CIOs at many large retailers are finding that they must not only pay full price, but also liven up their corporate culture if they are to woo away from richer companies the talented IT workers they need. Even with lower profit margins than most other businesses, retailers now must offer competitive pay, flexible compensation and creative rewards. Follit, who was hired last year as vice president of human capital with a mission of making Tandy's information technology culture more competitive, is manipulating several levers to improve Tandy's recruitment and retention of key people with hot skills.
Workers also can earn flex days, profit sharing and fun trips to amusement centers.
David Foote, managing partner at consultancy Cromwell Foote Partners LLC in Stamford, Conn., said retailers, which traditionally had little precision in business operations such as marketing, buying and inventory management, now face pressure to implement sharp data warehousing, forecasting and other applications to keep up with innovative competitors. That has caused IT shops once based almost entirely on old-school hierarchies and pay scales to refocus on creative ways to compete for workers with hot skills. Competition also concerns Toys R Us Inc. CIO Tom Reinebach. The company's human resources department traditionally has compared its IT pay with that at other retailers. Until recently, the toy retailer supplemented its staff with scores of contract programmers who didn't count as paid staff.