THE SHOPS AND ESTABLISHMENTS ACT, 1953

The main objective of this act is to regulate the working and employment conditions of workers in
the so called unorganized sector i.e. shops and establishments including the commercial
establishments which are not covered by factories act or any other act regulation employment
conditions. The act applies to all persons employed, whether directly or indirectly.
Key Provisions:
 Guidelines for working hours and holidays:
 Guidelines for payment of wages, work duration, rest, opening and closing hours, overtime
work and leaves.
 Rules for employing children, women and young persons
 Employment and termination of service
 Obligations of employers and employees
Walmart strictly adheres to all the provisions of the act. Working hour norms is 9 hrs per day and 48
hrs a week. Employees are not allowed to work for 5 hours at a stretch. They are given a break of half
an hour in between. Walmart ensures that the work environment is clean and safe for working. The
employees are given one day/week off. Apart from this they can also avail leaves like sick leave,
casual leaves etc. from their respective quotas.
THE EMPLOYEES’ STATE INSURANCE ACT, 1948
The ESI Act of 1948 ensures financial protection of employees from hazards of Sickness, Maternity,
Disablement or Death due to Employment injury and to provide full Medical care to insured persons
and their families.
At Walmart, all employees with salary less than or equal to 21000 are covered under the ESI Act.
Total ESI contribution for each employee at Walmart is 6.5% of the gross salary. This includes 1.75%
employee’s contribution and 4.75% employer’s contribution.
MATERNITY BENEFIT ACT, 1961
Maternity Benefit Act protects the employment of women in certain period before and after childbirth.
It ensures full paid absence from work, bonus, nursing breaks etc.
Key Provisions of the act
 26 weeks of paid leave (12 weeks in case of 2nd child) which can be availed at maximum of 8
weeks prior to delivery.
 Work from home benefits which can exercised post expiry of 26 weeks
 Mandatory crèche facility
Walmart provides the maternity benefits to its female employees for a period of 6 months which can
be further extended up to 3 months on providing doctor’s prescription. Under the ‘Super Moms’
programme of Walmart, women can additionally opt for a sabbatical of 1 year post childbirth. Taking
a step further, Walmart also provides paternity benefits of 1 week.
Compliance to legislations:
Compliance is considered as sacrosanct in the company and given utmost priority. There is a dedicated
compliance team at the home office of Walmart. Apart from this there is also one compliance manager
at each store who is in charge of all the compliance related issues. There is also one dedicated HR
Manager at each store who further ensures that all the legal and compliance requirements are met.
Both online and offline systems are in place for addressing the same. In case of offline system,
registers are maintained where all the compliance and regulations related data is entered. These
registers are submitted to the local offices of government labour officials. Attendance tracking is very
importance as it forms the basis of payroll, administration and many other compliance factors. For
the same Walmart uses RAMCO. RAMCO helps in the online tracking of attendance and working
hours of employees and records the data. RAMCO also helps in the process of leave management.
Employees can apply the leaves in the system and get it approved by their line managers. The system
helps maintain an online record of data which can be retrieved as and when needed. Daily reports are
generated and monitored for working hours and overtime. On the basis of these reports overtime
allowances are given to employees.
Conflict:
Conflict is an inherent part of any organization where people work. The efficacy of the organization
lies in managing these conflicts with utmost priority and in a dynamic way. Following an employee
centric approach, without causing any ethical or monetary loss to the organization is what an
organization strives for. Taking positive out from these complicated conflicts and moving ahead in a
more robust and prudent way is what Walmart does. Conflicts at Walmart are handled by an
independent compliance and ethics team. The issues are reported directly to the international CEO of
Walmart and not the group CEO of Walmart India. These Issues are dealt with in a neutral and fair
way. There are always cost and image issue of the organization which prohibits decision making
process. But at Walmart cost is considered secondary and employee satisfaction and company image
are given primary importance.
As per a new government regulation it is mandatory to link Aadhar card of all employees enrolled
under EST Act. The same was identified in one of the ESI audits at Walmart that Aadhar cards were
not linked for employees. It resulted in Walmart getting a court notice on behalf of the government.
It was a mammoth task of liking the Aadhar cards of 3500 employees in 10 days. The CEO was
summoned several times in the court. But Walmart noticing the criticality of the issue and pursued it
a dynamic manner and requested for an extension in deadline. The complexity was acknowledged by
the court and Walmart was given an extension of 3 months for completing the entire task. This clearly
shows that Walmart gives utmost importance to the laws and regulations and tries to abide by them.