KEEPING PAYROLL DOWN is always the most important underlying principle at Walmart. For some managers it is more important than safety, morality, ethics and legality. The numbers are staggering. With 1.5 million Associates earning an average pay of about $10 per hour, the basic payroll is $15 million per hour. Limiting raises to tiny amounts goes right to their bottom line.
Associates are the “Lowest Common Denominator” in the Walmart profit equation. They use every possible tactic against Associates during evaluations to limit raises. They structure the setting of the reviews to employ every psychological advantage. They like to use the element of surprise. The amount of a raise is determined before the review happens without any input, testimony or protest, from the Associate.
I expected this sort of behavior from a large company vastly experienced in evaluating employees. After all, they perform over 2 million evaluations a year on Associates alone. But what I didn't expect were some of the sneaky and underhanded ways the managers accomplished their sworn duty to limit pay increases. And they did these devious things in ways that were difficult to detect and verify.
After the dirty tricks they pulled on me during my first few evaluations, I realized I had to beat them at their own game. As the meager raises persisted, it became a quest to get the maximum raise at my next review. This is the true story of how I finally got Walmart to give me the maximum raise of sixty cents per hour.
Enjoy these excerpts from the book:
"She invited me into the assistant managers' office, which was no larger than a big closet. Right off the bat, she told me she was sorry. She looked at me like a puppy that just wet the carpet. “I’m sorry. I can't give you the “Exceeds Expectations” raise of 60 cents per hour,” she said mournfully. She wagged her head back and forth slowly as she said this, all the while wearing a sorrowful misbehaved puppy look."
"Then quite unexpectedly, Heini said an astonishing thing: she told me she would give me the 60 cents “Exceeds Expectations” raise at my next evaluation 9 months from now, on my one year anniversary. The hits just kept on coming.”
"I told Gary about the shenanigans at my 90 day review. He assured me he knew I was a valuable asset to Lawn & Garden. Then he said an amazingly stupid thing: “If I had attended your review you would have gotten the maximum 60 cent raise. I, I think you deserved it, so.” So, if my boss had attended my review as Walmart required him to do, I'd be making $32 dollars more a month. And they wonder why employees want to form a union.
"Gary!, you've told me you punish Cray by limiting his raises as much as you can. You said you had to punish him that way because his partial disability limits the pressure you can put on him. You said he was a thorn in your side and you wrote-up a really bad review to punish him, but you were told to tear it up. Geez Gary, the guy is in his mid-sixties and he came with the building. He should be getting ready to retire, and go home to pat the wife and kiss the dog all day. But you drive him like a pack mule, pushing him hard all day long. And all that stuff tells me that you can't get away with limiting his raises to cut payroll costs. But you can get away with it if you do it to me, huh? Is that how it works? Or are you punishing me for some reason as well?”
"Gary, you also know that I'm one paycheck from being homeless; I've never kept that sad fact from you. It's not your fault; it's the result of bad choices on my part.“
"I think you deserve the 60 cent raise.” His voice was as weak as the last gasp of a man being sucked into quicksand, the pressure of the heavy liquid filled sand pressing the last bit of air from his lungs."
By exposing the dirty tricks Walmart uses to limit raises to cut payroll costs, I hope this story gives every Associate powerful tools to use at their future evaluations
DOWNLOAD WALMART: HOW I GOT THE 60 CENT RAISE (SURVIVING WALMART EMPLOYMENT SERIES) - RON BERGERON
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