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Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

These changes sound simple, but instituting minor changes across a massive retail chain in days rather than months is a massive undertaking. Walmart has already installed 2,448 shields at cash registers around the country, some of which had to be flown to Western Canada to speed up the process.

“We just said look, we need to do it. We’ll work out the cost later,” Gill said.

The idea is to protect employees and customers while make shopping at Walmart seem as normal as possible. In the middle of this outbreak, after days inside, entering a big-box store can be like ice water on the brain. You are suddenly, alarmingly, surrounded by people.

Gill is trying to ease that transition.

Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

The entrance of the typical Walmart store is normally crowded with product displays. Gill said the team has pushed them back, so the first few steps into a store are wide open, without any obstacles, and employees outside control the flow of customers. Others wipe down basket and cart handles before handing them off to customers.

Three weeks ago, as COVID-19 transformed from a faraway problem to a domestic one, Gill sat at his desk at home and mapped out the process of shopping at Walmart, listing every minor detail.

He has a pretty good idea, since he’s worked at Walmart in one capacity or another since he was a teenager.

Gill started with a part-time job at Asda, the British supermarket chain owned by Walmart Inc., near his home town in southeastern England. In his early 20s and wanting to travel, he transferred to a Walmart in Calgary, then became a store manager in Yellowknife, then Vancouver, before moving to the Canadian headquarters as a senior manager of store innovation.