Five months pregnant and shopping for baby clothes at a Charlotte Walmart, Yvette Braza saw a “We are hiring” sign 30 years ago that changed her life.
Two years after arriving in the U.S. from the Philippines, she needed a job. She was hired on the spot, starting work as a temporary, part-time Walmart holiday-season cashier. She then took a full-time job at age 24 following her daughter’s birth in 1993. It marked the beginning of a journey with Braza now earning a six-figure salary, with potential to double her base pay in bonuses. Her daughter is now a nurse in Greensboro.
“When you come to the U.S., you believe there’s always an opportunity to have a better life,” says Braza.
Walmart touts stories like Braza’s as the norm, pointing out that 75% of the retail giant’s salaried managers at its stores, clubs or distribution centers started as hourly associates. The company, which over the years has had limited interest in media coverage, encouraged Business North Carolina to tell Braza’s story and didn’t restrict questioning.
Manager’s pay
Walmart is putting a premium on retaining its managers amid competition from other big-box retailers. This year, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company boosted its average salary for store managers to $128,000 a year from $117,000. The retailer started by Sam Walton in 1962 also updated its store manager bonus program, putting more emphasis on store profit, with bonuses of as much as 200% of base salary if targets are met. Braza is also eligible to earn an additional grant of as much as $20,000 in company stock.
A career as a Walmart store manager may lack flash, but many Walmart employees who rate their jobs on online forums agree with their corporate leaders: The No. 1 driver of job satisfaction is an associate’s manager.
“Each of them is the CEO of a multimillion-dollar business. And they’re the driving force behind the development of our next generation of leaders,” a Walmart spokesperson says of store managers. The chain has about 10,600 stores globally, about half of them in the U.S.
Walmart has never required its store managers to have a college degree, and it has dropped college degree requirements for many other roles. It’s part of a national shift to more skill-based hiring, regardless of education achievement.
More than a third of companies analyzed by The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard School of Business hired 18% more non-degreed workers into roles that no longer require college degrees, a recent report shows. Walmart was among those businesses, in the survey that included Apple, Koch Industries, General Motors, Target and others. The remaining two-thirds of companies didn’t show marked changes despite proclamations about their shifting hiring policies.
Walmart is America’s largest private employer with about 1.6 million U.S. workers, including more than 60,000 in North Carolina. The retailer says its average hourly wage is $18.50 in North Carolina, slightly higher than the national average of $18.
Rise through the ranks
Braza, who has a bachelor’s degree, credits her ascent in leadership to hard work and persistence. She shrugs off a suggestion of being super-ambitious. “I just wanted to have a job so that I could get paid and pay my bills,” she says.
Her progress started in the first few months with a promotion from cashier to customer service. Within a decade, she was an assistant manager at another Charlotte-area store. Then, about five years later, she became co-manager at yet another Charlotte Walmart, and then a store lead. In 2021, she returned to the Walmart in south Charlotte’s Arboretum shopping center as store manager.
“You can’t be complacent in this job,” she says. “You have to understand, I’m responsible for the 194 people who work under me and the customers who come here. You have to make sure the customer has a good experience when they walk into this store.”
That means the store must be clean, items for sale stocked in an orderly fashion and employees ready to help, says Braza. On this day, with the store not busy, an employee is cleaning the glass doors at the store’s front.
Braza estimates she spends about as much time moving around the store as in her office. Her Fitbit records between 15,000 and 19,000 steps on most workdays. “There’s so much stuff going on outside the office,” she says. “I’ve got to say ‘hi’ to my customers and take care of my associates. It keeps me busy, too.”
Dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved blouse, with her employee badge attached, the only visible thing that differentiates Braza from other employees is a second, yellow-colored “store manager” badge. More than one co-worker describes Braza as a hard worker. Another volunteers that she appreciates how Braza spends time on the floor and understands the importance and difficulties of customer service.
A common task is helping customers find items inside the 114,000-square-foot store, which is on the smaller side of a Supercenter-designated location. Braza’s Pineville-Matthews Road store was remodeled last year to become a Supercenter, one of the first of 150 stores that Walmart is converting or building over the next five years.
The store generates about $80 million in annual sales, which Braza expects to grow to $100 million when customers realize it has expanded selections of fresh vegetables, meats and a deli.
She estimates she works 45 to 50 hours per week, usually starting her day at 6:30 a.m. She says her management group of eight coaches and 21 team leads help her keep her life in balance.
“I let them handle it, unless they need me,” she says. Still Braza feels the weight of the store’s success on her shoulders. “Whatever happens in this store, I’m responsible for it, whether I’m here or not. This is my store.”
She says work conditions at Walmart have improved for all employees over the past few years. Average wages have increased 30% over the past five years. An online education program has been expanded to enable workers to earn a college degree for free. The company provides a 401(k) match. That initial Walmart job has made a huge difference for her family, she says.
“Walmart has given me a lot of opportunities to succeed through the years.” ■