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FORTUNE.COM // SEPTEMBER 2019
Ross Sorkin of the New York Times wrote an
open letter to McMillon calling on him to use
the company’s influence and leverage, as it has
in sustainability efforts over the years, to put
pressure on the gun industry. And a 23-year-
old associate in California launched a petition
at Change.org to stop the sale of firearms at
Walmart. At press time, the petition had gar-
nered more than 73,000 signatures.
McMillon so far has resisted being drawn
into the larger political and policy conversa-
tion. On the Tuesday after the shootings,
he traveled to Texas to meet with the store’s
managers and associates, “just to hug the
people and listen to them,” he says. That same
day, McMillon published his own open letter
to Walmart’s associates, reflecting on the tragic
nature of the shootings but saying that the
company would focus for the time being on
helping associates and customers in El Paso
and working with law enforcement.
McMillon wrote that the company would be
“thoughtful and deliberate in our responses.”
Asked a few days later if he’s made any
decisions about how to engage in the policy
debate, McMillon says it’s still not the right
time. “No doubt, there’s a spotlight on the
company,” he says. “But I’m not ready to talk
about that today.”
The questions aren’t likely to go away, as
McMillon well knows. Grappling with com-
plex sociopolitical issues is part of the burden
and the responsibility of running the world’s
largest company—one with a footprint the
size of a not-so-small country. Walmart easily
ranked No. 1 on this year’s Fortune Global 500
thanks to its $514 billion in revenue. And with
2.2 million associates globally—1.5 million in
the U.S. alone—the company is the world’s
biggest nongovernment employer.
McMillon, 52, has spent his entire career at
the massive retailer. But when he stepped into
the top job five and a half years ago—becom-
ing just the fourth executive to lead Walmart
after iconic founder Sam Walton—he found
the company in a bit of a rut. Not only was
Walmart trailing Amazon badly online, but
also its core U.S. stores were struggling.
McMillon concluded that he needed to invest
in his workforce—to attract better-quality
associates, boost retention, and by doing so
ultimately improve the store experience.
It wasn’t a universally popular idea. After
McMillon told Wall Street that he planned
to increase wages for his legions of associ-
ates—McMillon says the company has invested
$4.5 billion in the effort—Walmart’s stock
tumbled. When I profiled McMillon for For-
tune in 2015, his strategy hadn’t yet yielded
results. The company had just reported its
sixth straight quarter of negative or flat U.S.
same-store sales. Just over four years later,
Walmart has reported 19 straight quarters of
positive U.S. same-store sales growth. From its
low point in November 2015, Walmart’s stock
has soared 86%, vs. 43% for the S&P 500—a
gain of $119 billion in market value.
Walmart is the only company to have been
named to Fortune’s Change the World list in
each of its five years. In the past, Walmart
has earned its way onto the roster primar-
ily for its leadership in driving sustainable
business practices, in its own operations and
throughout its supplier network. But this year
Walmart makes it on the strength of the long-
term investment in its people. That invest-
ment goes well beyond simple pay increases:
The company has offered training courses to
hundreds of thousands of associates through
its Academies program.
Now Walmart is building on that founda-
tion with its Live Better U initiative. Last year
the company partnered with Guild Educa-
tion to launch the program—the name comes
from Walmart’s “Save Money, Live Better”
slogan—allowing workers to pursue college
degrees and skills certificates, debt-free, for $1
per day. Some 6,000 Walmart employees are
already active and enrolled in school through
the program, and another 4,000 are signed up
to start this fall. Part of the idea is that they’ll
have the skills and resilience to adapt as the
economy evolves. “You’ve got to be able to
manage change. You’ve got to be able to learn
new tasks,” McMillon says. “Some people will
go outside the company after receiving that
training, and that’s okay with us.”
From McMillon’s perspective, Live Bet-
ter U is part of a continuum—a long-term
effort to make sure that Walmart continues
to be a “learning” organization. That kind of
learning builds resilience, both economic and
emotional, that can prepare his workforce for
whatever comes next. —Brian O’KeefeCHANGE
THE
WORLD
THE BIG
IMPACT
OF A HUGE
COMPANY
6,000
Number of
Walmart
staffers now
enrolled
in degree
programs
through Live
Better U$19.31
Average
hourly com
pen sation
(wages and
bene fit s) for
a Walmart
hourly
associate$119 B
Increase in
Walmart’s
market
value since
November
2015