Walmarts Management

Randy Ross

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Professor Marco Rodriguez

Introduction

Discourse communities are defined as groups of individuals that all share a written or

spoken form of communication throughout the group. Discourse communities can range from a

small local club or a community of friends that play golf together every weekend or even an elite

community such as the Freemasons. Almost everyone living in Earth is a part of a discourse

community. I am currently pursuing a career in business management and my degree begins with

meeting my pre business requirements. Later in my studies I will be able to begin the classes that

focus directly on my future career. I find Walmart interesting, specifically the way management

works. I decided to use their business as my discourse community. The Walmart community is

very large community with a detailed structure and vast forms of communication. I am interested

in understanding how Walmarts management is structured and how their managers communicate

throughout the company.

Walmarts management level community fits in every one of the six characteristics that

Swales describes. The management team of Walmart has the important job of keeping the store

working and running smoothly. Management is entrusted with the operations of the store floor.

They are required to distribute any information that is sent down from store managements

supervisor to store employees. The information could vary from of an important letter or a

memo. Managers also have different ways in which they relay the various messages to the

employees. Managers of a store also create newsletters that are posted in the offices that informs

employees of upcoming events and dates of important meetings.

Literature Review
 John Swales describes what he believes to be the true definition of a discourse

community is in The Concept of Discourse Community. Swales then provides a guideline of

characteristics that must be met in order to be classified as a discourse community. The six

characteristics are; a set of common public goals, a mechanisms of intercommunication among

its members, provides information and feedback, the use of one or more genres for

communication, a specific lexis, and members with a reasonable ratio between novices and

experts. (Swales, 2011). In contrast, a speech community is made up by members who have

similar linguistic goals but are not very structured in the matter of the novice to expert. In a

speech community members are inherited as opposed to a discourse community where members

must be recruited with some form of persuasion. Once those members are persuaded to join the

community then they are trained and made to meet a specific standard of the community.

Walmart is a very diverse community that is not just located in the United states but also

around the world. Walmart also has distributors and manufactures in nearly every country as has

been describes in the letters and articles that I have chosen

Discussion

The first of the six characteristic that Swales described as the community has a broadly

agreed on set of public goals. These goals must be shared throughout the community in order to

meet the standard. Walmart has a variety of goals that they are trying to achieve every year. One

of goals in the company is a desire to achieve a three to four percent growth in sales annually

(Holley, 2015). Walmart will attempt to reach this goal by opening smaller corner stores, which

would increase the opportunity for costumers to have a Walmart closer to their residence.

Walmart has also raised their wages for over 40% of their 1.3 million employees in the United

States (Patterson, 2015). The company will be under taking a billion-dollar investment into their
work force. Even though this sounds like an extreme undertaking sales growth for the country

will increase from $45 to $60 Billion.

Intercommunication between its members is the second characteristic on Swales list.

Intercommunication is how communication takes place between lower ranked members and top

ranked members. This could be how the lower ranked member communicate to each other. These

forms of commination can include meetings, newsletters, and conversations between members of

the discourse community. Walmart displays this characteristic by having web blogs and

newsletters displayed in their breakrooms at the Neighborhood Markets and Super Centers. The

Walmart CEO has also sent out an email with a letter with an attached video from him directly

explaining the wage increase that was approved for 40% of U.S. employees. Management also

posts articles on their website that the public has access to.
The third characteristic that Swales sees as necessary for a community to be a discourse

community is participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback. The

feedback could be anything from a suggestion for the leaders of the community to a written

survey that was handed to everyone in the community. Walmart handles the feedback from their

members with the use of help desks, surveys, and online platforms. The help desks that are set up

for Walmart are available to employees in order to give their opinion on how they believe senior

management can improve the store. The surveys are all on a volunteer bases and if an employee

wants to submit a survey they have the platform to do so. The largest feedback system that

Walmart has in place is on their website. Walmart uses blogs and questionnaires to get

information from their employees and the employees are still able to be 100% anonymous.
Walmart uses communication channels to their full advantage. They keep and maintain

good communication between their employees and even with the public outside of the

community. Swales fourth characteristic of a community is more than one genres of

communication. These forms of communications include a wide variety varying from a

newsletter, memo, or email. Walmart allows most of the letters that are directed to their

employees be open to the public. Official memos or documents that are sent to the store

managers to explain store performance are not available to public. The CEO finds it convenient

to relay information to the everyone that is an employee of Walmart through the internet because

it makes it significantly easier. In letters to associates, the CEO explains in detail what every

entry level employee can expect when the pay raise is in effect. The CEO also attached a video

and a chart to breakdown how the new pay and benefits will affect them.
Anyone who has ever worked for a retail company knows that they have different names

for certain items, skill, or methods. These terms are unique to retail companies and Walmart has

a set of their own. This is called a lexis and the definition of a lexis is the totality of vocabulary

item in a language. Walmart has their very own language that is unique to their discourse

community. The letter from the CEO included many of these terms and in the interview of the

CEO you could see the terms as well. Some examples include referring to employees as

associates, talking about sales growth, and titles like RGM (Regional General Manager).

Someone that does not have some back ground in Walmart or in retail wouldnt be able to tell

some of these terms meant.

The sixth and final characteristic that Swales stated is that any discourse community

should have is that the community will have a suitable degree of relevant content and having a

discoursal expertise. This means that every community should have some sort of ranking or

rating system for all the members of the community. Walmart like other discourse communities

is constantly changing by gaining members and losing members. Walmart displays the inflow of

new members every year when they hire for seasonal positions and then at the end of the season

they choose which employees they will keep to positions within their community. Then there are

also seasoned employees that has put in their two weeks because they are ready to retire.
Walmart also has a very simple ranking system, with novice members being the hourly associates

followed by team leaders, assistant managers, and then store managers. Beyond stores there are

district managers, regional managers, and then the vice president and finally the president or

CEO (Swales, 2011).

Conclusion

Walmart falls into the category of discourse community because they meet all of the six

requirements. Walmarts management and structure makes them a very organized and structured

company that still allows for communication from the bottom up. Walmart is a retail giant that

must maintain the lines of communication open in an orderly fashion. They maintain their end

goal in mind by keeping communication lines opened and organized.

References

Bill Simon. (2010, January 28). Organizational Change Memo From Bill Simon . Retrieved from

Walmart: http://news.walmart.com/organizational-change-memo-from-bill-simon-2010
Holley, C. (2015, October 14). Walmart strategy drives growth and sustainable returns, Plans $20

billion share repurchase program over two years. Retrieved from Walmart News:

http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2015/10/14/walmart-strategy-drives-growth-and-

sustainable-returns-plans-20-billion-share-repurchase-program-over-two-years

McMillon, D. (2015, Febuary 19). In Letter to Associates, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon

Announces Higher Pay. Retrieved from Walmart Today:

http://blog.walmart.com/opportunity/20150219/in-letter-to-associates-walmart-ceo-doug-

mcmillon-announces-higher-pay

Patterson, G. (2015, Febuary 26). Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon talks workers, customers,

critics. Retrieved from The Columbus Dispatch:

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2015/02/26/0226-walmart-ceo-

interview.html

Swales, J. (2011). The Concept of Discourse Community. Downs and Wardle.