Employee Recruiting

REI places a priority on attracting, engaging and retaining a talented workforce representative of our communities. Our continued business success depends on our inspirational recruiting culture and dynamic talent management strategies. Our efforts include:

• Building and supporting a best-in-class recruiting team
• Creating an REI recruiting culture
• Utilizing our employment brand to effectively communicate that REI is a great place to work
• Creating and implementing strategies to attract candidates who represent the diversity of our communities, using tools such as employee referrals, community outreach and social networking
• Supporting the development of talent and leaders within the organization to continue to ensure the leadership and skills the co-op needs for its future.

Highlights

As described in the diversity and inclusion section of our report, REI actively seeks to increase the diversity of our workforce through more focused recruiting efforts.

For example, we piloted new hiring strategies with six of the nine stores we opened in 2008. One example was the opening of our Lincoln Park, IL store. Our recruiting efforts included meeting face-to-face with community organizations and their leaders to broaden our recruitment efforts in diverse communities, attending diversity events such as community job fairs, and partnering with career centers at local colleges and universities representing the community's demographics to introduce the co-op.

A comparison of new hire demographics in Lincoln Park against REI's overall demographics reveals achievement in enhancing our new employee recruiting efforts. For example, 31 percent of our Lincoln Park employees are representative of communities of color, 50 percent are female, and 17 percent are over 40. This compares to REI's national averages of 12 percent, 44 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

Challenges

The current tough economy has slowed REI's recruitment and hiring efforts, including employees for new retail stores and positions in our headquarters and distribution centers. However, we remain committed to a recruiting culture that attracts talented staff reflective of the communities we serve.

Looking Ahead

With plans to open five new stores in 2009, we look forward to continuing to apply the lessons learned from our new store hiring efforts as we actively recruit new employees from diverse backgrounds.

In 2009, we also will better define the attributes we consider important for candidates who will be successful at REI. A strong emphasis will be placed on attracting talented people who have a demonstrated enthusiasm for the outdoors with the skills needed to excel in a team-based culture and thrive in a co-op environment. We will also conduct outreach to external candidates to gauge awareness and perceptions of REI among potential employees.

In addition, REI's team will also strive to reduce the environmental footprint of our hiring process by moving to an online, paperless system which will host all applicant resumes online co-op wide.