Walmart promotes 500 people every day and here is how they move up
Walmart, the giant retail store chain, promotes about 500 workers every day.
The short version
- U.S. associates get their first promotion in nine months on average.
- Donna Morris, the chief people officer, shared two traits for moving up.
- Master your current job first and volunteer for new projects.
Why it matters to you. If you manage a growing business or run a shift, paying attention to how the biggest employer in the country handles talent is never a bad way to spend five minutes.
Step onto the floor at Walmart, the giant retail store chain with 1.6 million U.S. workers, and you will see the pace. An online grocery order needs filling while a shopper flags down help in the aisle. It is fast, and the work can become intense on evenings and weekends.
But according to a new report from Business Insider, Walmart actually promotes about 500 employees every day. Donna Morris, the chief people officer at Walmart, said in an interview that employees who advance quickly share two simple qualities. First, they focus entirely on being exceptional at their current job instead of just looking ahead.
Then, once they master that role, they volunteer for new initiatives and take on extra challenges before any promotion arrives. That ladder goes somewhere real. Walmart says 75% of its U.S. salaried store, club, and supply-chain managers started out in hourly roles.
Those managers earned an average of more than $123,000 in fiscal year 2025. U.S. hourly employees across the board earn an average of more than $18.50 an hour, with team roles ranging from $14 to $37 an hour and supply-chain jobs averaging $27.50 an hour.
The company even claims that over the past decade, more than 115 former employees have gone on to become CEOs at other firms. After all, the person packing boxes today might be running a division tomorrow.
Photo: Wikideas1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
