Walmart 2002 Annual Report Download - page 15

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Wal-Mart was recently ranked
17th on a list of “America’s most
visible companies with the best
reputations,” based on research
conducted with Harris Interactive
in partnership with the Reputation
Institute, a New York research group.
Harris, the worldwide research
firm known for Harris Polls, released
the list in January 2002, after asking
more than 10,000 randomly selected
people to identify companies with
good reputations. After that, Harris
took the top 60 companies and
asked 21,630 respondents to do a
more detailed ranking, scoring the
companies in six categories, from
workplace environment to products
and services.
The study placed Wal-Mart third
in “social responsibility” behind
Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola,
both of which are Wal-Mart vendors.
Wal-Mart Associates have once again
ranked their Company as one of the
“100 best to work for” in Fortune
magazine’s prestigious annual poll.
Wal-Mart placed 94th in the latest
Fortune poll, released in January 2002.
The Company was the only discount
retailer to make the “100 best” list, and
it has now made the list four of the last
five years.
To be considered for the ranking,
companies must invite the Great Place to
Work Institute to privately survey randomly
selected employees on issues ranging from
trust in management to camaraderie and
pride in work and company.
“This survey is meaningful to us because
it reflects how our Associates actually feel
about working for Wal-Mart,” said Lee
Scott, President and Chief Executive Officer
of Wal-Mart. “The secret, as Sam Walton
figured out many years ago, is to treat
people with respect. If you do that,
everything else has a way of falling
into place.”
Among the many unique policies and
practices that helped Wal-Mart make
Fortune’s list is the fact that Wal-Mart is
one of only a few companies that offer
health benefits to part-time employees,
as well as incentive bonuses and other
benefits normally reserved for full-timers.
Study Credits Wal-Mart with
Boost in U.S. Productivity
Fortune Lists Wal-Mart
as Great Place to Work
Reputation
Survey Features
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart in the News
A new study of U.S. labor productivity
released in October credited managerial
improvements and the freedom to innovate
as playing a larger role in America’s
productivity miracle of the late 1990s
than all the expensive business investment
in high-speed computers and fiber-optic
cable. The McKinsey Global Institute
study singled out Wal-Mart as an innovator
helping to drive U.S. productivity.
The Institute points out in the study
that the U.S. experienced a sharp
improvement in its underlying economic
performance between 1995 and 2000;
however, the Institute says the change
is primarily explained by growth in only
a few key business sectors. The
improvement in productivity was not,
McKinsey said, simply related to the burst
of investment in information technology
experienced over the same time period,
as many Americans previously believed.
Almost a quarter of the improvement
in productivity came from retail trade,
McKinsey said, noting that the retail surge
was dominated by impressive gains at
Wal-Mart. McKinsey said that Wal-Mart,
with its emphasis on large stores and
discount pricing, increased efficiency in
sales and forced other companies to follow
best practices.