Catherwood LibraryILR School

Approximately 24 Walmart employees, backed by the labor activist group OUR Walmart, have created an app called WorkIt designed to answer questions about the company’s workplace policies. In the past, company policies have made it difficult for Walmart employees to access human resources policies, especially complicating situations where medical leave was necessary. The app, which debuted on November 14th, was designed using IBM’s Watson technology, an artificial intelligence bot, but also provides the opportunity to talk to peer experts. The app will also give OUR Walmart insight into the needs of employees that the group should be focusing on. By the end of 2017, OUR Walmart expects 14,000 employees to download the app, which is about 1 percent of all the company’s workers.