Walmart shutters innovation hub, announces store manager pay increases

At the same time the company is announcing pay increases for store managers, Bentonville, AR-based Walmart Inc. BB #:143789 is closing its innovation business unit Store No. 8.

Store No. 8 launched in 2017 and was named after Walmart founder Sam Walton’s original test store, it was billed as the “incubation arm of Walmart,” and launched “startups to help leapfrog where the customer and market will go, well into the future.”

According to a memo acquired by The Wall Street Journal, Walmart “graduated capabilities from this operating approach that are now fully embedded into our organization,” and nearly 300 Store No. 8 workers moved on to other internal jobs.

The shuttering of Store No. 8 coincides with Walmart making an “investment in store manager wages” and a “redesigned bonus program.”

The company said in a letter from Cedric Clark, executive vice president of store operations for Walmart U.S., that it plans to increase store manager average salary from $117,000 to $128,000 a year, along with bonus restructuring that could equal up to 200% of base salary.

“Making Walmart the best place to shop means we need to make it the best place to work,” Clark said, in the letter. “To accomplish that we are on a journey of investing in our associates.”

As a part of pay increases over the past year, front-line hourly associates also earn more than $18 per hour on average.