Success Story: Neiman Marcus Group

Neiman Marcus Group (NMG) embraces remote work on its own terms

Unlike many organizations, Neiman Marcus Group’s journey to a remote-first hybrid work environment began before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, Chief People, ESG, and Belonging Officer Eric Severson spearheaded a “Voice of the Customer” assessment across NMG’s 10,000 US-based associates. The team tested 18 different components of the employee value proposition to discover, in their associates’ own words, what mattered most to NMG’s workforce. The goal: go beyond standard surveys and gain the deep insights required to build a truly differentiating and people-first employee experience.

When the results came in, four factors topped the list: flexibility, total rewards, career development, and an impact-oriented culture. Severson, who had led a very successful “work from anywhere” program in a previous role, was inspired. He knew the impact that flexible working could have, from retention, recruiting, and relocation costs to competing more effectively in tight talent markets. The leadership team agreed, and in February of 2020, NMG announced its own version of work from anywhere – and then the pandemic hit.

NMG spent the summer of 2020 building a strategy for the new, evolving workplace. The company spent time reimagining the ideal approach to work. Remote workers performed well; productivity increased and NMG had its best fiscal performance in over ten years. “Work from anywhere” was working, which gave the team time to envision and create the workplace of the future from the ground up.

An intentional technology strategy powers connection and collaboration

The technology that powers NMG’s Dallas-Fort Worth hub is just as intentional as its human-centered design.

“We wanted to use technology to make our values come to life,” continued Severson. “We over-invested in the things that could fulfill the design criteria related to our culture: high-quality WiFi, sound, cameras. Our vision was a workplace in which everyone, in every room and every location, could equally see, hear, and engage with each other.”

To animate that vision, Severson and his team focused less on the experience for in-room participants and more on creating a positive and equitable experience for remote workers. According to Severson, “The standard way to design meeting spaces is to center the process on who is in the building. We did the reverse. We put the remote experience first, which is why it’s completely seamless. It doesn’t matter where you are, because we designed it that way.”

From an IT perspective, putting the remote worker first meant implementing systems that could be easily understood and used by every associate in every hub. “Previously, people relied on IT to set up their environment,” said Jerry Johnson, Director of Infrastructure Services. “There was an IT or AV person on-site to keep meetings running smoothly. Now, we need to empower our associates with technology that they can use comfortably and productively 100% of the time without having to rely on IT, whether they’re working from home or at the office.”

NMG selects Logitech to outfit its human-centric, remote-friendly meeting spaces

When it came to selecting technology for the meeting rooms in the new Dallas-Fort Worth hub, NMG had five top priorities:

• Incredibly easy to use for anyone, anywhere, with no help from IT or AV
• High-quality software and hardware that enabled an immersive experience
• Simple to service and update without the need for extensive configurations or specific expertise
• The ability to standardize on a product set across a wide variety of room sizes and purposes
• Deep, native integration with the Microsoft suite while also supporting other platforms like Zoom

After running a number of comparisons, in-house validations and trials, it was clear that one company met these criteria and more: Logitech.

Johnson stated, “We initially looked at Logitech because they’re a leader in the space and they’ve been in the industry a long time. Their peripheral products, like mice and keyboards, have always been very high quality and reliable. We believed that Logitech would bring the same quality and effort to our AV platform, and we were right.”

NMG implemented Logitech technology in 99% of its conference rooms in the Dallas hub. The team liked how Logitech products could be very targeted to different spaces, from small huddle rooms to the multi-purpose room that can hold 60 people or more. According to Johnson, “It’s fully standardized. Whichever room you walk into, it’s the same functionality and ease of use. And with the Microsoft Teams integration, it’s simple for people who work from home, too. Anyone can walk into any room and immediately get up and running.” 

Logitech’s extensive feature set also played a critical role in NMG’s selection – and the organization takes full advantage of it. “In the past, a lot of collaboration technology was really underused,” said Severson. “People couldn’t figure it out, it was too complicated, it didn’t integrate with some platform, etc. Logitech has helped us level the playing field and use all of the products’ capabilities easily and intuitively.”

NMG’s favorite products and features include digital whiteboard cameras, auto-tracking cameras, best-in-class sound, and Microsoft Front Row, which makes everyone an equal size on the screen. While NMG is primarily a Microsoft shop, the team likes that Logitech is platform agnostic as well. Johnson added, “It’s just as easy to set up a Zoom call as it is in Teams, which saves our IT team significant time.”

Logitech makes it easy to support remote work and accessibility

NMG doesn’t only enable its onsite workers with the power of Logitech. With the company’s remote-first mindset, remote workers and employees with specific needs benefit from Logitech’s solution suite as well.

NMG provides Logitech peripherals to remote workers to ensure that everyone experiences the same quality level of collaboration and to create continuity between the experience at the hub and the experience at home. “We’ve embraced Logitech peripherals because they’re easy to use, they work well, they’re reliable, and they’re stable,” Johnson said.

The company also tailors its webcams, keyboards, and mice to the needs of individual associates. Through a twice-yearly voluntary self-identification survey, Severson and his team discovered that NMG's rate of employees with apparent and non-apparent disabilities was over twice the benchmark average. He shared, “That told us that we have a lot of people who need various kinds of accommodations. It could be physical or cognitive, could be neurodivergence or mobility limitations, challenges with seeing or hearing. We rely on the breadth of Logitech’s products to help us give every associate what they need to perform at their best.” This focus on accessibility has not gone unnoticed. In 2024, NMG was named a Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion by Disability:IN and the American Association of People with Disabilities for the second consecutive year, earning a 100 on the Disability Equality Index®.

NMG achieves lower costs, higher employee engagement, and better retention with its WOW – and Logitech

At NMG, the Way of Working philosophy doesn’t just translate to happier employees – it delivers real business results. Severson estimates that by embracing remote work and implementing its hub network, the company has achieved a net reduction of approximately 400,000 square feet in its Dallas real estate footprint, representing substantial savings for the company. His team is also working on quantifying the reduction in carbon footprint from less commuting, which is projected to be significant.

Another important benefit: access to diverse, worldwide talent. The flexibility of NMG’s workplace approach combined with their dedication to the employee experience attracts and retains top talent from across the globe. This has been a particularly big shift from the days of operating corporate headquarters in expensive, highly competitive markets like New York and Dallas-Fort Worth. “These days, we can bring in the best people with the right skill sets, and they feel like they belong to something, no matter where they are,” Johnson said.

The biggest impact, however, is to the people of NMG. “Our data makes it very clear that our Way of Working is the number one contributor to our high performance on talent KPIs,” Severson stated. Amid serious disruption to the global talent marketplace, from the “Great Resignation” to “quiet quitting,” NMG has seen the opposite effect. He continued, “Across the country for the last several years, employee attrition has been going up and engagement has been going down. At NMG, it’s been the reverse.” In fact, in the 18-month period after NMG implemented its Way of Working and hub network approach, their employee satisfaction score went up 34 points, and they have continued to see increased retention and decreased time-to-hire.

When asked what advice he would give to other businesses embarking on a similar journey toward employee connection and collaboration, Severson responded thoughtfully. “Don’t spend money on things that don’t add value and that people aren’t going to use, regardless of how ‘cutting edge’ or ‘cool’ they appear. Invest in things that will increase engagement, participation, and the quality of the employee experience. Work together across the business and with proven partners. And always listen to your employees. At the end of the day, these investments are in them.”