Walmart Canada is a national retailer that offers a selection of products, amenities, and grocery items at everyday low prices. Walmart Fleet – the transportation branch of Walmart Canada – operates across six provinces, makes over 1,200 deliveries a day, and proudly recognizes its team of professional drivers: the face of the company and service to their customers.
The Top Fleet Employer celebrates its team with a series of videos that highlight the professional drivers, their stories, and what it means for them to work at Walmart Canada. To learn more about Walmart Canada and its recognition as a Top Fleet Employer, visit www.walmartcanada.ca/newsroom/videos/top-fleet-employer.
Private Motor Carrier had the opportunity to connect with Nick Marandola, Director of Transportation (East Region), and Francis Lalonde, Vice President of Transportation at Walmart Canada to learn about the company and their deep-rooted values – respect, service, excellence and integrity – and connection to their team, customers and community.
Describe the national presence and operations of Walmart Canada, including how many facilities, trucks and employees represent the company.
Nick Marandola – Walmart Canada operates a chain of more than 400 stores nationwide serving 1.5 million customers each day. Walmart Canada’s flagship online store, www.walmart.ca is visited by more than 1.5 million customers daily.
Twelve distribution centres, 300 tractors, 3,700 trailers and 650 drivers clocking more than 100,000 kilometres each day – that’s what it takes to get products to our more than 400 stores across Canada. The Walmart Canada team of 5,300 logistics and fleet experts deliver every single day to support and connect our communities and ensure our stores are stocked with the items our customers want and need.
With more than 100,000 associates, Walmart Canada is one of Canada’s largest employers and is ranked one of the country’s top 10 most influential brands. Walmart Canada was recently recognized as a LinkedIn Top Company of 2021 and was also named one of Canada’s most popular brands (based on Google searches). Walmart Canada has made a commitment to regeneration – focusing on equitable opportunity, sustainability, community and ethics and integrity. Since 1994, Walmart Canada has raised over $500 million to support communities across Canada.
Describe the workplace culture at Walmart Canada. Is there a major business philosophy permeating the company? Is there a company motto?
Francis Lalonde – Walmart Canada has a unique corporate culture guided by four key values: respect, service, excellence and integrity. These values are behind everything we do as a business.
Our mission is to help Canadians save money and live better. We make a similar promise to our associates: we want to be that place where you can live better, too. We’re relentlessly focused on our people.
Our promise to associates is a workplace shaped by purpose, opportunity, innovation, inclusion and well-being. Walmart is that place where you can grow your career, where your ideas are heard and where you’re supported. We’re really focused, as an organization, on making sure our driver associates feel valued and that we’re taking action on their feedback. We see this reflected in high associate engagement survey scores and retention.
Let’s talk about the growth of Walmart Fleet.
Nick Marandola – Walmart Canada’s fleet has grown exponentially, particularly in the last five years, from three locations to eight terminals across the country, with more opening in 2022. We will have a fleet presence across six provinces, with more than 650 drivers operating more than 300 tractors and approximately 3,700 trailers, along with nearly 100 dispatchers and support teams. Every day, we complete more than 1,200 deliveries to our stores across Canada along with the majority of domestic inbound transportation from our retail vendors. And we’re doing this while maintaining year-over-year growth, service improvements, best-in-class safety ratings and cost reductions.
We’re proud of the growth we’ve seen so far and are setting ourselves up for more growth to come. For example, we recently created our first Regional Manager position for our fleet operations in Western Canada. Under the leadership of Deborah Moretti for the past five years, one location and 22 driver associates will become more than 400 driver associates supporting five terminals in 2022.
Explain how Walmart Fleet has been a leader in safety and sustainability.
Francis Lalonde – Walmart is on a journey to becoming a regenerative company. We’re also relentlessly focused on our people. Together, these priorities help to create a culture where sustainability is embedded at every level of our business and safety is at the forefront.
Globally, Walmart has pledged zero emissions by 2040 and we’re well on our way to achieving that goal. Here in Canada, we have plans to ensure 100% of our fleet vehicles are alternatively-powered by 2028. We’ve made one of the largest reservations of Tesla Semi trucks in the country, a move that helps to reduce our carbon footprint while focusing on driver safety, and are exploring other electrification options as well.
When it comes to safety, we’re investing in training, software and safety features that help to make our fleet one of the safest in Canada. Establishing a world-class culture around safety is a key priority for us, and it’s something we reinforce within our teams every single day. We see this focus and our culture reflected in our Best-in-Class CVOR rating. Joining the PMTC gave us great insight into industry trends and how we compare to other private fleets when it comes to safety.
Walmart Canada has been proudly named Top Fleet Employer. Tell us what this means to you, your company and professional drivers.
Francis Lalonde – Drivers are a critical part of the Walmart Canada team and we are committed to recruiting and retaining the best drivers in the industry. We were recognized for recruitment and retention practices, workplace culture, compensation, training and skills development, and innovative HR practices.
We also won because of our focus on safety, our relentless focus on our people and diversity and inclusion. It means we are living and breathing that our people are our most important asset every day. This designation has allowed us to attract more professional drivers, which allows for continued growth.
Being a Top Fleet Employer is a great honour and we make a point to thank our drivers for the great work they do each and every day and to remind them that what they do truly makes a difference. We also find other opportunities to appreciate our team on a larger scale, like during National Driver Appreciation week each September. We see this as an opportunity to really show the more than 500 drivers who are on the road each day how much we value their contributions.
This past year was our biggest event to date. It included: a challenge to our stores to celebrate our drivers throughout the week, commemorative swag for our drivers and updating a select number of trucks across the country with a special trailer wrap to thank our team in a very visible way. We also filmed a video (www.walmartcanada.ca/newsroom/videos/driver-appreciation-week-2021) to illustrate the day in the life of a Walmart fleet driver, featuring drivers nominated from each region to bring additional visibility to the important work our fleet driver team does.
Our fleet drivers play a crucial role in delivering on our customer promise – they are the lifeline between Canadians and the goods they need, and we want to show our appreciation of that as much as possible.
Can you discuss your company’s involvement with the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada?
Nick Marandola – We’re always looking to use our scale and reach to make an impact on the industry. As Walmart Canada’s fleet continues to expand, becoming involved with one of Canada’s most recognized transportation associations was a step we were proud to take.
Becoming a member of PMTC allows us to learn from other top private fleets in Canada and to share our own learnings and success stories with our industry partners. We’re looking forward to increasing our involvement with the association in 2022 and have already found so much value in our participation this past year.
What makes you most proud of your company?
Francis Lalonde – Walmart Canada is consistently making strides toward regeneration, safety and being a best-in-class private fleet. We continue to invest in infrastructure, innovation and safety to ensure we’re not only putting the customer first – but putting our associates first, too.
From a fleet perspective, we’re continuing to push towards being the leading-edge carrier with sustainability embedded within our processes and an excellent safety rating. We’re also focused on creating more opportunities for our drivers, including recruiting and mentoring female drivers.
We know this is that place where opportunity and innovation come to life and we’re working every day to make Canadians’ lives better.
To learn more about Walmart Canada, visit www.walmartcanada.ca.
