Walmart store manager reveals the enormous annual salary he can make

• Walmart executives are incentivizing their managers to stay on and work hard 
• Higher pay and better working conditions are helping the company retain talent 

A dedicated store manager at a Walmart in the Dallas area has revealed the staggering amount of money he is eligible to take home each year.

Greg Harden, who has worked as a Walmart store manager for over a decade, said that he could make as much as $530,000 this year.

‘I almost fainted when I found out,’ he told Bloomberg.

After suffering from high management turnover, Walmart overhauled its compensation scheme in a desperate move to retain high-level employees.

Under the new payment system, managers are able to supplement their base salary with stock grants and bonuses. 

Their salaries were raised from $117,000 a year to $128,000 a year. And managers will be entitled to receive stock grants worth as much as $20,000. 

Walmart also tweaked its calculus for determining a manager’s bonus. Under the new system, bonus pay hinges largely on the store’s performance.

‘If you hit all targets, your bonus could be up to 200% of your base salary,’ Cedric Clark, Walmart’s executive vice president of store operations, said in a note seen by Bloomberg.

So far the new compensation package seems to be working for Walmart. According to Clark, employment retention has improved and there has been a reduction in turnover rates. 

He also noted that engagement scores that gauge managers’ attitudes about work have risen. 

Data from Revelio Labs Inc., a human resources analytics company, corroborates Clark’s assertion to a certain extent.

According to Revelio, over the past year, Walmart’s annual attrition rate has dropped about two percentage points to around 21 percent. 

Managers claim that they can see a difference in the quality of the work environment.

‘It’s been night and day,’ Harden said. 

Walmart decided to revamp their company culture after it became clear that its competitors had a significant edge on retaining highly trained managers.

Only a few years ago, Walmart’s exodus of managers was almost double that of other giant retailers like Home Depot and Target. 

In the late 2010s, Walmart slimmed down its number of managers, and burdened those who remained on with more onerous workloads and longer hours.

Concerned with the conditions of their hourly workers, the retail behemoth invested billions in increasing their wages but neglected to pay much consideration to management.

Outdated technology posed another headache for managers, who frequently grew frustrated with the bugs they would experience while attempting to use their tech.

Oscar Romero, a manager at a Walmart in Calexico, California, where he oversees a staff of 550 people, said his day used to begin with 40 minutes of paperwork. 

‘I’d have to go through reports to look at my sales. If I wanted to look at inventory, I’d have to go to another report.’

In addition to improved management systems, managers are receiving better benefits as well, including telehealth and doula services.

Walmart managers are asked to do a big job, according to Bloomberg. 

The retailer’s Supercenters are, on average, about 178,000 square feet, tens of thousands of square feet bigger than Costco and Target stores. And, they offer more services that managers oversee.

Auto body shops and pharmacies are included under the umbrella of what some managers are responsible for and many stores have mini-warehouses in the back where hundreds of pallets of products are moved each day.

Bloomberg reported that one manager estimates he sells a full truckload of dog food every day of the week.

Harden oversees some 400 employees and more than $100million in sales each year at one of the largest Walmarts in the Dallas area.

He arrives at work by 7am to receive feedback from the overnight team and checks the groceries.

Over the course of an average day, Harden will walk as many as six miles across his store, checking to make sure shelves are stocked, price tags are visible, and deliveries are running smoothly.

He says he might also speak to as many as 200 people over the course of his day.

Prior to the recent top-down changes, he said he was arriving at work at 5am and working six days a week.

Since 2021, Walmart executives have been listening carefully to complaints made by store managers. ‘If we make it the best place to work, they in turn take care of the customer,’ said the company’s chief of store operations, Cedric Clark.

Making life better for employees will ultimately boost store sales, is what Clark and his colleagues believe and are seeing play out in real time.

Unlike some of its competitors, Walmart has seen continued growth in sales since the beginning of the pandemic, four years ago.

As inflation levels decimate the financial security of middle class families across the country, Walmart’s low prices and frequent deals have become exceedingly attractive. The company has plans to open even more Supercenters, each of which will need a new manager.