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#73-Wal-Mart There are 2 replies: View/Reply options

Timothy Ray Eckhardt Students

#73-Wal-Mart Original post: Fri 9/23/2011 at 1:33 PM

Wal-Mart made this list several times. I chose this topic because Wal-Mart followed policy and did what was right. A Wal-Mart SVP attended a dinner event paid for by Wal-Mart's newly hired advertising agency in which the SVP was part of the team that hired the agency. Wal-Mart has a policy that prohibits employees from accepting gifts from vendors. Both the SVP and the advertising agency were fired due to the violation of policy. I agree with Wal-Mart's actions 100% on this policy violation. Many times corporate executives are not held to the same company policy standards that all other employees are. Wal-Mart made a statement showing that any employee, no matter their title, will not accept gifts in return for business. They also made a statement to their vendors, by firing this newly hired advertising agency. Vendors now know that if they attempt to provide gifts to employees for extra business, they will also be held accountable for violation of policy. Most of the blogs I read agreed with Wal-Mart's actions. Wal-Mart made a statement showing there is no gray area to this policy and vendors and employees will be held accountable for their actions.

Emily Jane McLaughlin Students

Re: #73-Wal-Mart Posted: Sat 9/24/2011 at 3:21 PM, in reply to Timothy Ray Eckhardt

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Tim,

Don’t you think Walmart’s actions were a bit harsh? To me – an advertising agency is completely different from a merchandise vendor. Companies commonly provide meals to clients/business associates at meetings, social gatherings, etc. Is dinner really a gift? Maybe there were important networking contacts at the advertisement agency’s dinner. Walmart would have spent time and money training this individual to be a corporate leader. It seems silly to let that kind of an investment go over a dinner. Do you really think the dinner was the only reason Walmart fired the SVP? I assume this incident happened around the same time as the class action lawsuit against Walmart? At that time Walmart’s treatment of female employees was a hot topic. Do you think it was in Walmart’s best interest to fire one of its few female executives over something so small?

Edited:Sat 9/24/2011 at 3:22 PM by Emily Jane McLaughlin

Timothy Ray Eckhardt Students

Re: Re: #73-Wal-Mart Posted: Sat 9/24/2011 at 9:24 PM, in reply to Emily Jane McLaughlin

Emily Jane McLaughlin wrote:

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Tim,
Don’t you think Walmart’s actions were a bit harsh? To me – an advertising agency is completely different from a merchandise vendor. Companies commonly provide meals to clients/business associates at meetings, social gatherings, etc. Is dinner really a gift? Maybe there were important networking contacts at the advertisement agency’s dinner. Walmart would have spent time and money training this individual to be a corporate leader. It seems silly to let that kind of an investment go over a dinner. Do you really think the dinner was the only reason Walmart fired the SVP? I assume this incident happened around the same time as the class action lawsuit against Walmart? At that time Walmart’s treatment of female employees was a hot topic. Do you think it was in Walmart’s best interest to fire one of its few female executives over something so small?

Emily, I believe Wal-Mart knew they would receive a lot of bad publicity from this firing, especially since it was a female exec. I still belive it was the correct decision though. This was clearly a violation of corporate policy, and they choose to make a statement through it that should help eliminate issues like this in the future.