{"id":244578,"date":"2024-06-12T17:58:38","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T22:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/?post_type=discussion&p=244578"},"modified":"2024-06-13T18:14:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T23:14:20","slug":"are-bonuses-a-morale-booster-for-walmarts-hourly-associates","status":"publish","type":"discussion","link":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/discussion\/are-bonuses-a-morale-booster-for-walmarts-hourly-associates\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Bonuses a Morale Booster for Walmart\u2019s Hourly Associates?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Walmart announced<\/a> that its full- and part-time hourly workers will now be eligible for annual bonuses based on store performance and tenure as the chain seeks to bolster retention and recruitment in a tight labor market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 700,000 U.S. store associates will be eligible for annual bonuses<\/a> up to $1,000 for those who have been with the company for 20 years or more. For full-time employees with at least a year but less than five years at Walmart, the annual bonus is capped at $350.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s important that we are competitive on base wages,” Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner said on a media call<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furner noted that Walmart has hiked base wages by about 30% over the last five years, with the average U.S. wage about $18 an hour. Its minimum hourly wage starts from $14, less than the $15 starting wage at Amazon.com and Target as well as $16 at Costco. However, starting pay for a Walmart associate can be as high as $19 an hour, depending on the store location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond pay, Walmart has invested in employee benefits supporting healthcare, career development, and family planning in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Everything’s better when turnover goes down and tenure goes up,” Furner said on the call<\/a>. “We’re really pleased that our turnover has gone down over the last year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unemployment rate has risen slightly in recent months but remains low, at 4% for May, according to the Labor Department\u2019s report<\/a> released Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a big move from Walmart, which is allowing more people in the business to share in success,\u201d Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData and a RetailWire BrainTrust panelist, told the Washington Post<\/a>. \u201cThe new bonuses may not address all the complaints about employee compensation, but they do blunt them somewhat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move to offer bonuses to hourly associates was announced just ahead of Walmart\u2019s annual shareholders\u2019 meeting. Walmart also introduced new training programs and certifications to fill high-demand roles across its business, such as HVAC technicians, opticians, and software engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January, Walmart announced plans to raise wages for Walmart U.S. store managers<\/a> for the first time in a decade. Average store manager salaries increased 9.4% to $128,000 a year. The store manager bonus program was also reworked to have the individual store\u2019s profit hold a larger influence, in addition to sales. If all targets are met, the manager\u2019s annual bonus could reach up to 200% of their base salary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Base pay, flexible hours, and benefits are more emphasized than bonuses in retail recruiting, but many other retailers, including rival Target<\/a>, have performance bonus programs for hourly associates. Among better-known bonus perks, Home Depot offers a \u201cSuccess Sharing\u201d program<\/a> that provides semi-annual cash awards for performance to hourly associates against its business plan, including sales and productivity goals. Costco offers twice-year \u201cExtra Checks<\/a>\u201d when an hourly associate reaches about five years of service, with the bonus ranging from $2,500 to $3,500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walmart announced that its full- and part-time hourly workers will now be eligible for annual bonuses based on store performance and tenure. Do performance bonuses offer a major perk for Walmart\u2019s hourly workers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":244581,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[8906,4685,41],"ppma_author":[5078],"class_list":["post-244578","discussion","type-discussion","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-compensation","tag-employees","tag-walmart","author-tom-ryan","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"taxonomy_info":{"post_tag":[{"value":8906,"label":"Compensation"},{"value":4685,"label":"employees"},{"value":41,"label":"Walmart"}],"author":[{"value":5078,"label":"Tom Ryan"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Walmart-iStock.com-Sundry-Photography-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Tom Ryan","author_link":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/author\/tom-ryan\/"},"comment_info":16,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-08-07 05:07:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discussion\/244578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discussion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/discussion"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244578"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discussion\/244578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244731,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discussion\/244578\/revisions\/244731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244578"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retailwire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=244578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}