JCPenney boosts employee retention with mobile app

JCPenney is providing frontline associates with workplace tools and capabilities via an employee app.

The department store retailer is leveraging the WorkJam artificial intelligence (AI)-based “super app” to provide its frontline associates with solutions that enable activities such as flexible scheduling and gaining early access to earned wages. 

JCPenney will utilize the WorkJam super app’s AI-based analytics to help better understand and manage its frontline workforce data, which will in turn improve employee and customer experiences, with the goal of growing the bottom line. 

Earlier this year, JCPenney announced a $1 billion investment that will remodel its stores, upgrade its online shopping experience, and improve its supply chain capabilities to deliver online orders faster. 

“JCPenney is establishing itself as an industry-leading employer by empowering frontline staff with our super app’s digital tools to improve engagement, productivity and retention,” said Steven Kramer, CEO of WorkJam. “I’m looking forward to speaking with Andre at NRF ’24 and sharing insights on how JCPenney is offering its frontline staff more flexibility, reducing their financial stress and meeting employees where they are to become a retail employer of choice.”

“In the past, most retail companies have traditionally hired and managed associates in a very particular way, by focusing on finding people to work certain hours at a certain location, without much thought to offering staff a degree of agency over any part of their work experience,” said Andre Joyner, CHRO, JCPenney. “With WorkJam, we’re able to adopt a more modern strategy, enabling us to empower our associates to take ownership over their careers with tools they clearly value—including scheduling flexibility and early access to earned wages. Those offerings help address some of the biggest challenges our employees face and have helped us become more competitive in the recruiting process and reduce turnover.”

The retailer operates more than 650 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.