Stop shoplifting-3 WC Blog 653
Employee theft reduction training-3
How Can You Keep Employee Theft Reduction Training Relevant And Fresh?
I had the opportunity in the store where I work to help train another employee and it brought to mind how managers go about training employees to stop shoplifting and retail fraud. My story started when I overheard one of our cashiers helping a customer at her register. I noticed that this cashier, normally a very outgoing person and super at upselling purchases was only making a half-hearted attempt to offer the customer a new program we have started. I jumped in and spoke with the customer about the program and I signed her up. After the customer left I spoke to the cashier and asked why she had not put of her magic touch on the program. She told me that she had made attempts when the program first rolled out but when she would ask for someone to help her get off the register and show her how to enroll the customer no one would help. After a couple of times of this she quit making an effort. I assured the cashier that if we were working together and someone was interested in the program she was to call me and I would show her how to do it. Wouldn’t you know it, the very next shift I worked the cashier was working too and she had a customer wanting to sign up. I did as I promised and took them to a computer and walked the cashier through the steps, allowing her to key in the information as I told her how to navigate.
This situation made me stop and think about employee theft reduction training and how it impacts the managers or associates being trained. How often do we invest time and money in training our employees on a new initiative and then fail to follow up on that training. I have witnessed training sessions that have pumped up the team with videos and music used to energize the crowd. After the sessions have ended everyone goes back to their same old routines. The managers may talk about it for a week or two but the enthusiasm dies and the program gets put on a back burner. I’ve seen this in retail operations and I have witnessed it in retail loss prevention. Admittedly, I have been guilty of this myself. How do you as a store owner or manager conduct employee theft reduction training with other managers and staff or do you do it at all? If so, is it a once and done or do you spend time on refresher training?
Training should not be thought of as a one-time process. It should be ongoing but not necessarily in a formal setting. Take for example training employees on properly attaching Sensormatic labels to merchandise. You may show someone one time but occasionally follow-up and ask that associate to show you how they are doing it. They may bring to your attention an issue with label placement they are seeing on medicines. It could be they are seeing inconsistency in a protection strategy. If you find someone is performing exceptionally well, you may choose to use that person as a trainer. The fact is if you show interest in your team and what they are doing they will show interest in the store and its success.
That said if you as a manager don’t have a strong skill set in an area such as time management you may find a business consultant to come in and train your managers to improve productivity. Let’s say Loss Prevention is a field you have little experience in, Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. (LPSI) conducts training for retailers to help in shortage reduction. They conduct employee theft reduction and background check training for managers. They also offer training that will help stores stop shoplifting to improve profits. Follow-up training is available through live webinars, emailed tips and an online magazine. You have an opportunity to get employees excited about theft reduction and use that energy to carry out the vision you have for your stores; a vision of sales growth and business expansion. With LPSI that excitement doesn’t need to wane since ongoing training will always be available.
As for that cashier I helped, she was pleased at her first opportunity to sign up a customer for our program. As long as she receives support I am absolutely positive the store is going to benefit as she pursues customer sign-ups. That translates into increased sales for our store.
Need information on employee theft reduction training? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
I had the opportunity in the store where I work to help train another employee and it brought to mind how managers go about training employees to stop shoplifting and retail fraud. My story started when I overheard one of our cashiers helping a customer at her register. I noticed that this cashier, normally a very outgoing person and super at upselling purchases was only making a half-hearted attempt to offer the customer a new program we have started. I jumped in and spoke with the customer about the program and I signed her up. After the customer left I spoke to the cashier and asked why she had not put of her magic touch on the program. She told me that she had made attempts when the program first rolled out but when she would ask for someone to help her get off the register and show her how to enroll the customer no one would help. After a couple of times of this she quit making an effort. I assured the cashier that if we were working together and someone was interested in the program she was to call me and I would show her how to do it. Wouldn’t you know it, the very next shift I worked the cashier was working too and she had a customer wanting to sign up. I did as I promised and took them to a computer and walked the cashier through the steps, allowing her to key in the information as I told her how to navigate.
This situation made me stop and think about employee theft reduction training and how it impacts the managers or associates being trained. How often do we invest time and money in training our employees on a new initiative and then fail to follow up on that training. I have witnessed training sessions that have pumped up the team with videos and music used to energize the crowd. After the sessions have ended everyone goes back to their same old routines. The managers may talk about it for a week or two but the enthusiasm dies and the program gets put on a back burner. I’ve seen this in retail operations and I have witnessed it in retail loss prevention. Admittedly, I have been guilty of this myself. How do you as a store owner or manager conduct employee theft reduction training with other managers and staff or do you do it at all? If so, is it a once and done or do you spend time on refresher training?
Training should not be thought of as a one-time process. It should be ongoing but not necessarily in a formal setting. Take for example training employees on properly attaching Sensormatic labels to merchandise. You may show someone one time but occasionally follow-up and ask that associate to show you how they are doing it. They may bring to your attention an issue with label placement they are seeing on medicines. It could be they are seeing inconsistency in a protection strategy. If you find someone is performing exceptionally well, you may choose to use that person as a trainer. The fact is if you show interest in your team and what they are doing they will show interest in the store and its success.
That said if you as a manager don’t have a strong skill set in an area such as time management you may find a business consultant to come in and train your managers to improve productivity. Let’s say Loss Prevention is a field you have little experience in, Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. (LPSI) conducts training for retailers to help in shortage reduction. They conduct employee theft reduction and background check training for managers. They also offer training that will help stores stop shoplifting to improve profits. Follow-up training is available through live webinars, emailed tips and an online magazine. You have an opportunity to get employees excited about theft reduction and use that energy to carry out the vision you have for your stores; a vision of sales growth and business expansion. With LPSI that excitement doesn’t need to wane since ongoing training will always be available.
As for that cashier I helped, she was pleased at her first opportunity to sign up a customer for our program. As long as she receives support I am absolutely positive the store is going to benefit as she pursues customer sign-ups. That translates into increased sales for our store.
Need information on employee theft reduction training? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Stop shoplifting – 3 WC blog 744
Sensormatic labels – 4
Is New Technology More Effective To Stop Shoplifting?
Okay folks I am just going to say this, all of our new fancy technologies are just interfering with all of the old tried and true methods of doing things including how we stop shoplifting. What got me started on this bandwagon you may ask? Let me tell you what started this. My children bought fast food and brought it home and I happened to note an advertisement for a food delivery service that can bring fast food (or other restaurant fare) to your home. Now c’mon, a drive through wasn’t fast enough for you? I mean now we have to have that food brought to us? Geez, let’s hire someone to feed it to us too! And there’s a PHONE APP for this! Why, in my day you picked up the receiver and you put your index finger in the rotary dial and called to see if a restaurant was open or if a pizza could be delivered. And let’s talk about other technology. You couldn’t be satisfied with a beeper alerting you that someone was trying to reach you? No, that wasn’t good enough you had to come up with your fancy flip phones. Okay, I bit and I got one too and guess what I still have one! Now you had to go and upgrade to your smart-phones and all of your apps that you download. You’re turning on and off lights when you aren’t home. You talk to family and friends face to face on a phone!! Even in Retail Loss Prevention the use of Sensormatic labels and towers has changed. It worked just fine when we had to put those big 2-inch EAS tags on merchandise to keep goods from being stolen. Those clunky electronic article surveillance towers worked just fine with their hit or miss tag detection. Now you’ve gone and mucked that all up too!
Nowadays we don’t have one-size fits all EAS tags. No, you had to go and make them small and more convenient to protect more types of merchandise. Now you have Sensormatic labels small enough to protect cosmetic items. In my day you just sucked it up and either took the hit in shortage due to theft or you took a gamble and tried to stop shoplifting by apprehending people you suspected of taking a $3.00 mascara bottle. Add to this, Bill Bregar and his company Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. recommending Sensormatic systems and products to his customers as the best method of cutting expenses and building sales through reduced theft! What has happened to the days of using black and white pan-tilt-zoom camera to try to catch that thief pocketing merchandise and the thrill of stopping them and hoping they didn’t drop it? Doggone it you even have Bill recommending a Sensormatic Synergy Camera to attach to compatible antennas to capture alarm events as they happen when Sensormatic labels activate the tower. Need a snapshot? It can do that. If you prefer video, you can have that instead.
Oh, and if you think I’ve covered everything you are mistaken. I remember the days when we had to go to a computer terminal to look up reports and research information to help us identify potential theft and to stop shoplifting. Now you retail managers have even gone mobile in your stores and carry your fancy-shmancy phones to access store reporting. So what does Sensormatic do? They create Shrink Management as a Service (SMaaS) to assist managers in their Loss Prevention Programs and enhance sales. In MY day if you wanted to know when alarms had taken place you went to the alarm log and assumed all activity was entered correctly. Equipment problems were identified by testing your system on a daily basis and if you were off for a week then it would just wait until you returned. Now this software can analyze problems for you!
On a serious note, the advances in Sensormatic labels and technologies is amazing. While it would be nice if every store could afford a Loss Prevention staff the fact is it is expensive and not in the budget for most small retailers. Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. does have practical and affordable solutions for you. I have seen what they have to offer and they can provide all of the tools necessary to improve your profits. From reduced shrink to improved hiring and staffing processes with their Applicant Management Center they offer everything that I could only wish I had available when I was Loss Prevention Manager and a Manager on Duty for a major retail chain. I recommend you check out their website and yes, go ahead and use your fancy smart phone to do it.
For more information on Sensormatic labels contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
Okay folks I am just going to say this, all of our new fancy technologies are just interfering with all of the old tried and true methods of doing things including how we stop shoplifting. What got me started on this bandwagon you may ask? Let me tell you what started this. My children bought fast food and brought it home and I happened to note an advertisement for a food delivery service that can bring fast food (or other restaurant fare) to your home. Now c’mon, a drive through wasn’t fast enough for you? I mean now we have to have that food brought to us? Geez, let’s hire someone to feed it to us too! And there’s a PHONE APP for this! Why, in my day you picked up the receiver and you put your index finger in the rotary dial and called to see if a restaurant was open or if a pizza could be delivered. And let’s talk about other technology. You couldn’t be satisfied with a beeper alerting you that someone was trying to reach you? No, that wasn’t good enough you had to come up with your fancy flip phones. Okay, I bit and I got one too and guess what I still have one! Now you had to go and upgrade to your smart-phones and all of your apps that you download. You’re turning on and off lights when you aren’t home. You talk to family and friends face to face on a phone!! Even in Retail Loss Prevention the use of Sensormatic labels and towers has changed. It worked just fine when we had to put those big 2-inch EAS tags on merchandise to keep goods from being stolen. Those clunky electronic article surveillance towers worked just fine with their hit or miss tag detection. Now you’ve gone and mucked that all up too!
Nowadays we don’t have one-size fits all EAS tags. No, you had to go and make them small and more convenient to protect more types of merchandise. Now you have Sensormatic labels small enough to protect cosmetic items. In my day you just sucked it up and either took the hit in shortage due to theft or you took a gamble and tried to stop shoplifting by apprehending people you suspected of taking a $3.00 mascara bottle. Add to this, Bill Bregar and his company Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. recommending Sensormatic systems and products to his customers as the best method of cutting expenses and building sales through reduced theft! What has happened to the days of using black and white pan-tilt-zoom camera to try to catch that thief pocketing merchandise and the thrill of stopping them and hoping they didn’t drop it? Doggone it you even have Bill recommending a Sensormatic Synergy Camera to attach to compatible antennas to capture alarm events as they happen when Sensormatic labels activate the tower. Need a snapshot? It can do that. If you prefer video, you can have that instead.
Oh, and if you think I’ve covered everything you are mistaken. I remember the days when we had to go to a computer terminal to look up reports and research information to help us identify potential theft and to stop shoplifting. Now you retail managers have even gone mobile in your stores and carry your fancy-shmancy phones to access store reporting. So what does Sensormatic do? They create Shrink Management as a Service (SMaaS) to assist managers in their Loss Prevention Programs and enhance sales. In MY day if you wanted to know when alarms had taken place you went to the alarm log and assumed all activity was entered correctly. Equipment problems were identified by testing your system on a daily basis and if you were off for a week then it would just wait until you returned. Now this software can analyze problems for you!
On a serious note, the advances in Sensormatic labels and technologies is amazing. While it would be nice if every store could afford a Loss Prevention staff the fact is it is expensive and not in the budget for most small retailers. Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. does have practical and affordable solutions for you. I have seen what they have to offer and they can provide all of the tools necessary to improve your profits. From reduced shrink to improved hiring and staffing processes with their Applicant Management Center they offer everything that I could only wish I had available when I was Loss Prevention Manager and a Manager on Duty for a major retail chain. I recommend you check out their website and yes, go ahead and use your fancy smart phone to do it.
For more information on Sensormatic labels, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
I was shopping in a department store with my wife and as I am prone to do I noticed the Sensormatic security system towers at the doors. Sensormatic equipment is used by 80% of the top 200 retailers in the world (Sensormatic.com). I walked through this store and saw racks and tables filled with clothing that had not been protected with any Sensormatic labels or tags. This was peculiar to me. Why in the world would you have a system in place that could prevent theft and then not protect merchandise from the very theft you installed the system to defend against?
The purpose of an anti-theft system is to stop shoplifting, keeping merchandise in the store so it can be sold to the shoppers who want to purchase your products. In order for the system to properly work goods have to be tagged with electronic article surveillance tags and/or labels. It may seem like this should be common sense but if it is common sense then why do I find so many instances like the one I found during my shopping trip? Is it a lack of information on how a Sensormatic security system is supposed to work? I doubt it. This business has a Loss Prevention Department, I know because twenty-eight years ago I worked for them as a Loss Prevention Officer. Is there a lack of tagging due to payroll or the cost of the tags? This should not be a reason for neglecting tagging merchandise.Sensormatic hard tags are reusable so when a large quantity of tags are bought (which should be with the purchase of a new system) they aren’t going to quickly run out and require a new set to be bought. The tagging can be done by salesfloor employees as they are working. A newly installed system may require some initial payroll investment in order to get merchandise tagged but once complete it is simply a matter of maintaining the tagging program. In fact, if you were to use the Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. Free ROI Calculator you can include payroll into the amount you are willing to spend on a new system. After the numbers are figured the calculator will show you how long it will take for a new system to pay for itself. So I left the store perplexed at the lack of tagging I noted in my visit.
My wife and I then went into another department store, part of a company struggling financially at this time. Again, I saw theSensormatic security system towers at the front doors. My heart sank a bit as I noted to my wife how empty the store looked, of people AND merchandise. There were very few visible employees and very few customers for that matter. I could not help but wonder if the lack of merchandise was a planned decrease in merchandise levels or if a significant portion of the emptiness was a failure to stop shoplifting or a combination? With very few of the clothing items protected with a Sensormatic security tag I could only imagine that a significant portion of the financial woes faced by this business (and empty fixtures) was due in part to a poor anti-theft strategy. Even if an item was properly tagged and someone were to start to walk out of the store and activated the tower alarm, who was going to respond to that situation? No one was around to respond and the offender would have simply walked out without a proper package or receipt check. Since I was having a difficult time finding something that was tagged in the first place I’m not sure this was a concern anyways.
Having a Sensormatic security system will stop shoplifting but it requires some amount of effort. Proper tagging of merchandise, training of employees and staffing a store so someone is in a position to respond in a timely manner are important factors to consider. Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. can help you with theft prevention consultations to help make your store more money. They can even give guidance on how you can keep merchandise tagged and have employees staffed so they can respond to alarm activity. Don’t take my word for it check out their website for more information.
Get more information on a Sensormatic Security System, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
