Walmart announced Thursday it will assign thousands of employees as “holiday helpers” to help improve the checkout experience for customers ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“For the first time, Walmart is deploying an army of Holiday Helpers to better serve customers in the checkout line,” reads a statement on the Walmart website. A faster, smoother check out experience has been one of the top requests of customers in recent years.
The helpers will start Nov. 4 and will have candy canes and stickers in hand as they direct customers to the shortest lines, open more registers as needed, and even grab a quick item a customer forgot to prevent delays in checkout lines.
Numbers of holiday helpers will increase during peak shopping times like Black Friday and the last weeks and days before Christmas.
Walmart also plans to assign managers to oversee store pickup, which increases up to five times as much as normal during the holidays. Even more items will be offered for free pickup than ever before during the holidays this year, Walmart said. Free pickup has several advantages for customers, including assurance that the item will be there when they go to the store and no shipping charges like many online purchases have.
According to CNN Money, Walmart brought back its front door greeters in May after a hiatus and typically hires thousands of temporary workers during the holidays each year.
The retail giant has expanded its online offerings from 8 million items at the beginning of the year to 20 million now and plans to add millions more items in the near future, according to its website. There are many rollbacks and special prices in store for the holiday season.