All haircuts, no job cuts: JCPenney salon team transitions to Younkers
By Kris Leonhardt
Editor
MARSHFIELD — When the stylists working at Marshfield Mall’s JCPenney learned that the store’s salon would be closing, manager Tami Schneider took matters into her own hands to find a new home where the team could remain together.
“When (J.C. Penney Co.) announced that they were closing, my team is really tight-knit like a family, and most of them wanted to remain together, so we tried to find a place that we could all go and still remain as a team together,” explained Schneider.
“I contacted the store manager (at the Marshfield Younkers), and he contacted his boss. Then she contacted me to get the ball rolling to be able to see if we could move this team as a whole to one location,” Schneider added.
The JCPenney salon closed May 20, and by May 23 the stylists had a new home within Marshfield Mall.
“They had a very fast turnaround in the corporate world to be able to get (everything) done and be ready for business,” Schneider said. “(The stylists) wanted a seamless transition from one salon to the next. They didn’t want their clients to experience any time off, so basically what we wanted to do is have them park in a different parking lot.”
The Bon-Ton Stores Inc., which owns stores such as Younkers and Boston Store, expanded the Marshfield Younkers salon to accommodate the displaced workers. At the time, Younkers had just one other stylist employed in the salon.
“(The Younkers salon) only had four or five styling chairs, so they had to expand in order to be able to take this whole team. … They gave us this whole retail area, the styling area. I think they put an extra four or five chairs in there,” said Schneider.
Schneider, along with seven other stylists, transitioned to the Younkers salon. One JCPenney stylist opted to retire.
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.