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JCPenney turning full-timers into part-timers to cut costs

By
Lisa Fickenscher
Published Feb. 27, 2018
Updated March 5, 2018, 8:23 a.m. ET

JCPenney is turning to a well-worn playbook to improve customer service during key shopping days, The Post has learned.

The department store will convert full-time employees to part-time positions — and hire more part-timers — in order to allow it to flood the floor with employees during key weekend days, sources said.

Starting March 11, shoppers will find more associates in the stores over the weekend and other busy times as part of the staffing makeover.

Many full-time employees will be cut to 25 hours a week from 35, The Post has learned. New part-time hires will also get 25 hours a week.

“We are steering away from having any full-time associates,” a JCPenney insider told The Post.

One New York-area store now has just four full-time sales associates compared with about a dozen a year ago and 15 two years ago, the source said.

The company, through a spokesman, admitted that it is restructuring its workforce but declined to elaborate.

Like many other retailers, JCPenney has been steadily cutting back the hours of its sales help over the past couple of years — or eliminating positions entirely — to cut costs amid steep sales declines.

On top of giving it more staffing flexibility, the move to a part-time sales staff allows JCPenney to cut costs, since part-timers don’t qualify for health benefits.

“The new organization,” JCPenney spokesman Joey Thomas told The Post in an email, “redistributes tasks and responsibilities more efficiently among store associates to support company growth initiatives, resulting in substantial cost savings while maintaining our commitment to delivering excellent customer service.”

The new staffing initiative will have sales staff focusing on a single task instead of floating between many duties, said the source.

Under the new plan, for example, shoppers should never find an unmanned cash register or untidy fitting room.

In the past, cashiers were expected to tidy fitting rooms and the sales floor.

“We will still have one cashier, but she will stay at the register,” the source said.

There will be management changes as well.

“We’re introducing dedicated omni-channel supervisors to in-store management teams,” Thomas said.

Some stores will need to hire 10 to 15 new part-timers, but payroll at the store will not increase, the source said.

“Having the right employees during peak hours and having fewer on the floor when it’s not peak makes sense,” said B Riley FBR analyst, Jeff Van Sinderen. “It’s a challenge that all retailers are facing right now.”