As a manager for Walmart, I was constantly relying on my reputation and along with that, I had a constant flow of "cashing it in" and building it up again. I will mainly discuss my reputation with my associates in this post. One of the things I absolutely abhor about Walmart is its lack of respect and responsibility to its associates.
The culture mainly consisted of a disregard for associate needs and outside responsibilities. What I mean by that is, if any associate wanted to go to college and work at Walmart, the company was (and still is) extremely unaccommodating to this end. As a manager, I recognized this fact and maintained an open, communicative relationship with my employees, during which I expected my employees to inform me about any outside activities which I would accommodate time off to the best of my abilities. There were many times when I took much of the blame from the store manager for having understaffed departments during the day (when my folks were in school) but I would be so bold as to suggest that my employees were the happiest employees in the store. I maintained extremely low turnover and staff from other areas of the store wanted to work for me because they knew I was understanding of their needs.
I was also very understanding when an associate was late, and rarely gave them "points" toward a formal write-up for simply being late. While it is possible for an associate to be terminated after showing up late just 10 times, I never gave points to my associates when they were late. When tardiness became routine, I had frank discussions with my associates and explained the importance of their promptness. They could see my side of the story and understand the pressures their tardiness imposed on those around them, and it made them want to come to work on time (even if it was out of guilt).
All of my understanding and willingness to help did not come free, though. My employees knew that as a result of accommodating their needs, they would need to accommodate mine. Once I felt I had given an employee enough, I would call upon them to give something in return. Many times this involved working over night for two or three nights with me and a couple of peers to reset the floor displays. Very rarely did an employee ever tell me that they weren't willing to help me during an extenuating circumstance, because I had done the same for them.
I realize this concept is very much like gift exchange which we've discussed in the past. But, I think this applies here because the gift giving was reliant upon my dedication and reputation of helping my employees with their needs. I also think this is very closely related to teamwork because each member of my team also had a reputation which they wanted to uphold to help the entire team. I think guilt was a strong driving force for making my team successful, as they felt guilty if they ever let one of us down. They also felt guilty about the possibility of tarnishing their reputation, if they did not do what I asked them to do during a given day.
Having a warm and friendly relationship with staff definitely makes things easier in the long term. Otherwise every little thing can become a big to do. So having a reputation as being an accommodating manager is a positive, in my book.
ReplyDeleteBut as I wrote on a different post, an angle that you haven't considered here is whether your associates had other managers before working for you. If so, your reputation might have been determined not just by what you did but also by how you compared to these other managers. If what you describe is ordinary behavior for all managers, then you wouldn't really develop a reputation for it. Instead Walmart would have the reputation. You started off by saying the company itself does set its rules this way. From that I might infer that other managers, who obeyed those rules would be more in line with company policy and in the process indirectly help to establish your reputation. Did those other managers follow the rules?
I believe all of the managers I worked with did not accommodate their employees in the same way I did. Of course there is a significant level of bias with this statement, but I say this because I constantly received flack for having minimal staffing at certain times during the school day. When asked where my associates were, I would tell my peers and boss that they were in class and would be in after class. The response was consistently something like, "well they need to decide if they want a job or want to go to school." It was frustrating for me, because I felt none of my peers valued education and to me, education was the clear road to success. Admittedly, I reminded my employees that I was catching grief for my actions (maybe to make them feel guilty when I needed a favor) and they were very appreciative of my concern for their professional development.
ReplyDeleteStill today, when/if I run in to Walmart, my former associates greet me and beg for me to return as their manager. Many of them tell me how much less fun work has become, and how much more frustrated they've become by managers who have replaced me.