Get Your Act Together

Excerpt from a Harvard Business Review Article published October 2006

In October 2005, an internal Wal-Mart memo was leaked to the New York Times. Sent to Wal-Mart’s board by the executive in charge of employee benefits, it proposed various ways to cut spending on health care while minimizing damage to the retailer’s reputation. Among the recommendations: Hire more part-time workers and discourage less-healthy workers from applying to Wal-Mart. The recommendations made sense from a business perspective. But the memo came to light just a day after the company had touted its social responsibility in a briefing to reporters on reduced energy use in stores. When the story appeared on the front page of the Times business section, that irony did not go unnoted.

Read the rest of the Article at Harvard Business Review