Walmart is finally doing something that happened at Longs Drugs over a decade ago, namely eliminating the “bookkeeping” position(s) in the store.  They have decided it’s more cost-effective to have those functions done at corporate level and the cash-counting can be done by pretty much anyone who can do basic math (as is done at CVS.)

They are saying they will transition those people into other positions on the sales floor, and I’m sure that’s their intent, but the reality is that there’s a lot of long-term employees that have been doing just the office work and they will probably not desire to go out on the floor and serve customers.  So they will be losing some high-paid employees who have been there a long time.  The same thing happened when CVS acquired Longs and eliminated the bookkeeping position completely.

Of course they are saying it’s being done to improve customer service, and what usually happens is that those hours will be added into the front store and they will in fact pick up a couple people for a bit.  But then, next year, lo and behold the hours budgets will be adjusted and they’ll be back down to the number of employees they had in the first place.    (If you’re wondering how I can say this with such certainty, it’s because that’s what ALWAYS has happened in the past when positions are eliminated or changed.

Just another logical step in the evolution of a retailer, and to be honest, it’s surprising to me that a huge company like Walmart never saw the efficiency in doing this before.

 

     Walmart WMT -0.47% will cut some 7,000 accounting and invoicing positions within its U.S. stores as the discount retailer redeploys workers to improve in-store customer service.

     The largest U.S. retailer, also the country’s largest private employer, plans to eliminate those jobs over the next several months, the Wall Street Journal wrote on Thursday. Those jobs are typically occupied by long-term and often higher-paid store employees, wrote the Journal, which was first to report the news.

     The benefit for Walmart is that it could then put more workers on the floor helping customers, something infinitely more valuable to the retailer as it looks to give people a reason to shop at its stores rather than onAmazon.com AMZN 0.23% A company spokesperson confirmed that Walmart expects the affected employees are likely to find customer-facing roles at the Walmart store.

     The new cuts come as Walmart looks to shift more of its spending onto employees who work on the store floor stocking shelves and interacting with customers. The company said at its annual shareholder meeting in June that customer satisfaction scores had risen 79 weeks in a row, a momentum it wants to continue. Walmart has enjoyed eight straight quarters of U.S. same-store sales gains, while traffic has improved for seven periods. At the same time, the company is looking to recover some of what it is spending on wage increases through cost cuts.

     Walmart’s improving online performance last quarter was the result of years and billions of dollars in investment the retailer has made to bolster its digital offerings, including from the roll-out of its Walmart Pay mobile app to the expansion of free grocery pickup service for orders placed on line, all of which add to a store employee’s workload.