Employee Background Checks-3 WC Blog 348
Pre-employment Screening-3
Stressful Workplaces Can Be Improved When Employee Background Checks Are Used Part 1
I haven’t had a good rant in a while so maybe this is the perfect time for me to go on one. My rant today is about stress in the workplace. It came up in at least two of my conversations this week and it caused me to recall times I went through my own stressful situations. It also made me start thinking about solutions to those situations. The first conversation was about the lack of accountability for employees who work in a friend’s store. Employees choose to call out on a regular basis, they don’t get work complete, some have a tendency to question directions of managers and roll their eyes when they don’t want to do something. Recently the store manager decided to bring back an employee who had at least 5 no-call no-shows on her record and had been let go. Is it any wonder there is stress in this store? I approached the second person about the possibility of applying for a temporary job where I work that would not interfere with his primary job. He is an assistant manager in my part time job. Having seen his work ethic and manner of dealing with personnel and customers I know he would be a good fit on my other team. He declined my offer because his wife was considering leaving her job due to stress in a management position at a campground. They have a young child and a new car payment and work their schedules around caring for their child. It’s a shame that stress in the workplace is influencing them to this degree. Life happens. Car payments, bills, school, house/rent payments, food, utilities, etc. it all is a fact of life, but how much easier would it be if work wasn’t so stressful on us? I can’t offer solutions to every issue but you KNOW I have a solution to part of the problems and suggestions for fixing other parts. It might surprise you but I think one way to start fixing stressful workplaces is to conduct pre-employment screening of employees.
By conducting employee background checks on prospective new hires, it is possible to identify red flags that could very well raise questions about whether someone should be on your team. It is possible to find that an applicant has been misleading about the length of time they worked for a company. Sometimes people will exaggerate how long they worked somewhere in order to hide gaps in employment. They may also use this technique to cover up that they worked somewhere else between jobs and were fired from there for one reason or another. A company that completes pre-employment screening can confirm if someone is eligible for rehire for a former place of employment. Though there are laws that can prevent a company from revealing why an employee was fired from a position, companies ARE allowed to confirm if that employee is eligible for rehire as a yes or no response. You as the prospective employer can use the information gathered from background checks in addition to any interview and hiring questionnaire results to make hiring decisions.
By vetting your candidates through pre-employment screening you can reduce the chances the candidate has been able to lie to you in the application process. Frequently those who are job hopping or are considered ineligible for rehire are problem performers in one fashion or another. It may be they have been the person who frequently calls out for shifts or has excessive no call/no shows on their record. There is a strong possibility that this is the person who is the gossiper and rumor-monger that stirs up strife in the workplace. You may not learn what the underlying causes were that led to the employment gap or lie, but if a discrepancy in employment history is found through employee background checks you can avoid bringing on that person who could be the cause of a stressful workplace. In Part 2 I will continue my rant and a few additional suggestions for making your workplace productive AND a place employees want to work at.
Need information on Employee Background Checks? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
I haven’t had a good rant in a while so maybe this is the perfect time for me to go on one. My rant today is about stress in the workplace. It came up in at least two of my conversations this week and it caused me to recall times I went through my own stressful situations. It also made me start thinking about solutions to those situations. The first conversation was about the lack of accountability for employees who work in a friend’s store. Employees choose to call out on a regular basis, they don’t get work complete, some have a tendency to question directions of managers and roll their eyes when they don’t want to do something. Recently the store manager decided to bring back an employee who had at least 5 no-call no-shows on her record and had been let go. Is it any wonder there is stress in this store? I approached the second person about the possibility of applying for a temporary job where I work that would not interfere with his primary job. He is an assistant manager in my part time job. Having seen his work ethic and manner of dealing with personnel and customers I know he would be a good fit on my other team. He declined my offer because his wife was considering leaving her job due to stress in a management position at a campground. They have a young child and a new car payment and work their schedules around caring for their child. It’s a shame that stress in the workplace is influencing them to this degree. Life happens. Car payments, bills, school, house/rent payments, food, utilities, etc. it all is a fact of life, but how much easier would it be if work wasn’t so stressful on us? I can’t offer solutions to every issue but you KNOW I have a solution to part of the problems and suggestions for fixing other parts. It might surprise you but I think one way to start fixing stressful workplaces is to conduct pre-employment screening of employees.
By conducting employee background checks on prospective new hires, it is possible to identify red flags that could very well raise questions about whether someone should be on your team. It is possible to find that an applicant has been misleading about the length of time they worked for a company. Sometimes people will exaggerate how long they worked somewhere in order to hide gaps in employment. They may also use this technique to cover up that they worked somewhere else between jobs and were fired from there for one reason or another. A company that completes pre-employment screening can confirm if someone is eligible for rehire for a former place of employment. Though there are laws that can prevent a company from revealing why an employee was fired from a position, companies ARE allowed to confirm if that employee is eligible for rehire as a yes or no response. You as the prospective employer can use the information gathered from background checks in addition to any interview and hiring questionnaire results to make hiring decisions.
By vetting your candidates through pre-employment screening you can reduce the chances the candidate has been able to lie to you in the application process. Frequently those who are job hopping or are considered ineligible for rehire are problem performers in one fashion or another. It may be they have been the person who frequently calls out for shifts or has excessive no call/no shows on their record. There is a strong possibility that this is the person who is the gossiper and rumor-monger that stirs up strife in the workplace. You may not learn what the underlying causes were that led to the employment gap or lie, but if a discrepancy in employment history is found through employee background checks you can avoid bringing on that person who could be the cause of a stressful workplace. In Part 2 I will continue my rant and a few additional suggestions for making your workplace productive AND a place employees want to work at.
Need information on Employee Background Checks? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Checkpoint Tags-4 WC Blog 343
Clothing Security Tags -3
Clothing Security Tags Can Help Or Hinder Customer Service; Tips To Ensure You Are Keeping Customers Happy – Part 2
In Part 1 of this article I talked about the frustrations customers have expressed on websites about getting clothing home and finding clothing security tags left on them. I also touched on what a security tag is and how it can improve merchandise shortage and therefore keep prices lower creating a positive customer experience. In Part 2 I want to discuss the issues that lead up to the customer service problem of Checkpoint tags being left on clothing and how it can negate the positive shopping experience your customers had while visiting the store.
To refresh some who may have missed the first part of the series, Checkpoint tags are built with electronic article surveillance (EAS) technology that allow them to protect clothing. Soft versions of the tags have an adhesive backing that makes it easy to stick the devices to hang tags, plastics, even to the cloth inside a handbag, wallet, slacks pockets, etc. Checkpoint Hard Tags are reusable anti-theft devices that are pinned to garments and require a special removal tool to take them off. Hard tags and soft tags placed in visible locations are deterrents to potential shoplifters. Thieves prefer not to risk setting off alarms or damaging merchandise in an attempt to pry or force tags off of clothing. The EAS technology in the tags makes them effective in stopping shoplifting by activating EAS pedestal alarms set at building entrances.
So the question becomes, “How does missing clothing security tags hamper customer experience levels and isn’t it a matter of just following up with a cashier?” The fact is it is easy to automatically point the finger at the cashier and say it is a training issue. I would argue there may be a other underlying issues that lead up to the problem.
1. Tagging consistency – When merchandise comes in to the store there needs to be specific guidelines for where tags will be placed. For example, you may direct whoever tags your merchandise to place a tag on the right sleeve of every shirt. Slacks may be tagged in the right leg seam at hip level. Consistent placement of tags and communication to employees will mean cashiers will always look in the same location for tags. This minimizes the opportunity for errors at the register.
2. Complete Tagging – Many stores set price points on what will or won’t be tagged or they decide only certain brands of merchandise will be tagged. Imagine you are the cashier that has to remember which items are and are not tagged! By tagging everything you eliminate the shoplifters looking for alternative items to take and you make it easier for cashiers to know they have to remove all tags from everything.
3. Measuring cashier speed times – Is your store the one that tracks cashier productivity and “ability” by how fast they can complete transactions? YOU may be contributing to your own problem. When cashiers feel pressured to rush through transactions so they don’t get penalized, they tend to make errors. Guess what frequently gets overlooked because the employee is trying to keep their score “green”? That’s right, clothing security tags not deactivated or missed removals. I understand you can’t have lines building up because a cashier wants to chit chat, but pressuring them to hurry can lead to all kinds of errors including cash shortages…did I get your attention on that one?
4. EAS alarm activation complacency – Are your employees immediately responding to alarms or are they waving at a customer and telling them they are “OK”? Perhaps your supervisors or employees are ignoring the alarms all together. I mentioned this in Part 1, the question arising, “If Checkpoint tags work and set off alarms, how could a customer get merchandise home with the tags still on them?” Here is my answer. Management is responsible for allowing complacency to set in and not addressing the problem. Prompt alarm follow-up can catch errors and show the paying customers you are concerned. It can keep them from feeling embarrassed or upset by the alarm. It is also your opportunity to coach the cashier that missed the tag or find out if there was a tagging problem on the floor. By the way, your shoplifters see how your teams respond to alarms. If they ignore them, the shoplifters know it and you’ve lost the deterrent effect of tagging.
Checkpoint Tags are effective in deterring theft. Shoplifters tend to go elsewhere to steal when confronted with security tags on clothes and this leads to improved shortage. Customers benefit with lower prices and better instocks. Keep your customers happy with a strong tagging program.
Get more information on Checkpoint Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
In Part 1 of this article I talked about the frustrations customers have expressed on websites about getting clothing home and finding clothing security tags left on them. I also touched on what a security tag is and how it can improve merchandise shortage and therefore keep prices lower creating a positive customer experience. In Part 2 I want to discuss the issues that lead up to the customer service problem of Checkpoint tags being left on clothing and how it can negate the positive shopping experience your customers had while visiting the store.
To refresh some who may have missed the first part of the series, Checkpoint tags are built with electronic article surveillance (EAS) technology that allow them to protect clothing. Soft versions of the tags have an adhesive backing that makes it easy to stick the devices to hang tags, plastics, even to the cloth inside a handbag, wallet, slacks pockets, etc. Checkpoint Hard Tags are reusable anti-theft devices that are pinned to garments and require a special removal tool to take them off. Hard tags and soft tags placed in visible locations are deterrents to potential shoplifters. Thieves prefer not to risk setting off alarms or damaging merchandise in an attempt to pry or force tags off of clothing. The EAS technology in the tags makes them effective in stopping shoplifting by activating EAS pedestal alarms set at building entrances.
So the question becomes, “How does missing clothing security tags hamper customer experience levels and isn’t it a matter of just following up with a cashier?” The fact is it is easy to automatically point the finger at the cashier and say it is a training issue. I would argue there may be a other underlying issues that lead up to the problem.
1. Tagging consistency – When merchandise comes in to the store there needs to be specific guidelines for where tags will be placed. For example, you may direct whoever tags your merchandise to place a tag on the right sleeve of every shirt. Slacks may be tagged in the right leg seam at hip level. Consistent placement of tags and communication to employees will mean cashiers will always look in the same location for tags. This minimizes the opportunity for errors at the register.
2. Complete Tagging – Many stores set price points on what will or won’t be tagged or they decide only certain brands of merchandise will be tagged. Imagine you are the cashier that has to remember which items are and are not tagged! By tagging everything you eliminate the shoplifters looking for alternative items to take and you make it easier for cashiers to know they have to remove all tags from everything.
3. Measuring cashier speed times – Is your store the one that tracks cashier productivity and “ability” by how fast they can complete transactions? YOU may be contributing to your own problem. When cashiers feel pressured to rush through transactions so they don’t get penalized, they tend to make errors. Guess what frequently gets overlooked because the employee is trying to keep their score “green”? That’s right, clothing security tags not deactivated or missed removals. I understand you can’t have lines building up because a cashier wants to chit chat, but pressuring them to hurry can lead to all kinds of errors including cash shortages…did I get your attention on that one?
4. EAS alarm activation complacency – Are your employees immediately responding to alarms or are they waving at a customer and telling them they are “OK”? Perhaps your supervisors or employees are ignoring the alarms all together. I mentioned this in Part 1, the question arising, “If Checkpoint tags work and set off alarms, how could a customer get merchandise home with the tags still on them?” Here is my answer. Management is responsible for allowing complacency to set in and not addressing the problem. Prompt alarm follow-up can catch errors and show the paying customers you are concerned. It can keep them from feeling embarrassed or upset by the alarm. It is also your opportunity to coach the cashier that missed the tag or find out if there was a tagging problem on the floor. By the way, your shoplifters see how your teams respond to alarms. If they ignore them, the shoplifters know it and you’ve lost the deterrent effect of tagging.
Checkpoint Tags are effective in deterring theft. Shoplifters tend to go elsewhere to steal when confronted with security tags on clothes and this leads to improved shortage. Customers benefit with lower prices and better instocks. Keep your customers happy with a strong tagging program.
Get more information on Checkpoint Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Employee Theft -4 WC Blog 389
Stop Shoplifting -5
Looks Can Be Deceiving And Criminals May Be Stealing Without Your Knowledge; Training To Prevent Employee Theft And Stop Shoplifting Is Available
Quiz time! You are watching your checkout lanes and you see a customer checking out with one of your cashiers. They seem to know each other from their friendly banter. The customer pays with cash, receives change and takes several bags and leaves. A few days later you see the same customer going through the same cashier’s line again. There are several available registers but he waits for this cashier. After everything is rung up the customer pays cash, gets change and leaves with his bags. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Let’s try another one, a couple of young women come in the store with a baby stroller and a baby is in the stroller. They walk around for a bit and begin picking out clothing in the young women’s department. One young lady picks up the baby and carries him in her arms. They don’t have a shopping cart and they have a lot of clothes they have picked up. They place the clothes in the baby stroller rather than bothering with a shopping cart. Do you see anything that bothers you about this? Last one, a customer is looking at merchandise in a display case. He asks an associate to show him a piece of merchandise. He is allowed to hold the item and asks to look at another item. The employee selects a second item. All the while he is chatting with the associate. The customer asked to look at a third item from the showcase and the employee reaches for it to show the customer. Is this okay or not? The answer for each of these is they were real types of theft that I dealt with as a Loss Prevention Manager. Store managers and owners running small businesses rarely have the experience or training to deal with employee theft or stop shoplifting. Those small retail store owners also don’t have budgets for trained Loss Prevention Associates. In order to address this problem Loss prevention Systems, Inc. (LPSI) offers training to reduce employee theft and training to stop shoplifting.
With training designed to teach managers how to protect merchandise, identify vulnerabilities and develop programs to reduce shrinkage smaller stores can keep up profits in a world of ever-increasing criminal activity. Additionally, employers often don’t consider all of the ways employees may be stealing from them or from their customers. They also don’t know that there are signals that they can look for that may be warnings that an employee intends to or is stealing. LPSI’s programs will instruct owners and managers on various methods employees use to steal, from giving merchandise to friends, under charging family members for merchandise to keeping receipts from customers for fraudulent returns. Armed with the right tools and knowledge, managers can stop shoplifting and employee theft.
So what happened in each of the scenarios I presented earlier? In the first one, the cashier was having a friend come to the checkout line and would ring up the merchandise presented. Some of the merchandise was voided from the transaction and still bagged for the friend. Other items were rung up but then the price was changed to a lower amount. Because there was a balance to pay and it looked like the customer was charged and paid properly. Looks were deceiving. Live surveillances then showed the same friend coming back over the course of several days, establishing for my case that it was not a fluke or an accident. In the second scenario two young women were in the department store where I worked, pushing a baby stroller. One girl was holding the baby and they were filling the carriage with blue jeans and covering them up with a blanket inside the stroller. As a Loss Prevention Officer I was trained on identifying suspicious signs or signals shoplifters give off so I had a reason to watch them, otherwise I would not have caught them. In the final scenario the suspect was a known iPod thief and was clever at distracting employees and getting them to take too many items out of a showcase. The employee lost track of how many iPods he had removed from the case and the suspect was able to conceal one in his waistline while the employee was reaching for a third iPod. We lost that one. Unfortunately I was not working so I could not stop shoplifting in that instance. It was found on video review after an audit of the i-Pods found a discrepancy.
Can’t afford a trained Loss Prevention staff? Need more training for you and your managers to prevent shortage? Get LPSI training to reduce employee theft and stop shoplifting.
Need information on employee theft? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Quiz time! You are watching your checkout lanes and you see a customer checking out with one of your cashiers. They seem to know each other from their friendly banter. The customer pays with cash, receives change and takes several bags and leaves. A few days later you see the same customer going through the same cashier’s line again. There are several available registers but he waits for this cashier. After everything is rung up the customer pays cash, gets change and leaves with his bags. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Let’s try another one, a couple of young women come in the store with a baby stroller and a baby is in the stroller. They walk around for a bit and begin picking out clothing in the young women’s department. One young lady picks up the baby and carries him in her arms. They don’t have a shopping cart and they have a lot of clothes they have picked up. They place the clothes in the baby stroller rather than bothering with a shopping cart. Do you see anything that bothers you about this? Last one, a customer is looking at merchandise in a display case. He asks an associate to show him a piece of merchandise. He is allowed to hold the item and asks to look at another item. The employee selects a second item. All the while he is chatting with the associate. The customer asked to look at a third item from the showcase and the employee reaches for it to show the customer. Is this okay or not? The answer for each of these is they were real types of theft that I dealt with as a Loss Prevention Manager. Store managers and owners running small businesses rarely have the experience or training to deal with employee theft or stop shoplifting. Those small retail store owners also don’t have budgets for trained Loss Prevention Associates. In order to address this problem Loss prevention Systems, Inc. (LPSI) offers training to reduce employee theft and training to stop shoplifting.
With training designed to teach managers how to protect merchandise, identify vulnerabilities and develop programs to reduce shrinkage smaller stores can keep up profits in a world of ever-increasing criminal activity. Additionally, employers often don’t consider all of the ways employees may be stealing from them or from their customers. They also don’t know that there are signals that they can look for that may be warnings that an employee intends to or is stealing. LPSI’s programs will instruct owners and managers on various methods employees use to steal, from giving merchandise to friends, under charging family members for merchandise to keeping receipts from customers for fraudulent returns. Armed with the right tools and knowledge, managers can stop shoplifting and employee theft.
So what happened in each of the scenarios I presented earlier? In the first one, the cashier was having a friend come to the checkout line and would ring up the merchandise presented. Some of the merchandise was voided from the transaction and still bagged for the friend. Other items were rung up but then the price was changed to a lower amount. Because there was a balance to pay and it looked like the customer was charged and paid properly. Looks were deceiving. Live surveillances then showed the same friend coming back over the course of several days, establishing for my case that it was not a fluke or an accident. In the second scenario two young women were in the department store where I worked, pushing a baby stroller. One girl was holding the baby and they were filling the carriage with blue jeans and covering them up with a blanket inside the stroller. As a Loss Prevention Officer I was trained on identifying suspicious signs or signals shoplifters give off so I had a reason to watch them, otherwise I would not have caught them. In the final scenario the suspect was a known iPod thief and was clever at distracting employees and getting them to take too many items out of a showcase. The employee lost track of how many iPods he had removed from the case and the suspect was able to conceal one in his waistline while the employee was reaching for a third iPod. We lost that one. Unfortunately I was not working so I could not stop shoplifting in that instance. It was found on video review after an audit of the i-Pods found a discrepancy.
Can’t afford a trained Loss Prevention staff? Need more training for you and your managers to prevent shortage? Get LPSI training to reduce employee theft and stop shoplifting.
Need information on employee theft? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
