Michelle Austin

Store Manager @JCPenney

Knoxville, TN, US

Manage a team of 3 salary managers and 7 hourly managers. Overall, I managed 100+ associates in specialty sales, salon, Sephora, operations, merchandising and general sales areas of the sales floor- Volunteered to be district lead in new core scheduling initiative rolled out in 2019 andwas the district resource for our scheduling program called jtime. Sent out weekly updates on turnover changes from core scheduling. Sent out alerts when staffing or payroll was out of line for the district and called my peer to help them manage through any issues they had with this program- Hired as needed, but mainly focused on reducing my turnover by half in the first year. Made sure we took care of associates by helping them file for LOA when they needed to for medical or school needs. This was the biggest cause of unnecessary turnover I found when I go to this location. Associates would leave then return because the prior manager was not helping them through the process, overall affecting their future benefits or eligibility- Reduced my store shrink by.58% in the first year. Ended 2 years in a row with the lowest shrink in the district for Sephora and reduced store shrink. We accomplished this by having high operational standards and detailed training on operational processes- District Golden Rule Relief leader, attending conference calls and sending out reporting on our district donations. This is a program we have that associates make paycheck donations and when an associate is in need they can apply for help through golden relief- Participated in community events with the chamber of commerce. Hosted the first ever JCP chamber event in my store. We had over 100 chamber members attend- Co Hosted an annual community kids event that brings over 500 kids each year. Free community event focused on children based programs in our community.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Bachelor of Science (BS), Retail and Consumer Science with Business Minor