• From Bloomberg:
"In the spring of 2022, Walmart Inc. created a new position among the roughly 15,000 employees who work at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. The job, called director of workplace mobility, comes with a very specific task: Figure out how to get 10% of the retailer’s local workforce to commute by any means other than driving alone. Walmart originally set the target in the summer of 2019, a couple months after unveiling plans for a new 350-acre corporate campus. The goal was to get 10% of the Bentonville staff commuting on bikes by this year, but reaching that mark has proven tougher than expected. So last year the company pushed the deadline back to 2025, when the new campus is set to open, and hired Kourtney Barrett to help hit it.
"Barrett, 42, an entrepreneur and avid mountain biker who formerly led Bentonville’s chamber of commerce, has been asked to change Walmart’s home office from a workplace where the default mode is driving to one where thousands of employees choose active or public transit on a daily basis."
The story reports that Cindi Marsiglio, senior vice president for corporate real estate at Walmart, says that "the push toward biking and other forms of micromobility … is meant to help Walmart not only cut carbon emissions but also make employees healthier, happier and more productive, and alleviate congestion in Bentonville. It’s also, like the new campus itself, part of an effort to make sure Walmart attracts the best talent with a lifestyle to match what tech companies on the coasts can offer. The idea is to make the surrounding Ozark countryside - what Marsiglio calls 'big nature' - more a part of the daily lives of employees and to show potential employees that thriving outdoor culture."
