TechHR
ex
L&D
UNPLUGGED
Sphere
About Us • Contact Us
People Matters ANZ
People Matters Logo
Login / Signup
People Matters Logo
Login / Signup
  • Current
  • Top Stories
  • News
  • Magazine
  • Research
  • Events
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Podcast

© Copyright People Matters Media Pte. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

  • HotTopic
    HR Folk Talk FutureProofHR
  • Strategy
    Leadership Csuite StrategicHR EmployeeRelations BigInterview
  • Recruitment
    Employer Branding Appointments Permanent Hiring Recruitment
  • Performance
    Skilling PerformanceMgmt Compensation Benefits L&D Employee Engagement
  • Culture
    Culture Life@Work Diversity Watercooler SheMatters
  • Tech
    Technology HR Technology Funding & Investment Startups Metaverse
  • About Us
  • Advertise with us
  • Become a sponsor
  • Contact Us
  • Feedback
  • Write For Us

Follow us:

Privacy Policy • Terms of Use

© Copyright People Matters Media Pte. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

People Matters Logo
  • Current
  • Top Stories
  • News
  • Magazine
  • Research
  • Events
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Podcast
Login / Signup

Categories:

  • HotTopic
    HR Folk Talk FutureProofHR
  • Strategy
    Leadership Csuite StrategicHR EmployeeRelations BigInterview
  • Recruitment
    Employer Branding Appointments Permanent Hiring Recruitment
  • Performance
    Skilling PerformanceMgmt Compensation Benefits L&D Employee Engagement
  • Culture
    Culture Life@Work Diversity Watercooler SheMatters
  • Tech
    Technology HR Technology Funding & Investment Startups Metaverse
Walmart’s approach to shaping careers over jobs

Story • 26th Feb 2022 • 4 Min Read

Walmart’s approach to shaping careers over jobs

Learning & Development#PMLnDAPAC#HRCommunity

Author: Bhavna Sarin Bhavna Sarin
10.7K Reads
Brandon Carson, VP, Learning and Leadership Partner, Walmart talks about making education continuous, accessible and inclusive through an employer-sponsored learning platform.

It is no news that the rapidly evolving world of work has accelerated the need for continuous skilling and upskilling to stay relevant. Yet, many organisations remain on the fence when it comes to investing in scalable and sustainable learning solutions that secure the workforce from the endless disruption and threat of redundancy. 

“The COVID 19 pandemic has cost millions of jobs across sectors. And although unemployment benefits were made available in the US at the outset, few have since thought critically about and invested in solutions that are more long-term and permanent in actual extended benefits for growth opportunity,” said Brandon Carson, VP, Learning and Leadership Partner at Walmart, in his keynote at People Matters L&D Conference APAC 2022.

“A modern economy demands continuous learning. The public and private sectors really must work together to reskill and upskill the workforce. Emerging technology has seized on the disruption to our physical lives by providing solutions that will engage learners across the globe. So the question remains, how can we create a complementary system that provides the tools needed in the digital era to expand opportunity through skills based development?” 

Speaking about ‘Rework: Expanding Opportunity through Skills-Based Hiring and Development’ in his keynote, Carson shed light on how Walmart through its Live Better U (LBU) platform has been expanding skill, role and career opportunities for its very diverse and distributed workforce.

Live Better U: Enabling employer-sponsored education benefits

In 2018, Walmart introduced the Live Better U (LBU) platform in an endeavor to reskill and upskill its workforce through a carefully crafted employer-sponsored education benefits program. 

“There are a lot of associates who aspire to be more, but given life circumstances, they may not have access to opportunity. That's really how the vision of LBU came to life. How could we really give our associates an educational benefit that wouldn't cost them anything?” said Carson adding, “Part of what we're trying to solve for in this digital era is not only continuous skilling, reskilling and upskilling but also how do we provide educational benefits that will really help our associates develop their capability and capacity to grow their career to whatever it is they may want it to be.”

LBU offers a technology enabled student experience, with customised associate dashboards. The platform has a data-driven personalised recommendation program for associates. They can easily track their applications in their toolkits online, in addition to accessing academic coaching. 

“We’re in the midst of a digital transformation, but our associates are at the heart of that digital transformation. Tech has become so seamless and intuitive and such a critical part of our lives. That's how we envision learning at work to be, as really crucial to succeed at work, but it also needs to be embedded in the work itself.” 

“We are not only solving for continuous skilling and upskilling. We are also exploring how to provide education benefits to associates to grow their career to what they want it to be,” said Carson.

Sharing that LBU is solving for some unique challenges that associates face when it comes to skilling, Carson said, “We do know education and skilling is a strong driver of economic mobility. But access to educational opportunity is more increasingly inequitable, especially in the US and it lacks inclusivity.” 

The five problem statements that LBU solves for are as below:

Enabling the workforce to build a career of their choice

“Our vision, mission and goal for the platform is looking at how do we shape a more equitable, career oriented future of education. Our big goal was we really want to change how education is done in the US and eventually across the world. We're going to be looking at career aligned programs - right associate in the right program - and continue evolving as a model for intrapreneurship,” shared Carson. 

“We will reskill our associates to provide them the skills and knowledge they need to move their career in whatever direction they're interested in.” 

Shedding light on the credit mechanism, Carson said that an associate is not starting from scratch when they come into an LBU program. Demonstrating the skills they've learned and the knowledge they've learned on the job, associates are eligible to gain credit for work and credit for prior training. This serves as a key catalyst in the LBU platform to help people accelerate into either new or modified careers. 

Making education accessible to a diverse population

Carson shared the breakup of the 30,000 actives students enrolled in LBU programs: 

  • 47% of the students are associates of color 
  • 19% are black or African American 
  • 18% are Latin X 
  • 57% are female 

“If you look at the top five job titles for LBU students from across our associate demographic, we have our store associates, personal shoppers, team leads, operations manager, as well as cashiers,” Carson shared.

Through over 200 empaneled academies, LBU’s offerings range from foundational learning to in demand degree programs for business, leadership training, supply chain, technology, health and wellness and skilled trades. The platform is looking to include courses in business analytics, operations, digital literacy, Retail Management, diverse leadership, merchandising, and cybersecurity as well.

Benefits of inclusive access to learning opportunities

“We started the program in 2018. It's still a pretty new program. But right now, data is showing us that for every dollar that Walmart invests in LBU, we see $1.91 in savings,” noted Carson. He highlighted three key dimensions driving this: Retention, Promotion, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The retail giant aims to build as much of the talent capability and capacity for the future of our work within its current workforce. Through LBU, the organisation is striving to enable associates to drive their career opportunities by looking along at the opportunities that are available in LBU and how they've been aligned to the business drivers, to shape a career instead of just a job. 

“Whether you want to grow within the box and become skilled in more roles that keep you in that environment or if you want to grow outside and go into more corporate roles; we're aligning our programming across both of those opportunities for our associates,” said Carson.

“We're really strongly focused on building more development opportunities and more equitable access to career opportunities for all of our associates. We're only a few years in and we're going to keep maturing the program as it evolves.”

Read More

Did you find this article helpful?


You Might Also Like

The Glass Ceiling: Women an Uphill Battle

STORY • 17th Mar 2025 • 5 Min Read

The Glass Ceiling: Women an Uphill Battle

Learning & DevelopmentCultureDiversityLeadership Development#PowerWomen#WomenofChange
Smart HR goals to drive organizational success

STORY • 3rd Jan 2025 • 5 Min Read

Smart HR goals to drive organizational success

LeadershipLearning & Development#HRTech#HRCommunity
Key L&D trends for 2025

STORY • 28th Nov 2024 • 3 Min Read

Key L&D trends for 2025

SkillingLearning & Development#HRTech#HRCommunity
NEXT STORY: Productivity with a carrot or stick? Consider I-deals instead

Trending Stories

  • design-thinking-hr

    Skype is dead: Did Microsoft's leadership let a billion-doll...

  • design-thinking-hr

    Keeping the C-suite in the C-suite - how do we reduce execut...

  • design-thinking-hr

    Return to office: the legalities

  • design-thinking-hr

    The trust factor: Why modern leaders can’t afford to overl...

People Matters Logo

Follow us:

Join our mailing list:

By clicking “Subscribe” button above, you are accepting our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Company:

  • About Us
  • Advertise with us
  • Become a sponsor
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Contact:

  • Contact Us
  • Feedback
  • Write For Us

© Copyright People Matters Media Pte. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Get the latest Articles, Insight, News & Trends from the world of Talent & Work. Subscribe now!
People Matters Logo

Welcome Back!

or

Enter your registered email address to login

Not a user yet? Lets get you signed up!

A 5 digit OTP has been sent to your email address.

This is so we know it's you. Haven't received it yet? Resend the email or then change your email ID.

People Matters Logo

Welcome! Let's get you signed up...

Starting with the absolulte basics.

Already a user? Go ahead and login!

A 5 digit OTP has been sent to your email address.

This is so we know it's you. Haven't received it yet? Resend the email or then change your email ID.

Let's get to know you better

We'll never share your details with anyone, pinky swear.

And lastly...

Your official designation and company name.