Retail

Target told employees they could wear jeans on the weekends if same-store sales grew

Key Points
  • Target CEO Brian Cornell incentivized employees to help drive same-store sales higher in 2017.
  • The workers now get to wear jeans on the weekends, after meeting those goals.
Brian Cornell, CEO of Target
Ashlee Espinal | CNBC

Target told employees at the start of 2017 that if same-store sales increased for the year, they could start wearing jeans on the weekends.

"Expect to see a lot more denim," CEO Brian Cornell told analysts and investors Tuesday during the retailer's annual meeting with the financial community.

Same-store sales for the full fiscal year were up 1.3 percent, Target reported earlier in the day, compared with a decline of 0.5 percent the previous year. Fiscal fourth-quarter same-store sales grew 3.6 percent from a year earlier, boosted by a spike in traffic around the holidays, surpassing analysts' expectations.

Target shares were falling more than 4 percent by Tuesday afternoon, as investors worried the retailer's investments in e-commerce and employees were weighing too heavily on profit margins.

The company has outlined other spending plans for the year, including an expansion of same-day delivery and free two-day shipping on purchases made via Target.com. All the announcements Tuesday tie back to Target's $7 billion investment strategy, which runs through 2020.