> Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home
The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven, more money for people who want it).
I wouldn't mind dropping a few things off on my way home and earning a few extra bucks as long as it made sense financially. I'm very interested to see what incentive they have for it.
I think there's another problem with this. I recently was rear-ended while I was stopped at an intersection, and the second question my insurance company asked me is if the car was being used for commercial (ride-sharing) services then or at any time. I wasn't, but I assume this kind of delivery would be commercial use, and the cost to add this to your insurance would be way too expensive to make it worth it for the employees.
"The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven ..."
I thought just the opposite, in terms of efficiency and miles driven, etc.
My understanding is that Fedex and especially UPS trucks are very highly optimized for their work and for fuel efficiency and that their routes are also extremely optimized (for example, UPS truck routes almost never include a left turn).
Meanwhile, J6P at walmart is driving an F350 diesel truck designed to tow 10k pounds of horse trailer[1][2] and is doing a stop and go mail route through his town that cannot possibly be as optimized as a UPS route.
[1] Remember, you can never have too much truck.
[2] The payments for which are almost the sole driver of the job in the first place, but I digress...
This is much better than Uber and the likes which don't make you employees and therefore don't cover anything other than the straight hourly payment.
Unlike Uber, whose greatest contribution yet is allowing me to use an app to hail a black cab instead of a phone, this is actually a smart innovation that leverages the fact that employees actually drive home.
If it was a startup I bet a bunch of critical comments would have been supportive instead.
Agreed. I have the privilege to consider employee conditions very important. An honest "opt in" is not detrimental to that, but there's definitely potential for this to make it into the company's culture as a new job expectation. We should be looking out for that.
On the whole, if employees are offered better options than the ones they have now, isn't that progress?
It's all fun & free-market capitalism until the employee gets into an accident and then who's liable, or if they go to some murderer/cannibal's house who was just ordering a late-night snack?
This is not likely. Highly recommend the part about being a Walmart employee in the book "Nickel and Dimed". As another commenter wrote, these guys are just offloading benefits and depreciation and other capital costs on employees who are already living in poverty. These guys are most literally evil.
I'm very interested to see what incentive they have for it.
Which of course is omitted, so they get the free advertising for their new service but you are not troubled by any specifics that might shape your decision of whether or not to use it.
I strongly suspect that workers will be given the opportunity to opt in...or find other employment.
Ugh. I think that this sort of attitude (which was my initial reaction too) is a big part of what's wrong with our current economy.
If you take the concept at face value, this is Walmart offering to let their employees make some extra money in exchange for a bit of extra work, once they've clocked out. What a nice company.
But realistically, this is Walmart shunting the costs of delivery onto their employees. Instead of paying their employees a living wage, or offering benefits befitting a delivery driver, they can offset all of the risk, deprecation costs, etc associated with delivering a package all for the low cost of what amounts to a tiny raise in their existing payroll.
Walmart chooses what they pay their associates, and what hours they get. So it's not really appropriate for them to start becoming arbiters of opportunities to make extra money "outside of work." This is shady as all hell.
* Employee gets a destination with no parking available, who gets dinged for non-delivery?
* Employee gets a destination with no parking available, but is told to double-park by local manager. Gets ticketed. Who gets dinged?
* Does this constitute a non-CDL delivery service, or courier service? Will Wal-Mart handle licensing and insurance coverage of personal employee vehicles?
* What exactly constitutes "on their way"? A block out of their way? Several kilometers out of their way?
* What guarantees are in place that the definition of "on their way" isn't expanded without due consideration in the future?
* Is the compensation piece work, or based upon time? If piece work as implied by the 10-package maximum, and an unforeseen traffic stoppage takes up employee's time, does employee have flexibility to bail on delivery and do some shopping while waiting for stoppage to clear? If there is no such flexibility, I can practically count upon the absence of "surge compensation".
* Do recipients have the option to view a picture of employee and vehicle, with map showing location as delivery draws near, ensuring security and privacy?
* Employee slips on stairs while walking down them after completing last delivery on way to their car, breaks a leg. Is this covered by worker's compensation, or is employee on their own?
* Employee is assaulted by dog/perp while making delivery. Who pays?
This is a laudable effort, I like the general idea, but this is all but guaranteed open to worker abuses in the future as management "optimizes" it, in a "pray I don't alter it further"-fashioned deal. I don't expect Wal-Mart stocker staff for example, to think of these and many other contingencies when signing up, for which they will almost certainly be hung out to dry if their number comes up.
Now, if only there was some sort of way to force Wal-mart to answer these kinds of questions. Maybe... A union of employees, who want to understand their relationship with their employer better, and to push back on unfair parts of said relationship.
This is the comment I was hoping to see. Real scenarios and issues that the hand-wavy policy doesn't make clear, and that delivery operations deal with all the time.
I understand the concerns. They're absolutely valid. But I suspect a huge, multinational corporation like Walmart has likely done their due-diligence here. Or maybe I'm just feeling optimistic today.
> and an unforeseen traffic stoppage takes up employee's time, does employee have flexibility to bail on delivery and do some shopping while waiting for stoppage to clear?
I wish every employer had a "traffic is hard, let's go shopping!" policy.
As a professional delivery worker and an employee of the everyone-hates retailer i have this view:
This is an experiment. Only. Lore has said that 75% of delivery cost is labor related.
Wal-Mart is insane about not working off the clock. They won't force associates to do this.
From the delivery aspect:
When we get a new delivery person they suck for months. There are so many variables that make failure probable: unmarked addresses; multiple units; obstacles (including dogs); access; daylight; wrong address labels; "who gives a sh#t" attitude ("i just cant return with my delivery"); scanning failures
Plus. Ups fedex and usps are trusted with access-walking on peoples properties without question.
Imo lore is good at pushing things and this test will be called off.
"Plus. Ups fedex and usps are trusted with access-walking on peoples properties without question."
This is huge. I know I wouldn't trust some random Walmart worker like I would a USPS/fedex worker. And I don't even trust them very much. I've had them break enough packages to be wary.
Most of them can be solved with data gathering - what's this unmarked address, which is the relevant unit, what the right access path, which workers do and don't give a shit, etc.
and with the right app, and so many employees, you can gather all that data relatively fast, assuming some repeat orders.
Heck, maybe do that with augmented reality via phone, to make it dead simple.
Also, if the employee still can find where to go, some sort of remote help from another employee can be had.
The discomfort I have with this is that Wal-Mart has a long history of sensible corporate policies (seriously, Wal-Mart at the corporate level has been surprisingly progressive on a lot of issues) that turn into draconian mandates by regional or store managers who are under intense pressure to maximize profit-per-employee. This just sounds like another good idea by corporate that will inevitably be crammed down workers throats.
I don't think corporate gets a pass on this. If they were serious about creating a more progressive workplace, they could change the incentive schemes for managers or fire managers who don't comply with the spirit of their policies.
The intense pressure is itself a product of corporate policy, so its effects must also be considered in assessing the reasonableness of other corporate policies which interact with it.
In general I think this is a pretty cool program, but what I worry about is the "optional" nature of it. Do people who go the extra mile get promoted faster? Qualify for more raises? Don't get let go during slower times?
FTA: "Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home"
This sounds like a really good strategy - Walmart has thousands of locations and hundreds of thousands of people driving home form those locations. If they can leverage that into some efficiencies in the delivery chain, for either faster or cheaper delivery, that'd be awesome for them and their e-commerce customers.
It's all about corporate entities with massive analysis resources using information asymmetry to offload risk onto individuals who are not in a position to understand what they are agreeing to.
It took Wal-Mart a long time to wake up and realize they have one of the largest captive workforces in the world (and that there's a lot of untapped on-demand value therein). Great move on their part to start experimenting with this.
I think my biggest complaint is that someone making minimum wager or near minimum wage will value money above their time, so many will take this opportunity. Most will take up any reasonable opportunity to earn a few extra dollars. However, this takes away from time that could be spent with family or used to better their skills. The working poor are in a tough position and this program takes advantage of that.
Sam Walton, in the early days of WalMart, got a pilot's license so he could fly between store locations (vs a much slower commute by car). He noticed while flying that he could see traffic patterns and scout out new store locations for his expanding business. I think Sam would be proud that the same out-of-the-box, resourceful thinking is still happening today.
shrug the natural instinct seems to be to skewer WalMart for oppressing their employees but this seems like a good idea to me.
> Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home, the company said Thursday in a blog post. Wal-Mart didn’t specify how the employees will be compensated.
It's not uncompensated -- so it could be really symbiotic.
Amazon has a program, "Fulfillment By Amazon", where you can pay Amazon $2.50-$4.00 to pick, pack and ship an item for you[1]. Would Wal-Mart be better off just paying Amazon than paying all the people involved in its process? I'd imagine Wal-Mart is paying its people at least $3 per delivery, in addition to paying the people in its stores to pick/pack the item...
Does turning Wal-Mart stores into distribution centers and retail employees into pickers and delivery people beat dedicated DC's and delivery people? I'd guess not.
Does anyone remember Parcelnet from Britain 15 years ago? It was mums and retired people delivering packages for several retailers, and it was a complete disaster. Your orders just wouldn't show up. That's on top of the sharing economy exploitation.
Maybe this is just me, but I wouldn't want some random person that lives near me to know what I'm ordering from Walmart and have them hand deliver it to me.
The similarities to Uber/Uber Eats exist. Is a neighbor uber driving knowing who you are, where you live, and leave the house keeping you from using their service?
There's not just added income per delivery (or whatever model Walmart chooses to employ here); there's also the tax write-offs employees can take on mileage driven between their Walmart location and the final delivery stop assuming that mileage hasn't been specifically covered by Walmart directly.
Can an accountant check me here? My thinking is this also helps with commuting costs for quite a number of low-wage employees.
In any lawsuit against the driver, Wal-Mart would also be named as a defendant. It might be that enough of these types of things will have to happen before local laws regulate this sort of non-traditional thing.
My initial guy reaction is that this is really weird and I wouldnt want my package to be delivered by a stranger. Then I remembered my packages are already delivered by people I dont know. It seems like a nice way for Wal-Mart to cut down on shipping costs and a good way for their employees to pick up a little extra cash.
UPS/FedEx drivers make decent salaries. I wonder how much base pay impacts desire to steal obviously valuable packages. For a Walmart employee the pay is much lower but they will end up with the same knowledge of where/when packages arrive.
If someone wants to steal something, they aren't going to steal what they just delivered (mostly they are not that stupid) - people already do that just cruising neighborhoods that they do not live in - it's enough of a problem that vids pop up every month on reddit. Real thieves would be casing houses and figuring out which one would be worth burglarizing.
[+] [-] matt_wulfeck|8 years ago|reply
The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven, more money for people who want it).
I wouldn't mind dropping a few things off on my way home and earning a few extra bucks as long as it made sense financially. I'm very interested to see what incentive they have for it.
[+] [-] jonlucc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|8 years ago|reply
Not much difference between this and, say, LaserShip, aside from it being a small part of the overall job.
[+] [-] rsync|8 years ago|reply
I thought just the opposite, in terms of efficiency and miles driven, etc.
My understanding is that Fedex and especially UPS trucks are very highly optimized for their work and for fuel efficiency and that their routes are also extremely optimized (for example, UPS truck routes almost never include a left turn).
Meanwhile, J6P at walmart is driving an F350 diesel truck designed to tow 10k pounds of horse trailer[1][2] and is doing a stop and go mail route through his town that cannot possibly be as optimized as a UPS route.
[1] Remember, you can never have too much truck.
[2] The payments for which are almost the sole driver of the job in the first place, but I digress...
[+] [-] petra|8 years ago|reply
Source:https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-usi...
[+] [-] addicted|8 years ago|reply
Unlike Uber, whose greatest contribution yet is allowing me to use an app to hail a black cab instead of a phone, this is actually a smart innovation that leverages the fact that employees actually drive home.
If it was a startup I bet a bunch of critical comments would have been supportive instead.
[+] [-] wyc|8 years ago|reply
On the whole, if employees are offered better options than the ones they have now, isn't that progress?
[+] [-] celticninja|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RUG3Y|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justforFranz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linkmotif|8 years ago|reply
This is not likely. Highly recommend the part about being a Walmart employee in the book "Nickel and Dimed". As another commenter wrote, these guys are just offloading benefits and depreciation and other capital costs on employees who are already living in poverty. These guys are most literally evil.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|8 years ago|reply
Which of course is omitted, so they get the free advertising for their new service but you are not troubled by any specifics that might shape your decision of whether or not to use it.
I strongly suspect that workers will be given the opportunity to opt in...or find other employment.
[+] [-] leggomylibro|8 years ago|reply
If you take the concept at face value, this is Walmart offering to let their employees make some extra money in exchange for a bit of extra work, once they've clocked out. What a nice company.
But realistically, this is Walmart shunting the costs of delivery onto their employees. Instead of paying their employees a living wage, or offering benefits befitting a delivery driver, they can offset all of the risk, deprecation costs, etc associated with delivering a package all for the low cost of what amounts to a tiny raise in their existing payroll.
Walmart chooses what they pay their associates, and what hours they get. So it's not really appropriate for them to start becoming arbiters of opportunities to make extra money "outside of work." This is shady as all hell.
[+] [-] yourapostasy|8 years ago|reply
* Employee gets a destination with no parking available, who gets dinged for non-delivery?
* Employee gets a destination with no parking available, but is told to double-park by local manager. Gets ticketed. Who gets dinged?
* Does this constitute a non-CDL delivery service, or courier service? Will Wal-Mart handle licensing and insurance coverage of personal employee vehicles?
* What exactly constitutes "on their way"? A block out of their way? Several kilometers out of their way?
* What guarantees are in place that the definition of "on their way" isn't expanded without due consideration in the future?
* Is the compensation piece work, or based upon time? If piece work as implied by the 10-package maximum, and an unforeseen traffic stoppage takes up employee's time, does employee have flexibility to bail on delivery and do some shopping while waiting for stoppage to clear? If there is no such flexibility, I can practically count upon the absence of "surge compensation".
* Do recipients have the option to view a picture of employee and vehicle, with map showing location as delivery draws near, ensuring security and privacy?
* Employee slips on stairs while walking down them after completing last delivery on way to their car, breaks a leg. Is this covered by worker's compensation, or is employee on their own?
* Employee is assaulted by dog/perp while making delivery. Who pays?
This is a laudable effort, I like the general idea, but this is all but guaranteed open to worker abuses in the future as management "optimizes" it, in a "pray I don't alter it further"-fashioned deal. I don't expect Wal-Mart stocker staff for example, to think of these and many other contingencies when signing up, for which they will almost certainly be hung out to dry if their number comes up.
[+] [-] vkou|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joekrill|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Splendor|8 years ago|reply
* What happens if fewer employees volunteer than is required to meet delivery demand?
[+] [-] larvaetron|8 years ago|reply
I wish every employer had a "traffic is hard, let's go shopping!" policy.
[+] [-] losteverything|8 years ago|reply
This is an experiment. Only. Lore has said that 75% of delivery cost is labor related.
Wal-Mart is insane about not working off the clock. They won't force associates to do this.
From the delivery aspect:
When we get a new delivery person they suck for months. There are so many variables that make failure probable: unmarked addresses; multiple units; obstacles (including dogs); access; daylight; wrong address labels; "who gives a sh#t" attitude ("i just cant return with my delivery"); scanning failures
Plus. Ups fedex and usps are trusted with access-walking on peoples properties without question.
Imo lore is good at pushing things and this test will be called off.
[+] [-] ianai|8 years ago|reply
This is huge. I know I wouldn't trust some random Walmart worker like I would a USPS/fedex worker. And I don't even trust them very much. I've had them break enough packages to be wary.
[+] [-] petra|8 years ago|reply
You mention many problems.
Most of them can be solved with data gathering - what's this unmarked address, which is the relevant unit, what the right access path, which workers do and don't give a shit, etc.
and with the right app, and so many employees, you can gather all that data relatively fast, assuming some repeat orders.
Heck, maybe do that with augmented reality via phone, to make it dead simple.
Also, if the employee still can find where to go, some sort of remote help from another employee can be had.
[+] [-] strictnein|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] santoshalper|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Uehreka|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sharkweek|8 years ago|reply
I could see it becoming a stick pretty quick.
[+] [-] djrogers|8 years ago|reply
This sounds like a really good strategy - Walmart has thousands of locations and hundreds of thousands of people driving home form those locations. If they can leverage that into some efficiencies in the delivery chain, for either faster or cheaper delivery, that'd be awesome for them and their e-commerce customers.
[+] [-] david927|8 years ago|reply
To me, personally, this smacks of late-stage capitalism. How long until "voluntary and paid" becomes "coerced and paid little"?
[+] [-] rectang|8 years ago|reply
ETA: Yep, insurance costs are on the workers. From https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-usi... :
[+] [-] Nelkins|8 years ago|reply
Source: I work at Jet, but not on this team.
[+] [-] nugget|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TACIXAT|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kstrauser|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swanson|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ensiferum|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyldfire|8 years ago|reply
> Workers can opt in to earn extra money by making deliveries using their own cars. They’re assigned packages based on where they live so the route aligns with their commute home, the company said Thursday in a blog post. Wal-Mart didn’t specify how the employees will be compensated.
It's not uncompensated -- so it could be really symbiotic.
[+] [-] tuna-piano|8 years ago|reply
Does turning Wal-Mart stores into distribution centers and retail employees into pickers and delivery people beat dedicated DC's and delivery people? I'd guess not.
[1]https://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/pricing.ht...
[+] [-] HarryHirsch|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lightbyte|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenwoo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smileysteve|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eganist|8 years ago|reply
There's not just added income per delivery (or whatever model Walmart chooses to employ here); there's also the tax write-offs employees can take on mileage driven between their Walmart location and the final delivery stop assuming that mileage hasn't been specifically covered by Walmart directly.
Can an accountant check me here? My thinking is this also helps with commuting costs for quite a number of low-wage employees.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] antihero|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlwaysRock|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsiemon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenwoo|8 years ago|reply