Walmart offers store managers company supplies so they feel like “owners.”

Walmart, the nation's largest private employer, is raising salaries and benefits for store managers as it looks for ways to retain them.

Walmart said Monday that managers at its U.S. stores will be eligible for grants of up to $20,000 in company stock each year. The shares vest over a period of three years, with a percentage vesting every quarter.

The announcement came a few weeks after Walmart said it would increase the average salary for store managers from $117,000 to $128,000. The big-box retailer also said bonuses for store managers could reach up to 200 percent of base salary, with a store's profitability becoming a bigger factor in the calculation.

Store managers are crucial for driving sales and profitability in their stores and for keeping morale high in a dynamic company. The managers are also seen as an important pipeline for leadership within the company.

A store manager at a Walmart Supercenter oversees hundreds of associates who work in various departments, including food, apparel, pharmacies and auto centers. These stores often attract dozens of customers and generate millions of dollars in sales each year. At the start of the Covid pandemic, store managers took on even more responsibilities as the company adapted to changing consumer behavior, including managing e-commerce capabilities such as in-store pickup for online orders and navigating out-of-stock merchandise or surplus goods. inventory.

“It's fair to say that we're asking them to act like owners and think like owners.” John Furner, the CEO of Walmart US and previously a manager at a company store, said in a briefing with reporters.

The size of the equity grant to managers will be based on the Walmart store format. Store managers at Supercenters are eligible for the most, up to $20,000 per year. For the other two tiers of stores, which are often smaller and have fewer departments, managers are eligible for $10,000 or $15,000 in annual stock grants.

Retailers have been looking for ways to retain employees as people switched jobs during the pandemic in search of higher wages and more opportunities. Until recently, Walmart focused on raising wages for store associates. Sales within Walmart's stores stabilized after 2022 and the company feels good about staffing levels, Mr. Furner said.

“The store manager ranks have been more stable in recent years,” he said.

“We keep store managers in their locations a little longer and it's good for a whole team to have a manager for a few years rather than a year or a little less,” he added. “So that's a good sign.”

Mr. Furner noted that Walmart already had a stock purchase program in which the company matched 15 percent of their purchase up to $1,800. But Monday's announcement goes further than that.

He also said the new program would allow store managers to share in the rewards of a growing business and rising stock price. On Friday, Walmart stock closed at $164.27. In the past five years it has increased by almost 43 percent.

“If we perform well and the share price rises, our management teams, especially our store managers, can get involved,” Mr Furner said.