Big news in the business world: Walmart is famous for keeping costs down, including employee-related costs. In Joplin, Missouri, the company is testing a new approach: investing in workers through higher wages and training, on the theory that this will pay off all around—for customers, the company, and employees.

Yes, at just one of their 4,500 stores, Walmart has discovered skills training. If it works, the company plans to roll out this innovative program to the other stores.

That isn’t a story from 1975 or even 1995. It’s from this past month. Good for Walmart, though, even if it did take a few decades to realize the potential value of people—a concept that many other companies in many other industries have leveraged to create competitive advantage for a long time.

Pretty much every organization has a mission statement, often gathering dust on the wall in a corner of a conference room, that says “Our employees are our most valuable asset.” Really? How is that demonstrated?

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