Technology changes the nature of work But at the same meeting, McMillon also acknowledged how technology changes the nature of work itself, a perspective echoed by Walmart Chief Sustainability Officer and Walmart Foundation President Kathleen McLaughlin. \"...we're now a tech company as much as a retail company," Mc Laughlin said. \"This digital transformation creates new jobs, but, more important, it changes the nature of jobs, even entrylevel ones." Those demands require more of workersand an equivalent commitment to re- skilling and compensation. In the case, Kerr cites Walmart's investments in wages and training for employees of $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion in 2015 and 2016part of a move that boosted starting pay for frontline associates from $9 per hour in 2015 to $10 in 2016 (it hit $11 per hour in early 2018). Yet in 2015, announcement of a wage increase resulted in a share price drop the following day of 10 percent, on news that the increase would cut earnings per share by 6