When Traci Clark was age 18 in the mid-1980s, she got an hourly job working as a pharmacy technician at the Walmart store in Owasso. “Walmart was my job to get me through college,” she said. “I was going to school to be a pharmacist.
And then when I applied to pharmacy school twice and didn’t get in, I decided I needed to get out of my mom’s house and get a career. So that’s what happened.” Today, she is the manager of store No.
894 at 6625 S. Memorial Drive, just north of Woodland Hills Mall. It’s one of 13 Walmart “Supercenters” in the Tulsa metro area.
In a world of workforce challenges, Walmart — the largest private employer in America, as well as in Oklahoma — is providing its 4,700 U.S. store managers higher pay, bonuses and stock options in efforts to keep them and bring more on to the payroll.
Leaders like Clark are harder to find in today’s job market with so many other retailers competing for talented managers. Recently, Walmart provided the Tulsa World unlimited access to the store with Clark, shadowing her as she did her daily morning inspection of the store, spoke with associates and customers on the floor, and met with members of her leadership team. 7,000 transactions a day Over 18 years, the 39-year-old Clark moved up from entry-level associate to assistant store manager to manager.
She supervises about 380 employees and leads a team of 11 assistant managers and a “store lead,” someone who assists her in nearly every aspect in ope.