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Human Resources Planning

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PART A:
ANALYSIS OF HR PRACTICES AT 2 RETAILERS

The two companies I have selected for the purpose of comparative analysis of Human Resource practices are Sears Canada and Wal-Mart Canada. Both are Canadian subsidiaries of large American conglomerates.

Wal-Mart Canada

Wal-Mart Canada was founded in 1994 with the purchase of several now defunct Canadian locations of the Woolco discount retail chain. The advent of Wal-Mart’s expansion has forever changed the retail landscape in Canada. Other discount retailers such as Canadian-owned Zellers, have been hurt by Wal-Mart’s formidable rise.

Wal-Mart employs a low cost provider strategy, as evidenced by their slogan “We sell for less, every day”. They sell goods at low prices, but often of poor quality. Prices are kept low by developing special relationships with suppliers, employing many part-time workers, resisting attempts by their workforce to unionize and controlling labour costs, which includes “discouragement” of working overtime. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once said in an interview, “I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. Were going to be successful, but the basis is a very low wage, low benefit model of employment.”

A number of Wal-Mart’s business tactics have been under fire by special interest groups and labour unions. In 2005, a store in Jonquiere, Quebec, was closed after workers came close to establishing a union. It would have been the chain’s first. While a spokesperson for Wal-Mart Canada cited profitability concerns, labour leaders decried the store closing as an example of Wal-Mart’s fierce opposition to unions.

Wal-Mart has an extremely high employee turnover rate. Approximately 70% of its part-time workforce leave within the first year. In Canada, the wages of Wal-Mart employees with five or more years of experience are, on average, $1 to $2 dollars less per hour

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