Toys R Us playing with $37.5 million idea

Retailers during the Christmas shopping season use plenty of incentives to get employees to increase sales and new credit card accounts.

Bonuses and in-store discounts could be among the most popular.

But pressing employees to open credit card accounts because it would help boost the company’s Ebitda, an arcane term used infrequently outside the C-Suite? That is a new one.

But that is exactly what the brass at Toys R Us did.

The toy retailer recently put signs on tables in employee break rooms (left) urging them to increase Ebitda, or earnings before interest, depreciation ad amortization, by pushing company credit card accounts, a store employee told The Post.

“On the back side are mathematical formulas for calculating incremental sales and Ebitda, as though some clerk were actually going to sit down and do this to see just how much money they can make for the bosses,” the employee told The Post.

“Of course, there’s no attempt to explain what Ebitda is or why it’s important to the corporation,” the employee added.

Well, Chief Executive David Brandon makes a $37.5 million bonus if the company can reach $600 million in adjusted Ebitda minus capital expenditures in the year ending Jan. 31, according to public filings.

This was part of a three-year contract he signed when joining Toys R Us in 2015 and applies if he hits the mark in fiscal 2015, 2016 or 2017.

Last year, Brandon was very close to hitting that mark — netting $581 million in adjusted Ebitda.

The break room notices come as the company is a little behind last year’s Ebitda pace, filing show.

Owners KKR, Bain Capital and Vornado Realty bought the chain for $6.6 billion in 2005. They have been struggling to list its shares in an initial public offering.

Toys R Us declined comment.