Macy's merchants are literally getting back in the classroom through an executive education program custom-created in conjunction with the New School's Parsons School of Design. It will train Macy's merchandising team to hone their design and merchandising skills, figure out ways to improve the customer experience and tackle pressing issues confronting the industry. It's not a degree program, and there's no grading or testing involved. It's a partnership between New School's Corporate Partnerships Initiative and Macy's to bolster the retailer's efforts at training and educating its Macy's merchandising team, both new hires and experienced executives. Macy's merchants will participate in at least one course on a quarterly basis. The programming with Parsons includes master classes, panel discussions and round table discussions.

In other talent-building efforts, Macy's this year relocated its executive training program from Cincinnati, where the company is based, to New York. And six months ago, a computer-based learning program called Ignite, covering hundreds of topics for Macy's merchants, was introduced.