Mustafa Tovi is riding the high of a good week. Though he says he doesn’t easily get emotional, Tovi recalls folding when he got a call from Walmart.
On Father’s Day, Tovi shared some tears with his family when they learned he was about to be promoted to the position of emerging market manager at the company he had spent decades at.
“It's a dream come true,” Tovi, 45, told Fortune, recalling that he started off as a part-time employee making $8 hourly.
Tovi remembers the exact date he applied to his first job at Walmart: July 15, 1999. Joining the retail company at his wife’s encouragement (who worked there as well), he got the job offer the same day he applied. “I was on top of the world,” he said, noting the rate was a lot of money for him at the time, and better than what other retailers were offering.
Tovi soon rose the ranks, becoming a deployment manager only 90 days later, overseeing projects until he became an assistant manager, and then a co-manager, and finally a store manager. He said he met people who took interest in him, taught him, and led him to new opportunities “and that’s what keeps me around,” he says. Tovi has been a store manager for 16 years now, marking his 25th anniversary at Walmart just this year.
Now, Tovi makes six figures. He says his base salary is now $168,000, up from $143,000 in 2023. And he has the potential to make even more under Walmart’s new pay policy.
This winter, Walmart increased managers’ base pay and introduced stock plans such as a grant for managers that reaches up to $20,000. While Tovi made around $326,000 last year (factoring in a bonus of $183,000), he stands to make up to $524,000 now— according to Anne Hatfield, a spokesperson from Walmart. That includes a potential $336,000 bonus (up to 200% of his base income if he meets his goals) and the new stock investments.
While the targets are not public and Hatfield says it’s “too early to know how many [managers] will hit” them, they say Walmart is “rewarding store managers for growing their businesses. As their store’s profit grows, so does their annual bonus.”
Battling a reputation for poor pay
For years, Walmart has been trying to shake its reputation of poor conditions and pay, especially for hourly employees. America's largest private employer has long paid many workers so little that they qualify for government assistance: A 2020 Government Accountability Office report named Walmart the top employer of Medicaid enrollees in three states and the top employer for SNAP recipients in five. Despite the company's billion-dollar valuation, many Walmart workers have yet to have their share.
"Walmart started paying more not in response to the tight job market, but in response to competition from its fellow retailers and also because it knew it wasn't paying enough," journalist Charles Fishman told ABC News in 2019. "Those wages, and that plan, is serving Walmart well as the competition tightens up," explained the author of The Wal-Mart Effect.
And those policies mean Walmart has been shedding employees, especially managers. Management rank cuts led to a ripple effect of more work for those who stayed on, anonymous employees told Bloomberg, and old systems and the onset of COVID-19 made things even worse.
It appears the pandemic pushed some of the power into workers’ hands, forcing larger retail or fast-food companies to begin to pay fair wages or even competitive ones in light of staffing shortages. As conditions worsened in fields often marked by minimum wages, turnover spiked to especially high levels especially in the hospitality and restaurant industries.
The impact lingers, as chains from Raising Cane’s to Chipotle roll-out six figure salaries. These giants are looking to address their retention rate, remain competitive with other chains, and comply with increased pressure from local groups petitioning for workers to receive a living wage during a time of high inflation (e.g. California's $20 minimum hourly wage law). Paying well, unsurprisingly, has an impact on loyalty. Bloomberg reports the annual attrition rate for Walmart managers has decreased by 2% in just one year to 21%, citing Revelio data.
When Tovi started at Walmart, he and his wife were looking to start a family, achieve a level of financial stability to embark on said milestone, and buy a house. Fast forward some decades: “I can say we have three beautiful kids today, we own a beautiful home in Plano, Texas,” Tovi says. The couple has invested money in a variety of ways, including real estate, having leased out several properties.
Fleeing his homeland in Kurdistan to Turkey for a couple years before immigrating to America in 1991, Tovi says he was “given the opportunity to live the American dream.”
“I thank God every day, I thank Walmart every day because of Walmart, the reason why I have what I have today,” he says. Belief in the American Dream seems to have dwindled of late, especially for younger generations who struggle to build wealth and afford housing amidst the high cost of living and student loans. While Tovi doesn’t have a college degree, he says he encourages others to get one. Either way, there’s been some wins in the blue-collar world, as workers at UPS won six figures with the strength of a collective union and pension.
Retail workers are potentially poised for a long-awaited win. Though, it seems like not all employees at Walmart are not as set up for success, as a change or flattening in pay structures last year meant some entry-level employees made less than they would have previously. Spokesperson Hatfield says that Walmart recently announced a new bonus program for associates as well as a new training program to become technicians. "We’ve raised frontline wages approximately 30% over the past five years, bringing our U.S. average hourly wage to close to $18," she says. Still, that's often not enough to scrape by in this economy, as the Fight for $15 campaign notes; that group and others now say a $20 minimum wage nationally is a necessity.
That being said, Tovi says it’s his goal to help spread opportunity to others as well and speaks of opportunities for similar career trajectories, noting that in just his building alone, four associates were promoted to managers within the past four months.
Just as others saw potential in Tovi, he finds joy and purpose and does the same for others. He knew he found his path when he became a manager as his passion was “giving back to the associates.” He thinks of the success of one of the people he supervises, named Miranda, fondly—specifically, when she learned she had her own opportunity to lead and become a store manager.
“That moment really, really satisfied me because we knew the hard work, the time that we put in and the bond that we have built,” he said, noting he and Miranda speak multiple times a day.
For now, Tovi is tackling his new job title and looking to thrive in that role. His next dream is to become a regional vice president and “become the best I can be to help others.”
He drives home that his story isn't singular. “I want to have an opportunity to be where I’m at,” he says. “With hard work and dedication anyone can do it.”
