FULL / Thorough review of Wal-Mart (Project Manager - Corporate Headquarters)
Pros
- Due to size, great growth opportunities (have to be in current role 18 months) - Great chances to move in 100's of depts without ever leaving Wal-Mart the company (IT, HR, Logistics, retail, trucking, pharmacy, distribution, sales, aviation, etc....endless roadmaps) - #1 retailer - pride in saying I was with a company with 2.1 million employees, $440 billion in annual revenue (no other company can say that) - Great chances to take IT training in almost anything, from Lean Six sigma, to Dale Carnegie, to Agile etc..
Cons
- EXTREMELY stressful and ridiculous demands (10+ hour days); plus Saturday morning management meetings (mandatory) - Parking is horrible, literally walk 10-15 min from car to front door daily one way, heat or cold; no canopy. No care of employees ease.. If you work in ISD bldg, but have to go to home office for a meeting - plan to waste a lot of time driving then walking. Miles a day. - Companies policy: EDLC (every day low cost) is acronym for CHEAP. Which means, you get reimbursed for NOTHING. drive your own personal vehicle to different buildings for meeting or training. Almost nothing gets reimbursed due to EDLC. - Wal-mart is focused on one thing only: COST. Therefore, they don't care about quality. Whether its the quality of the food served in the cafeteria (cheap) or quality of anything else. This also meant, you throw your OWN garbage out of your cubicle daily (no cleaning service = EDLC). NO cleaning service = nats all over, all the time. YES, this is constant and consistent - and seems to be acceptable. Solution: Throw your garbage out daily, yourself. - HORRIBLE health insurance. Plan to put $10,000 away from your base salary for medical annually. - No sense of importance or value. Because the company has 2.1+ million employees (over 4,000 in IT), you are just a peanut in a very large jar. If you are a contractor, you sit in a grey cubicle. If you are a VP, you sit in a grey cubicle. There is NO sense of pride, because of EDLC, everyone sits in a grey cubicle, no windows for anyone, at any level. - People are "brainwashed" to save the company money, yet there is no real reward back or sense of pride. I felt as if I were a slave, with sole purpose: Make the Walton family RICH. - At the end of the year, at the celebration ceremony, what did VPs give us Project Managers as reward: Kudo's granola bar and Toasties crackers. NO JOKE! Because of EDLC, VPs handed out Kudo's and Toasties as a "THANK YOU" for the hard work and recognition for the 10+ hour days for months and years to complete delivery of mufti-million dollar projects. I have been in companies where I got $2,500 visa gift card for leading mufti-million dollar projects. But EDLC (aka CHEAP) is Walmarts corporate policy.