Yes, Walmart Store Managers Really Can Make $500,000 a Year
In an effort to boost retention, the retailer has sweetened pay and stock incentives for its store chiefs, whose individual locations employ hundreds and can exceed $100 million in annual sales.
Walmart manager Greg Harden at work in Grand Prairie, Texas.
Photographer: Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg
After working as a Walmart store manager in the Dallas area for more than a decade, Greg Harden has seen it all. Walmart Inc.’s procedures for managing schedules for hundreds of store associates, keeping track of delivery vehicle arrivals and even operating gasoline pumps for customers had all become second nature. But earlier this year he got some news about Walmart that shocked him. The retailer redesigned its compensation scheme in a way that would significantly increase store manager pay with stock grants and bonuses. With the changes, Harden could make as much as $530,000 this year. “I almost fainted when I found out,” he says.
The world’s largest retailer is rethinking one of its most important roles after falling behind the competition. A couple of years ago, Walmart’s attrition rate for store managers spiked to almost double that of other big-box retailers such as Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp., according to data from human resources analytics company Revelio Labs Inc. Departures first ticked up when Walmart cut management ranks in the late 2010s, saddling those who remained with more work and longer hours, according to two former managers who declined to be named. At the time, the company was more focused on improving conditions for its hourly workers, investing billions in upgrading their wages.