Wal-Mart plans to build a training facility next year in Texarkana, Texas, as part of a large-scale effort to improve employees' job skills and pay.
Scheduled to be built in the first half of 2017, the Wal-Mart Training Academy will be one of hundreds in the United States to provide a two-week course for front-end supervisors and department managers paid hourly, said Erica Jones, a senior manager with Wal-Mart corporate communications.
The new facilities are part of the company's $2.7 billion investment in employee wages and training announced in February 2015. Changes so far include giving more than 1.1 million employees a pay raise in February 2016.
When the Training Academy program is fully operational, it will be the largest private workforce training program in the country, certifying about 140,000 people a year, Jones said.
"Our goal is to have 200 of these open by the end of 2017. We're at just a little more than a dozen right now," she said.
Employees of 26 Wal-Mart Superstores and Neighborhood Markets across the region will train at the Texarkana Training Academy, which will be on the site of the Texas-side Superstore at 4000 New Boston Road. The location was chosen to be within commuting distance of those stores so that no employee will need to spend any nights away from home while training, Jones said.
Wal-Mart does not yet know exactly what form the facility will take.
"It's going to be one of three things. It's either going to be a newly built facility that's attached to the store in some way, or we're going to repurpose some of the back room and turn it into classroom space, or what we've done in some cases is put one of those smaller prefab buildings at the store and that serves as the classroom," Jones said.
Existing front-end supervisors and department managers take an abbreviated course "that's really just more level-setting," that is, reviewing standards and expectations, Jones said.
New hires and employees promoted to those positions take a more extensive two-week course. The first week focuses on retail basics and the second on department-specific concerns. Each two-week course will serve 15 to 30 trainees, and courses will be offered year-round.
"It's about providing them with the right tools to do their jobs and having a level expectation across the board. If you're a department manager, this is what you're expected to know and how you're expected to operate. So it's about providing a consistent training experience, which then in turn leads to a consistent customer service experience in the store," Jones said.
Within the next month, Wal-Mart will also roll out a more in-depth training program for salaried assistant managers, she said.
Managers of the Texas-side Superstore declined to comment and referred all questions to Wal-Mart's corporate communications department.