On this episode of Redefining Work, I’m joined by none other than Donna Morris, executive vice president and chief people officer at Walmart. We discuss what it takes to simplify the lives of millions of workers, how the retail giant is revolutionizing workplace technology and why people remain at the nucleus of Walmart’s business model.

Donna, previously chief HR officer at Adobe, entered her current role at a critical inflection point. Right as she started in February 2020, operations in China were reeling from the pandemic, and the rest of the world wasn’t far behind. But the scope of the challenge didn’t faze Donna: she came to Walmart to make an impact, and she’s always been ready to work for it.

“What drew me to Walmart was two big things,” she says. “The size, scale and the opportunity to impact people's lives — we have 2.1 million associates that call Walmart their workplace — and the opportunity to contribute to digital transformation.”

Donna’s never shied away from an opportunity to drive meaningful change. Listen in to find out how she does that at scale at one of the world’s largest retailers.

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Streamlining the Associate Experience

Walmart is engineering the retail experience of the future, including branching out into health care, financial services and tech development — among countless other ventures spread across the globe. The retail giant’s reach is expansive in terms of talent, too. “We estimate that 20% of the U.S. workforce has worked for us at some point in time,” Donna says.

Despite such an epic scale, Walmart’s HR team has maintained a strong focus on the people we see stacking the shelves and greeting customers at our local stores every day. "Our first and foremost priority is to help to streamline the work lives of our associates,” Donna says, “and to equip our associates with tools to make their jobs more delightful."

To that end, Walmart’s HR team partnered with its product team to design the company’s proprietary “Me@Walmart” app. The goal is to aggregate all systems and information within one seamless experience to make it easier for associates to do their work and manage their work lives. “That same app allows me to look at my schedule, clock in and clock out, look at learnings, look at a potential new opportunity,” Donna says, all with the intention of making life simpler for frontline workers.

Being a Pace Car for Innovation

The “Me@Walmart” app is far from the only revolutionary tech tool that Walmart’s HR and product teams co-developed. This is by design: rather than reacting to changes in technology, Walmart wants to be proactive and lead the way. "We are best placed when we're in a position of strength, when we're a pace car to that change,” Donna says, “as opposed to running behind the bumper, trying to figure out what that's going to mean."

To do this, Walmart built its own large language model called My Assistant. This lets the company experiment with generative AI and figure out how it will impact jobs. The goal is to shape how technology changes work, rather than have technology dictate the changes.

Although the monumental size of Walmart’s workforce might seem like a challenge when implementing these types of innovations, Donna is quick to emphasize that the opposite is true. “That's actually a competitive advantage for us, is to be really nimble, to use all of our people as power. Really, the people lead,” she says.

Focusing on Kindness and Empathy

While new tools and technology might make headlines, they’re not the beating heart of the company. Walmart intentionally leans into uniquely human characteristics to drive business value, and in 2024, cultivating kindness is a top priority. 

Small acts of kindness can make a big difference, especially in today's stressful world. “We see a lot of people who are, frankly, pretty miserable,” Donna says. “And I often wonder: if they were found and greeted with actual acts of kindness, if that actually might change their outlook.”

Donna has made it her mission to role-model kindness as "a need-to-have in a society that has acute issues relative to health and well-being,” and hopes that other people leaders will do the same.

People in This Episode

• Donna Morris: LinkedIn

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