Walmart US CPO talks business, collaboration, and why she doesn’t get up at 5am

Most HR professionals can’t imagine overseeing salary, benefits, and people strategy for nearly 1.6 million employees, but Judy Werthauser, CPO at Walmart US, says it’s not that different than running HR for a small company.

Werthauser, who joined Walmart in Feb. 2023 after more than four years as chief experience officer at Five Below, recently spoke with HR Brew about how she measures success one year into her role and what a typical day looks like (hint: she doesn’t get up at 5am).

Keys to success. While some executives tout the benefits of hardcore early-morning workouts and daily journaling sessions, Werthauser, a mom of three, says that’s not how she structures her day. She’s not a morning person, and believes everyone needs to find their own rhythm. “I am not the four o’clock, five o’clock morning person. Everybody here knows that,” she said, adding, “I understand how to manage my energy, and I had to learn that.”

Werthauser also credits her personal “board of directors”—made up of her managers, teams, and husband—for helping her navigate her busy life and career. “You can get it wrong just as easily as you can get it right,” she emphasized. “One of the benefits of coming up in HR is you get to work with leaders and see how they’re managing their situation. And so you learn a lot from being exposed.”

Leading at Walmart. Retail moves fast, Werthauser explained, but more than 20 years in HR helped her prepare for Walmart and build credibility as a leader. “The fundamentals are the fundamentals,” she said, explaining that she has spent much of her time learning about Walmart’s processes and people. “But the decision sets are very similar in a sense to all retailers.”

Werthauser claims the job isn’t as overwhelming as one might imagine. “It’s not all that different than being a CPO even at a smaller company,” she told HR Brew, noting that her 10-hour days are largely spent in meetings. “There’s three big topics: There’s a lot of business meetings that are about driving the business, there’s a lot around HR support and how to navigate the tools…and then there’s a lot of individual people, and working directly with individuals coaching, advising, supporting.”

Walmart employees are largely in the office, and she believes that this has allowed her to have more opportunities for informal interactions with her staff throughout the day. She also regularly connects with her colleagues on the US executive leadership team. “It’s all in concert to make sure that we’re driving and moving along in our goals.”

After 10 hours of meetings, the day’s not over. “There’s catch-up at night, which everybody has; you stick in a walk and you stick in dinner and you’re good to go.”

Investing in employees. In January, Walmart announced that it would increase average pay for associates from $17.50/hour to $18/hour as part of the company’s yearslong shift from the low wages and poor benefits that defined it before workforce investments began in 2015. Walmart also increased wages and rolled out a new stock program for some managers to increase employee loyalty, HR Brew previously reported.

Werthauser said these investments are critical to the company’s success, and not something she had to fight for upon stepping into her new role. “For a CPO to come in where you aren’t convincing people that this [better compensation] is important to do, but…where people want to invest and people believe in the value of that investment.”

Walmart is “employee driven, tech enabled,” Werthauser explained, and has been increasingly leaning on technology to help employees do their jobs more efficiently. Last summer, the company introduced My Assistant, an AI-powered tool that helps corporate employees draft and summarize documents. “AI really is a tool of enhancement,” Werthauser said, noting that the company uses AI to help associates or corporate workers, but not as a way to replace them. “We’re not using it as an efficiency play.”

At the end of the day, Werthauser measures her success based on revenue and profit numbers. “My goal is to make the business successful. That’s how I thought about leveraging that year.”

Correction 03/21/24: This piece has been updated to reflect that Werthauser’s previous title was “chief experience officer,” not CHRO.