AutoZone VP of benefits Matt Harmon's retention strategy: Offer perks to part timers

Even before living and working  through a global pandemic, Matthew Harmon knew the inherent value of adequately supporting employee wellness at work, regardless of how many hours they worked.

Harmon joined car-part retailer AutoZone in September of 2014 as the senior director of global benefits, HRIS and customer satisfaction. Nearly a decade later, he's now vice president of benefits, compensation and HR Systems, overseeing the financial wellness and productivity of over 115,000 employees, including nearly 30 HR professionals across all 50 states and around the globe. 

"Well-being has always been a priority for me," Harmon says. "But when you're dealing with a pandemic, all of a sudden wellness is paramount. You can't work. You can't earn an income. Your business may be failing. It brought something that I had always been passionate about and made it important to everybody." 

Read more: Want part-time workers to stick around? Try these benefits and perks

These worldwide struggles inspired Harmon to extend AutoZone's employee assistance programs (EAPs) to the retailer's part–time employees, as well as making medical and welfare benefits such as vision coverage available from day one of any worker's tenure. 

"It's not like just our full-time employees have healthcare needs," Harmon says. "Realistically, it wasn't an important business imperative. But when you think about the world of retail, about half of the workforce is part-time. So how do you attract and retain that population — most of whom are trying to earn their way to a full-time position to get benefits?" 

There's a direct correlation between offering full-time benefits to part-time employees and retention, according to Harmon, who also made it a priority to add a retiree healthcare access offering on the back end to support all employees as they leave the workforce. He calls this strategy "hire to retire."

Read more: Post-pandemic scheduling is hurting part-time workers' financial and mental well-being

"It used to be that first we hired somebody, then later we thought about how we wanted to develop them, and after that we thought about how we wanted to retain them," he says. "Now it's looking at the full picture and saying, 'How do we attract? How do we create an environment that people want to stay in? How do we develop them so they can grow their career and not need to leave the company to advance themselves?'"

Nearly three years out from the pandemic, Harmon is still just as focused on supporting his workforce, even if their needs look different now. In the coming months and as they enter 2024 Harmon wants to focus AutoZone's efforts on better serving a multi-generational workforce, which means reinvesting some of their resources into student loan programs for incoming young talent and in retirement readiness programs for older employees leaving the workforce. 

"If you give all employees benefits from day one you enable them to grow what they get over time," he says. "It really goes back to the belief that if you take care of your people, your people take care of you."