Walmart changes pay and titles for corporate staff

Sept 30 (Reuters) – Walmart (WMT.N) on Saturday said that it will streamline job titles across its corporate staff, to ensure that it remains competitive.

“We’re in the process of updating our approach to campus office jobs to ensure we remain competitive in today’s environment, better reflect the work being done today, while streamlining job titles across our campus office roles,” a Walmart spokesperson said in a statement.

While some staff will receive a new job title, their roles, responsibilities, type of work and base pay will not change, the retailer said.

Corporate employees at Walmart and Sam’s Club, its warehouse chain, will be reclassified into fewer groups of possible titles and in some cases, pay changes will go into effect, starting in November.

Stock option awards to the staff will stay the same or even increase in many cases. About 4% of the staff will see a decrease in stock-option awards to ensure compensation is aligned across geographies, Walmart said.

Staff who will see a reduction in stock options will receive a stock grant to account for the change.

The change is “good compensation hygiene,” and ensures Walmart is “appropriately rewarding similar levels of work,” The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, quoted Walmart’s head of global total rewards Kim Lupo as saying.

Earlier this month, Walmart changed the hourly starting wage structure for entry-level store workers. The change meant that store workers including cashiers, personal shoppers, stockers, self-checkout helpers and associates in departments such as sporting goods or electronics would all receive the same hourly starting wages that are paid at the store, instead of different levels previously.

Reporting by Gursimran Kaur and Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Marguerita Choy

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