For more than half a century, Walmart has celebrated its successes with its employees and shareholders each year, from the early picnics held by founders Helen and Sam Walton on the Bentonville lawn to the star-studded spectacle held at the University of Arkansas’ Bud Walton Arena since 1999.
This week, more than 5,000 Walmart employees from the 19 countries in which Walmart operates participated in celebrations and took lessons learned back to stores to share with colleagues.
Walmart CEO John Furner said his only memory of Sam Walton was one of the company’s meetings outside Bentonville when he was about 10 years old.
“My parents moved us from the big town of Fort Smith to northwest Arkansas, and my father took a job with a local business in Kentucky. He took us to summer cook-offs. … A man came up and tousled my hair and said, ‘Who is this little guy?’ I remember asking my mother who he was, and she said it was Sam Walton,” Farner said.
Walmart is in the middle of an AI transformation, and that was the focus of Friday’s big meeting. Over the past year, Walmart has been pushing its employees to embrace AI. Darlene Rand, who has worked in Walmart’s human resources department for 33 years, was the first person in the company to earn an OpenAI certification.
“I think Sam will embrace AI 100% because it will move us forward as a business and help us better serve our customers,” Rand said.
Farner said Walmart US’s roughly 1.3 million employees have devices and tools to help them know what to do next. See modules and planograms to more easily find things throughout your 4- to 5-acre building. He said any technology that allows employees to do more work faster while saving them physical labor means a lot to the company.
“This also increases productivity and allows for future growth,” he said. “We care about top-line growth, and we also care about our customers.”
Last year, two members of Walmart’s technology group, Michael Pfaffenbeleger and John Choi, developed Code Puppy, an AI coding assistant. This experiment allowed Walmart employees to use AI not as a replacement for their jobs, but as a tool to improve their job performance.
Mr. Furner presented Mr. Pfaffenbereger and Mr. Choi with the Presidential Innovation Award for the development of Code Puppy. Walmart says more than 4,000 store employees currently use Code Puppy.
“Our employees have jobs, and there are many processes and tasks involved,” Furner said. “If the Code Puppy application can speed up some of these tasks, we’ll have more time to work on more important problems. In general, we’re pretty optimistic.”
Walmart’s sales rose 5.1% last year to $713.3 billion. Although the company posted financial profits, it was the first time in at least 13 years that it had been knocked off the No. 1 spot on Forbes’ Fortune 500 list. Amazon topped the list with annual sales of $716.9 billion. Greg Penner, chairman of Walmart’s board of directors, said Walmart has raised its annual dividend for 53 consecutive years. Last year, Walmart paid out about $7.5 billion in common stock dividends, many of which benefited members of the Walton family and their holdings. Amazon didn’t pay a dividend.
Former CEO Doug McMillon was recognized by Penner as a generational leader at the retail giant during Friday’s meeting. McMillon, who also retired from the board of directors, received a standing ovation at the event, which was hosted by award-winning actor, author and comedian Ted Lasso, also known as Jason Sudeikis. Mr. Sudeikis joked with Mr. McMillon about how comfortable he was now that he was no longer CEO. He commented on McMillon’s facial hair growth and told him to unbutton one more button on his shirt to match his carefree appearance. McMillon complied.
Sudeikis recently partnered with Sam’s Club as a brand ambassador. Sudeikis, an avowed Sam’s Club fan, said he remembers going to a local club in Overland Park, Kansas.
“We came out of there with four baskets filled,” he said. “My dad loved shopping there and still does.”
Penner and board member Stuart Walton presented Dennis Incandera, vice president of apparel for Walmart US, with the Sam M. Walton Entrepreneur Award for his transformation of Walmart’s fashion business. She gathered about 100 people who worked in New York City’s fashion district. Apparel sales were up 10% in the first quarter of this year, Penner said, and the category continues to see strong sales in stores and online.
Friday’s event featured musical acts by Benson Boone, Shabzi and Pink.
