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The perfect opportunity was there for the taking. Jayne Adcock (’89) had accepted a position as an assistant with JCPenney at the company’s headquarters in Plano, Texas. However, when the time arrived to leave West Tennessee, she turned down the promotion. Her promising retail career with the company appeared over. Today, she’s the award-winning manager of the JCPenney store in Union City. In an unlikely scenario, Adcock is leading one of the company’s smallest and most successful store locations, all because she knew when to walk away.

The oldest of three children, Adcock was raised in Troy and attended Obion County Central High School where she graduated in 1985. She was a cheerleader her junior and senior high years, the same time period in which legendary boy’s basketball Coach Jimmy Whitby was leading the Rebels to an eventual state championship in 1986. Inspired by the team and the way Whitby coached, she continued to attend games, even during her years after high school. “We could be behind 10 points with a minute left to go, and come back and win ballgames,” she remembered. This taught her the value of never giving up, a philosophy that has served her well in later years. “I don’t always have to win, but I really like to, and I really think I can at anything I do,” she said. “Much of that came just from things I observed from him (Whitby) doing through sports, not that I was the one playing, but I was the one cheering.”

Adcock entered UT Martin in fall 1985, the first in her family to attend college. She was active in Chi Omega Sorority
in which she held several leadership positions. The university opened a new world for her both socially and culturally. “I think sometimes your education is your exposure to things outside the norm that helps you grow and become more open-minded,” she said. The sorority “pushed me to be better at things and give my all.”

An entry in Adcock’s high school yearbook stated that she “was going to UT Martin to be an interior designer.” However, when she started taking classes, the fashion world caught her attention. She also had a part-time job in Union City’s Dollar General Store that included a small clothing area where “she absolutely loved to change the clothing around.” Even better, sometimes her arrangements caused items to sell, which fed her interest in retail fashion merchandising. 

She later enhanced her resume by taking a part-time job at a small women’s clothing store and through a summer 1988 internship with Dillard’s in Memphis. She left the clothing store in February of her senior year for a part-time position at the newly opened JCPenney store in Union City. Her plan was to leave West Tennessee for “a bigger, better place” after completing college. After graduation, she was hired as a management trainee in the company’s Jackson store. She eventually was promoted to a senior merchandise manager and worked in Jackson for five years before requesting a transfer to the Dyersburg store, where she continued to purchase merchandise.

“Basically, what the company did was give you a checkbook with X amount of money, and your job was to go and buy merchandise, bring it in, and sell it at a profit,” she said. She also was responsible for hiring and training store associates in sales and customer service. Although she dreamed of going to a large city to work in retail, JCPenney offered more store-level opportunities than other well-known retailers at the time, she said.

Adcock continued on the fast track as she was promoted to a basic logic merchandise manager, a district position that covered 35 JCPenney stores in five states. She remained in Dyersburg, traveled to other stores, and advised them on presentation and other aspects of selling women’s accessories.  This change happened in 2000 at a time when the company began restructuring by moving decision-making from the local stores to the corporate level. Her dream job then became a reality as she was offered a company buyer’s position, which meant overseas travel and a move to Texas.

“Well I was thrilled to death,” she recalled. But, when the time came, she just couldn’t make the move. The Dyersburg store had held a big going-away party for her, and she had not told anybody about her misgivings related to the change. “I just could not get a peace about it, even though that’s what I’d always wanted,” she said. Complicating her situation further was that she carried all family benefits through her job.

So, with no back-up career plans in place, Adcock worked her last day Aug. 31, 2001, and left the company. She became a stay-at-home mom with daughter, Ali, for the next seven years and admittedly “learned a lot of life lessons the hard way, especially when it came to finances.” Still, she had no regrets, and she remembers how her husband, Steve (’89), who now works for Illinois Central (Canadian National) Railroad, supported her during this transitional time.

Surprisingly, Adcock didn’t burn any bridges with her decision to leave the company, which continued to call “probably once or twice a year with the opportunities to come back.” Eventually, she received a call from a former co-worker who was district manager at the time, telling her that the store manager’s position in Union City was open. The position seemed perfect, as it didn’t require any moving or traveling. Even so, she saw the position as a major move for someone with her background. “ … I was very strong with people skills and merchandise skills, but I didn’t know beans about operations,” she said. In the end, she accepted the job and rejoined the company in December 2007.

Not surprising is that the company has changed significantly since she first joined JCPenney. She said that competition for the consumer-clothing dollar is fierce because consumers have many shopping options. “What makes the customer want to come back to your store, that’s what you got to figure out, and that’s what you’ve got to win at,” she said. “It’s also doing more with less.” More people now work part-time hours than full-time workers with benefits.

Adcock oversees 32 employees, and she uses her cheerleading skills for training and motivating employees. Included among current employees are part-time college students from UT Martin and Dyersburg State. Of the nine UT Martin students, three are pursuing her academic emphasis in fashion merchandising. JCPenney tends to favor hiring business graduates, but she has encouraged the company to also consider family and consumer sciences graduates. Two of her college students want to transfer and continue with the company, so she’s helping them find work at other store locations.

Adcock’s students appreciate the opportunities they have and respect her leadership and business skills. Melissa Hammond received her business degree in May 2007 and is now pursuing a master’s degree in education. She describes Adcock as “an excellent manager” who is “very goal oriented.” Hammond added, “She (Adcock) has a lot of college students, so she’s really good about working around our schedules. That can’t be easy.” Jen Wayman, a senior management major from Nashville, has gained from the experience beyond earning a paycheck. “Oh, it’s great,” Wayman said. “It’s made me more outgoing. … (There are) a lot of opportunities here.”

Adcock gives all of the credit for the store’s success to her associates. The Union City store, known as a “P Store” or procurement store, is the smallest in her district of 15 stores located from Memphis to Nashville. Her store has enjoyed two consecutive successful years, and she believes that the tough economy in which people couldn’t travel to shop helped her store’s business. Even when gas prices eased, she believes that the store won over repeat customers because of how they were treated and because of overall satisfaction with the Union City location. “Last year (2009), we did the most volume the store has ever done in its 21 years,” she said.

The store’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed as she received the JCPenney Chairman’s Award, the highest company honor, in 2008 and 2009. She was also named 2009 District Store Manager of the Year, an award based on customer service scores, as well as sales and profit.

The company values good employees, and for this, Adcock respects corporate management, which made difficult personnel decisions during the tough economy. In February 2009, the company decided not to give raises, and she had to tell her associates. She assured them that rewards would come if they continued to work hard. “Sure enough, we did. We had a great year, and the company came and gave everybody a bonus that actually would have been bigger than what their merit increases would have been anyway.” She added, “When you feel confident with your leaders and superiors, it just makes you want to work hard, and it makes you want to do a good job. And I have the utmost respect for anybody that’s above me.”

To understand her store’s success, nobody need look any further than Adcock’s morning pre-sales meetings. “I set the tone for them, and they set the tone for the customer. You choose how your day’s going to be,” she said. “But we try to find something positive, and then we try to focus on any obstacles that we might have.” Her cheerleading skills come into play as she sometimes leads the stockroom employees with a “door to floor” cheer, which brings new meaning to the store process for getting merchandise to store displays. She believes in making the workday fun, so associates experience everything from cheers to contests. “They might say a lot of things, but they can never say they’re bored,” she said, laughing.

The holidays are especially challenging to morale as workloads increase. Many stores don’t have budgets, let alone time for Christmas parties. Given the great year that the store had in 2009, she created a “Red Carpet Event” for a Christmas celebration, a black-tie evening complete with award presentations held at a local church. Although maybe viewed as “cheesy” to some, she said, “Money’s not everything to everybody. Sometimes just a pat on the back is enough. I think if you went and talked to any of them they would tell you, there’s a strong sense of family here, and that’s an advantage to being in a small store.”

“Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” is the philosophy on which JCPenney built his company. Jayne Adcock still applies The Golden Rule with associates and customers of a company from which she once walked away, only to return and experience true success.