Wal-Mart Ethics Case

Wal-Mart is the hulkyst grocery chain in the world, bite largest company on Fortunes 500 2012 list, and the largest employer in North America. Wal-Mart is faced with umteen dilemmas and issues that commode be expected of such(prenominal) a large and imposing ecesis. These problems include environmental issues, employees issues, leaders issues, supplier issues and creating an uncompetitive market. This is non an exhaustive list, and Wal-Mart has some other dilemmas as well, scarce this paper will come down on the issues involving Wal-Mart interaction with employees and the problems Wal-Mart faces with them.Wal-Mart employees relations have been a dilemma for various reasons. One reason is that Wal-Mart has been criticized for non kick ining a decent wage or providing enough emoluments. Another issue that Wal-Mart has with employee relations is Wal-Marts stance as not allowing any unions in Wal-Mart stores. Wal-Mart has similarly faced problems with discrimination and the allowed hiring of illegal immigrants. tout ensemble of these argon a dilemma for Wal-Mart because it is such a large employer and is well respected by other employers.This puts Wal-Mart in a corporate leadership position and the way in which Wal-Mart handles slurs with employees is viewed by other corporations as potential solutions to their employee problems. This is overly dilemma for Wal-Mart because it is such a large employer and its closings affect a commodious take of people. Wal-Mart employs over 1. 4 million people in the United States alone, encompassing 1% of the U. S. take shape press. At the same time Wal-Mart asks to remain the low-cost leader in the grocery and box stores market.The conflicting forces that Wal-Mart moldiness try to balance are maintaining their leadership aspect while maintaining healthy affinitys with employees and customers. There are many stakeholders involved in this dilemma. These stakeholders include Wal-Marts employees, Wal-Mart cus tomers, Wal-Marts competitors, and the unions. All of these stakeholders have the ability to influence conclusiveness concerning employee welfare, within the organization, as well as being influenced by those decisions. The first stakeholder mentioned is the employees for Wal-Mart.Employees are considered supportive stakeholder for the near part, although they tin also be considered mixed. This stakeholder is of import because Wal-Mart employees so many people, but it is also important because Wal-Mart wishes to baffle competitive in the market place. One way to stay competitive is by recruiting good and indefatig equal employees who are invested and engaged in their work. Otherwise the employee retention will be low, and the work performed will be substandard. This stakeholder is important also because Wal-Marts temper and commitment to low prices.One way to maintain low prices is by maintaining costs that permit these low prices. One way to keep costs down is to keep fight down and provide disgrace costing welfares. At the same time, one signifi preservet way to restrain employees and ensure they are invested in their work environment is by paying them fair remuneration and providing crucial benefits. Wal-Mart employees are also an important stakeholder because Wal-Mart has developed a reputation as being anti-Semite(prenominal) in their hiring practices and use of illegal workers.This is important for Wal-Mart, because once again a negative reputation can touch on it hard to recruit and retain workers. It is also important because a negative reputation can branch line litigation and lawsuits that can be initially somewhat costly and end up becoming a burdensome expense, as out of court settlements tend to large. These legal proceedings also garner red-hot headlines and the negative semipublicity can negatively affect sales, and recruiting efforts. The publication of these problems can also embolden the unions who want to break into and unio nize Wal-Marts employees.The problem with illegal aliens being used in the work force is a dilemma not only because Wal-Mart can face the cost of fines for breaking the law, but also because Wal-Mart already has a reputation as being bad for the American worker. It has been shown that Wal-Mart is the reason that some companies that bring out Wal-Mart with goods, have moved their manufacturing overseas to keep labor and production costs down, and to be better able to maintain their supplier relationship with Wal-Mart. This has caused the loss of jobs in the United States, with the perception that Wal-Mart has no concern al near the American worker.Wal-Mart using illegal workers could be perceive as Wal-Mart being only concerned closely saving money, and once again denying American workers from jobs. This is also looked on negatively in the current policy-making environment where illegal workers are such a hot topic and unemployment is high. Another stakeholder in these situations is the Wal-Mart customer. The Wal-Mart customer is considered supportive, and Wal-Mart tries to keep it this way. The customer is an important stakeholder because essentially they are the reason that Wal-Mart exists.Wal-Mart basically provides the facility of easing customer access to goods and services. Customers have a choice in this very competitive market environment and can find the same goods and services elsewhere, as Wal-Mart offers few exclusives on either of these. Wal-Mart does provide a presumed lower cost marketplace, and will match cost of competitors which is viewed as desirable traits from consumers. Still consumers will not lapse to patronize organizations they feel are mis performing their employees and are using discriminatory practices in hiring and advancement.Wal-Mart has to maintain a reputation as being a good employer that has genuine concern about it employees and that is also dedicated in being fair in its labor practices. Otherwise customers will go els ewhere for their goods and services, even if they pay a little more. Consumers will no longer support companies that they feel are lacking in proper ethics, because the consumer feels that it will only be a matter of time before the company manages to treat them unfairly.Current consumers are especially proficient at the decision between saving money with one company, and keep a more sustainable company even if it means spending more. This proficiency comes from facing this decision on a daily basis, and the ease of accessing information. So far, even with some well publicized discriminatory cases, Wal-Mart has been able to retain a strong customer base. Consumers will tend to give companies some benefit of a doubt, especially when it comes to saving money, but this cannot be viewed as a reason to willfully slack in employee hiring practices.After all, a consumer boycott is only one corporate scandal away. Therefore, the customers can be considered the most important stakeholder, because without them Wal-Mart would cease operations. Another stakeholder involved in this case are Wal-Marts competitors, like Target, Kmart, cornerstone Depot, etc. , who look at Wal-Mart as a leader in their market. Wal-Mart competitors are neutral because they are more concerned with their own operations than with Wal-Marts operations.The decisions that Wal-Mart functions concerning their employees are seen as opportunities to exploit or as problems. These decisions could be opportunities because decisions made in a positive light could be reviewed and possibly adopted by the competition. Whereas decisions made that reflect Wal-Mart negatively can be criticized by the competition and as a recruiting tool. Wal-Mart decisions with employees can also be problematic to competition because their decisions can force unwanted changes into the competitors organization. For example, if Wal-Mart changed ts standstill about unions it could have great impact throughout the box chain world giving unions supplement to be able to break into other store brands. The final stakeholders in Wal-Marts employee welfare situation are unions. Unions are considered an unsupportive stakeholder. The unions have a stake in this situation because their existence is found on membership, their fees, and continued support. Wal-Mart is very opposed to ever accepting a union in their work environment. Wal-Mart feels that it treats it employees fairly enough and a union would only complicate things.Unions see Wal-Mart as the great spile to climb, and getting Wal-Mart workers to unionize would give the unions a large base of employees to their membership ranks, and leverage through the sell industry. Unionizing Wal-Mart would not necessary be all positive, as the unions would now be presented with a relationship with large market and an adversarial attitude towards them. The relationship between these stakeholders can be contentious. Consumers want to support organizations that treat w orkers fairly, but public support for unions is rather low (2010 Pew Poll places it at 41%).Wal-Mart also does not view unions favorably. The relationship between Wal-Mart and employees can be difficult at times also, but the relationship is mostly mutually beneficial for the majority of employees. The stakeholder with the most situation is the customers because they still hold purchasing power over Wal-Mart. Customers could easily find other places to go to and buy goods, and therefore customers hold the most leverage over Wal-Mart. The stakeholder with the most to win would be the unions, because breaking the Wal-Mart wall would greatly heighten the power of the unions.The stakeholders with the great potential to lose are the employees because at this time and point Wal-Mart has the leverage of possible employment during such tough economic times. Employees may actually lose out on potential wage and benefit gains because of the economic downturn, and Wal-Mart has jobs and is on e of the few companies with expansion plans in these times. To improve the situation with the employees and the public perception of Wal-Mart, the organization could attempt two corrective measures.The first proposal would be for Wal-Mart to start an employee appreciation and welfare camps in their stores. This would be through employee only contests or having a shopping day where employees get extra markdowns. This would make Wal-Mart a more popular place to work at, and could be considered a cheaper alternative to raising wages and improved benefits. Some employees might see these as cheap ploys to improve employee morale, but it could be rather popular. Another corrective measure would be a public relations campaign in which Wal-Mart explains to the public the benefits of working at Wal-Mart.This P. R. campaign would show Wal-Mart as an employer of choice, that people enjoy working for the company, and that Wal-Mart is a great place to work at. This campaign could help sway the public in favor of Wal-Mart and also extend the message that Wal-Mart doesnt need unions and employee unrest is unfounded. The campaign could also show employees of differing backgrounds, gender, ages, ethnicities, capabilities and colors, thus displaying that Wal-Mart employs all types of people. My recommendation would be to go with the public relations campaign.This could prove to be the most beneficial, because the customers are the most important stakeholders in this situation. Also good public relations could help the bottom line of the company, but also make employees feel good about working there. It would keep the union at bay, and keep competitors on their toes because they would now have to compete with a Wal-Mart that people actually liked. Bibliography Blodget, Henry. Wal-Mart Employs 1% of America. Should it be Forced to reach it Employees More. BusinessInsider. om. Business Insider, Inc. 10 Sep 2010. Web. 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