Walmart CEO: Training Is Our Most Important Investment

Walmart recently made headlines when it committed to raising its minimum wage to $11 per hour and offering one-time bonuses to employees. However, according to Doug McMillon, the retail giant’s president and CEO, Walmart’s most important long-term investment in its employees is its commitment to training. “We know what every retailer knows—that this is a people business,” McMillon said at the National Retail Federation Big Show in New York City. “What customers feel when they leave our stores determines how many times they will come back.” Training, McMillon says, is an important element in ensuring customer satisfaction. He went on to explain how technology is changing the face of the retail workforce, but that Walmart’s commitment to its workers is unchanged in the face of automation. “As we make investments in technology and automating many of the things we do, we want our people to go through that with us,” said McMillon. “To achieve that, we have to support them first. That means taking care of the basics and the benefits, but we also want to demonstrate that we’re creating an opportunity—that the ladder for someone to become a store manager, or to do my job someday, is intact.”