Employee Communication Plan-Walmart
Company Synopsis
Walmart operates grocery stores, discount stores, and hypermarkets. The store’s hypermarkets primarily generally stock merchandise such as frozen food, wheat products, and dairy products. These supercenters also provide financial services, optical services, and beauty items. On the other hand, discount stores feature general merchandise, gas stations, and fast-food outlets. Grocery stores, also known as neighborhood markets, sell fresh produce, grocery items, organic food, and general groceries. Walmart is the world’s largest company in terms of revenue. Besides, the retailer is the largest private employer globally, with 2.2 million by the end of 2022 (Walmart, n.d.).
Management Philosophy on Employee Communication
Walmart’s communication strategy is to reach out to every associate as soon as possible. To ensure this is possible, the company implements satellite communication, a strategy that enables the company to get to every employee as soon as possible. On the one hand, corporate leaders use satellite communication to pass strategic policy guidelines to associates, while employees apply the strategy to communicate problematic phenomena to the executives (Jiang, n.d.). Other than downward and upward communication, associates also use satellite communication to share strategies on how they can improve processes and operations. Overall, the retailer leverages satellite communication to maintain constant touch with all associates with the objective of streamlining store operations.
Goals of the Communication Plan
The goals of Walmart’s communication plan include communicating corporate values to all company associates. Walmart believes that its customers are gods and that their needs should be addressed in time. To achieve that, the company’s top executives must communicate these values and any strategic changes in time and ensure that they are followed to the letter (Jiang, n.d.). It is also worth noting that Walmart is a highly bureaucratic company, which means that most decisions are made at the top level with little input from the lower-tier employees. There is a need for a reliable communication plan that ensures that these strategies are communicated accurately and in time to avoid any actions that go against company values.
Another goal of maintaining constant touch with employees is to stimulate employees’ inner enthusiasm and potential. The company’s uniform culture ensures employees are committed to helping deliver corporate goals (Kaur, 2013). To that end, constantly communicating with employees about the company’s goals ensures that associates across all stores have a unity of purpose. It is also worth noting that the company seeks to inspire and motivate employees across all stores globally, hence the need to maintain maximum communication with employees.
Target Audience Characteristics
As the company seeks to attain its goals through communication, it will consider different employee characteristics. The company has a diverse pool of employees from different cultural settings, hence the need to consider individual beliefs and cultural orientations (Kaur, 2013). The company will use executives from respective cultures to address employee needs. For instance, Asian employees will be addressed by Asian executives who understand the target audience’s cultural orientation. In some cases, female employees will be addressed by female executives who understand their unique needs.
Communication Tools
According to Jiang (n.d.), Walmart has traditionally used oral communication as the primary channel of communication. The company will continue using the conference philosophy to pass crucial messages to employees. To that end, there will be physical meetings where executives give policy directions. The meetings will be relaxed environments where associates can raise inquiries and provide feedback.
Communication Channels
In line with the conference philosophy and direct top-down communication, Walmart will rely on top executives’ speeches to communicate with associates across all stores. There is a need for direct interaction between the top executives and associates to ensure messages are not misinterpreted. Additionally, since the company’s philosophy is based on uniformity, only direct speeches from the same top executives will ensure similar corporate values are passed across all stores.
Communicating Results to the Management
Regular updates are the best way to communicate the results of a company’s strategy to senior managers. Regular meetings align with the fundamentals of effective communication, which include reaching individuals at any time and when needed (Sandin & Äkäslompolo, 2005). Since Walmart’s philosophy is based on communicating directly with associates, updates will be made through face-to-face meetings. Suppose face-to-face meetings are not possible, especially in the case of communication between the retailer’s international conglomerates and the head office. In that case, communication will rely on the company’s database. The company’s telephone and mail system may be used to communicate the results of the company’s strategic outcomes.
Another way to keep in touch with the company’s top management is through real-time communication. Unlike the updates mentioned above, real-time communication revolves around communicating immediately when an issue comes up. Real-time communication helps prevent proxy wars amongst employees or store leaders when it comes to reporting to headquarters (Sandin & Äkäslompolo, 2005). That means communicators have direct access to decision-making forums to communicate concerns about their organizational units in real-time. The process is accompanied by higher trust levels, real or perceived, which is likely to encourage the rest of the organization’s associates to be confident that their issues are effectively addressed.
Dealing with Negative Emotions from Employees
Negative emotions are a normal part of the human experience, but there is a need to address them in the workplace to prevent them from affecting employees’ productivity. One way to address negative emotions in the workplace is by privately talking with the affected employees (Bowman, 2019). At the private meetings, the manager should let the employee express their source of disappointment as they deliberate on potential solutions. There is a need to avoid confronting the employee in public since that may create humiliation and escalate negative sentiment even further. Most negative employee sentiments are caused by poor change management approaches and ineffective communication, and there is a need to listen to what employees have to say about such issues.
After scheduling a meeting with the affected employee, a manager should set expectations on how employees express their emotions in the workplace. The manager should tell employees not to express emotions in a way that affects the work environment negatively and prevent others from performing their tasks (Bowman, 2019). To that end, the best way to handle emotions is to avoid responding immediately but, instead, take time and cool off before speaking out about their emotions to anyone.
Also, there is a need to help employees deal with negative emotions by embracing coping mechanisms. For instance, finding a hobby that gives an employee joy will go a long in helping them cope. Other positive coping mechanisms include positive self-talk, visualization, and modeling positive behavior (Bowman, 2019). Once employees embrace these practices, they will be able to deal with inevitable negative workplace sentiments.
Oral Presentation to the Management
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to prepare Walmart’s communication plan. The communication plan covers, among others, Walmart’s communication philosophy and communication goals. Consequently, we will cover the corresponding communication tools and channels that align with Walmart’s communication objectives. The plan is alive to the fact that Walmart has employees from diverse backgrounds, hence the need to come up with unique strategies that align with their needs. Also covered in the plan is how the results of the company’s strategies will be communicated to the management and how employees can cope with negative emotions.
References
Bowman, J. (2019). Interconnections: Interpersonal Communication Foundations and Contexts (1st ed.). Cengage Learning.
Jiang, Y. (n.d.) Motivation at Work and Organizational Culture Case Study of Walmart. International Journal of Education and Technology, 159.
Kaur, A. (2013). Maslow’s need hierarchy theory: Applications and criticisms. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(10), 1061-1064.
Sandin, E. L., & Äkäslompolo, N. (2005). The use of communication in organizations undergoing change: Case studies of Minelco and SGT AB.
Walmart. (n.d.). Our Business. Corporate – US. https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-business
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Question 
dit your plan based on any instructor or collegial feedback from Week 4. Proof and finalize the plan. It should include the following information:
Company synopsis: This is a snapshot of the company, what it sells, and the number of employees.
Management’s philosophy on employee communication: An example of a management philosophy could be that any important communication about the company’s activities is shared internally before being shared externally on the Internet or in a news release.
Employee Communication Plan-Walmart
Goals of the communication plan: One possible goal could be to help employees be more productive by establishing a clear and effective employee communication plan. The plan can be viewed as an organizational diagnostic that provides employees with consistent, accurate, and regular information about the company’s business goals and objectives.
Target audience characteristics: The plan should take into account cultural, gender, and linguistic differences to help employees understand the goals of the organization.
Communication tools: These can include various deliverables, including e-mails, newsletters, e-blasts, brochures, reports, conferences, employee meetings, and more.
Communication channels: Communication channels include internal and external Web sites, public relations venues, visits or speeches from management, and more.
This week, add the following sections to your final plan:
Review the evaluation methods for your plan. How will you communicate results to management on a regular basis? Consider a monthly report, management briefings, updates, and a yearly summary for board presentations.
Describe how you plan to deal with the negative emotions (from employees or other audience groups) that often accompany bad news or other information.
Finally, prepare the opening of the oral presentation that will describe your completed plan to management.