartered in Bonneville, Arkansas. Wall-Mart is also the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51 percent of its IIS$258 billion sales in the U. S. From grocery business. It also owns and operates the Cam’s Club retail warehouses in North America. Wall-Mart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries as well as Wall-Mart’s online retail operations.
Wall-Mart Benefit Program Wall-Mart offers competitive pay and benefits, including health care plans, education assistance, retirement plans, and training and development opportunities. Wall-Mart offers eligible hourly store associates quarterly cash bonus opportunities, a lath care plan that starts at $17 per pay period, a kick plan with a company match, a 10% discount on merchandise, and, most of all, a chance to move up through the ranks. Currently Wall-Mart U. S. Benefits program highlights: First dollar coverage medical plans with no lifetime maximum and low premiums.
Comprehensive health care plan for less than $8 per week A 401 (k) Plan with a dollar for dollar match up to 6 percent of annual pay A 10 percent discount on most products throughout our stores Maternity wellness, including a coach from the Wall-Mart’s Life with Baby maternity benefit. According to (Susan Chambers, 2008),Wall-Mart charges extra for ambulance usage and emergency room visits, additional deductible of $100 for the use of an ambulance, both land and air, as well as $100 for emergency room visits.
This reoccurring cost on top of the already high deductible devalues the effectiveness of insurance and punishes employees for severe illness and injury. Employees with pre-existing conditions must wait at least one year for treatment. After finally reaching eligibility after six months or one year, depending on employment status, an employee must wait an additional year to chive full coverage for a pre-existing condition. If an employee enrolls late, he or she must wait 18 months. Wall-Mart fails to cover preventive care.
According to Wall- Mart’s most recent health plan, preventive care (except for mammograms, pap smears, and well child visits) is not available to associates. The fact is that, Wall-Mart is in the need of looking at the benefit plan for employees. Wall-Mart health insurance coverage falls far behind the national average. Wall-Mart has 5,000 or more employees they should be able to cover 64% of their workers however, Wall-Mart only covers 50%. Statement of Issues Wall-Mart has one of the saddest benefit plans for employee’s that has created bad business practices at Wall-Mart Corporations. Wall-Mart is one of our largest corporation and private employer in the U. S. Employing over 1. Million workers, sets a national standard for wages and labor practices” (West 2005). Wall-Mart offers a low premium to employees for family coverage. A low premium may seem reasonable and affordable however, the employees have a high annual deductible. The annual deductibles are so high that most employees find themselves having to pay thousands of dollars before Wall-Mart insurance decides to be active in paying excepting providers. At Wall-Mart employment and the benefit policies has been red flagged for the Government officials to review.
Wall-Mart has a very low pay scale the average “Wall-Mart associate makes only $8. 81 per hour” according to a study published by Forbes News Article, (Anger 2013). Wall-Mart’s full-time employee schedule is considered to be 34 hours per week with a salary of 15 thousand dollars per year average. Employees that work full time at Wall-Mart still live below the poverty level which has led many of the employees to seek government assistance for Medicaid and subsidized benefits in order to maintain medical benefits for themselves and their families. Once the Government get involved standards should be set for corporation like Wall-Mart.
Wall-Mart should be required to contribute in all employees health care cost or Maybe Wall-Mart could pay Medicaid funds for supplying benefits to their employees because what Wall-Mart is doing is Just not fair. In my opinion Wall-Mart is making the government responsible to take care of people that work for them which is robbery because those funds should be available for someone whom really needs insurance benefits. Literature Review Wall-Mart health benefits are very critical for employees; Wall-Mart executives are proposing the cutting of “retirement benefits” “by at least $200 million, by elimination flat 401 (k) retirement contributions. (West 2005), which would cut company retirement benefit cost from four percent to three percent. The average store associate employee is undesired based on the national standards in 2005. “A Wall- Mart worker with a family of four would have to pay health care costs equal to 30 percent of their income before receiving most benefits at Wall-Mart”. West, 2006). At this point no one really knows the reasoning behind why Wall-Mart executives executed such an unprincipled benefit plan therefore, it’s currently a mysterious.
As of January 2012, Wall-Mart no longer offers health benefits to employees that work less than 24 hours a week and they raised the insurance premiums for full-time employees up to 120 percent. Per Bloomberg Business week: “Wall-Mart stores have been cutting staff and benefits since the recession” (Dudley 2013). Issue Analysis As stated in part one of this project, Walt-mart is a fortune 500 company with over ,000 stores and one of the most successful stores in the United States. Wall-Mart should be able to provide a better compensation and benefit package that would fit the needs of their employees. Wakeup Wall-Mart, 2010). In-order for the plan to be revised someone from the benefits department need to review the plan that’s already in place. Wall-Mart’s mission is investing in their employees however, it doesn’t seem as if they are sticking by their mission when it come to their employees because Wall- Mart employees are basically on welfare due to such little pay and horrible benefits Hereford, Wall-Mart is keeping their employees living below the poverty level. The best route for Wall-Mart to take is to research other store benefit plans for guidance and support.
Issue Solutions Wall-Mart can start by looking at Cost corporation benefits for employees. Cost provides exceptional earnings and healthcare benefits to their employees. Cost employees make about $17 dollars per hour and the company contributes almost 3% of the employee salary to the employee’s 401 k retirement plan. Not like at Wall-Mart where the company is allowing employees to seek government benefits to maintain health care for their families. Wall-Mart and Cam’s club employees need to start looking for other employment opportunities to meet their family needs because it is about survival not Just a paycheck.
The executive team at Cost believes in great healthcare for hard working employees. Cost make sure that the part-time workers are also eligible for health insurance after a complete six months on the Job and they will be covered under the prescription, vision and wellness plan at no extra cost. Cost abundant benefits and pay plan has created a very low employee turnover and has boosted the employee morale. Most of the people that work for Cost work there for a long time because they are so happy to work for a company that has great pay and benefits. Cost Wholesale, 2010). Cost has a reputation of taking care of their employees and making them happy as a team member. Cost and Cam’s Club are similar warehouse clubs that sells everything in bulk package. It is well known that “Cost pays nearly all of its employees a decent living (well over the minimum wage) while Wall-Mart and Cam’s Club continues to pay its workers as if their employees don’t actually need to eat more than once a week, live n an enclosed space and, on occasion, take their kids to see a doctor” (Anger 2013).
One thing that I have learned from the experience of low-end retailer Jobs is that putting workers in terrible low-wage Jobs lean towards lousy service. Employees develop bad attitudes when receiving a bad compensation package because they start to feel worthless. The attitude developed is usually “who cares the company don’t pay me enough to care” which can create low in sales due to bad customer services because the employees has no motivation or incentive to work hard. Solution and its implementation Wall-Mart and Cost is totally opposite stores when it comes to salary and healthcare for employees.
Cost employees have the higher pay, fuller training, better benefits, and convenient work schedules. Wall-Mart may not follow the footsteps of Cost however; they can surely afford to meet with Cost executive team or other health care professionals to talk about healthcare benefits for employees. The recommendations to help Wall-Mart sad benefit plan is first, they need to accept the responsibility of their employees and start putting together an action plan to promote change. Once Wall-Mart put a fair plan in place they can help the 1. Million employees by revisiting the health care and premiums for employees that’s in place for expansions. Wall-Mart should also extend the HER team and work closely with a group of insurance administrators to enhance the employee benefits needs, improve communication, recruitment efforts, wage’s and reduce turnover because it’s obvious that Wall-Mart is in denial of the way they treat human beings. Looking back on Wall-Marts poor employee benefits there is a need for professional support to look and identify an HOMO that staff can afford for themselves or a family.
With the HOMO plan the employee can choose doctors, hospitals, and other providers in the HOMO network and a DOOM plan for dental which is a lower plan that gives employees effective care through a primary care dentist. Justification Justifying reasons that Wall-Mart need to create better benefits, it will keep them out of the spot light of being associated with poor working conditions for employees for example, a “2005 class action lawsuit in Missouri asserted approximately 160,000 to 200,000 people who were forced to work off-the-clock, were denied overtime pay ND was not allowed to take rest and lunch breaks” (2004 Miller).
Wall-Mart violated the Fair Labor Standards Act that requires employers to pay working employees who are not salary exempt at least the federal minimum wage and overtime pay of half- times the regular rate of pay if they work more than 8 hours a shift. An Employee Benefits Consulting Services can identify and recommend different employee benefit solutions and implement OPT programs that will match the strategies of the organization that can work for the long haul to make sure that all parts of the many are on the same page.
Making benefit changes at Wall-Mart will make a huge improvement that will help keep and promote new staff. Taking in account that Wall-Mart is a billion dollar company I believe, there is money for better benefits that can be found in the budget to support staff needs. Refection The Refection of this assignment has made me look at benefits in many different ways. If I decide to seek other employment other than my current Job I will first look at the benefit package before salary because I want to make sure they have excellent benefits that fits my family needs.
I don’t want to work for an organization where employees are still seeking government benefits. My friend accepted a position at John Hopkins University because of the excellent AY benefit package. One of the benefits that impressed me with Hopkins is that, Full-time employees who have worked at Hopkins for two years of continuous service working 40 hours per week are eligible to receive payment towards tuition for their dependent children.
My friend has a son that will be going to college in three years and she will be eligible to get financial assistance however, not many Jobs offer that benefit. I have always felt different about Wall-Mart because the store is always over crowed and there is always limited parking even in the handicap areas. As a community member I will no longer support or shop at Wall-Mart due to the way they treat their employees unless I need emergency items. I had no idea that they paid low wages and had horrible benefits and most of the employees are support by the government for medical benefits.
Doing this research over the last 7 weeks Wall-Mart has shown evidence of poor labor practice however, Wall-Mart denies any wrongdoing and upholds that low prices are he results in paying low hourly wages and horrible benefits. If Wall-Mart wants to change and keep employees for a long period of time I will suggest that they get the resources they need by paying close attention to different trends in the marketplace and review compensation and benefits packages annually to obtain better benefits and treat employees the way they deserve to be treated.