Retail Chain Shoplifting Evaluation, Program Creation, Needs Analysis and Assessment
Retail Warehouse Chains are facing a problem that is problematic for all retailers across Canada, which is the rise of shoplifting. Currently, the Emporium has no training policy for employees on shoplifting.
Presently, shoplifting within the store has risen by 20% since COVID, and it amounts to around a fifty-dollar loss per incident. Statistically, shoplifting happens in one out of ten customers. Past years show the shrinkage range to be a minimum of $1,825,000 to $2,325,000 a year for the company; however, current trends forecast 2025 to have a ten percent increase.
Based on human resources, it was determined that eight thousand employees regularly work with customers in the store. These employees were sent surveys in 2022 by loss prevention to determine their knowledge base on shoplifting and if they have witnessed shoplifting. This report discovered that forty-five percent of all employees stated they did not know the typical signs of a shoplifter, and less than one percent of employees could identify that customer service can drastically reduce a shoplifting crime.
Through action mapping and a needs assessment, the goal was determined to reduce shoplifting by twenty percent by 2025.
The ROI for the campaign is determined to be 85%.
Through action mapping and a needs assessment, the goal was determined to reduce shoplifting by twenty percent by 2025. For this to happen, employees must recognize the thirty-seven key behaviors of shoplifters and, using judgment, decide when to call a Code 10; however, within these judgment calls, loss prevention has determined several shoplifting behaviors that instantly warrant a Code 10. Since employees must use judgment calls and be able to recall many different factors, practice activities spaced out through different mediums were determined as key to project success. Furthermore, employees’ ability to utilize the behavior of smiling, making eye contact, and asking customers if they need assistance would factor into the project goal, as this employee behavior is known to reduce shoplifting crime drastically.
The Emporium employs a vast range of employees from ages sixteen to eighty-two. The education background for the employees is high school to graduate level. Rathbone’s employees are diverse and multicultural. With these considerations taken into effect, a multiphased plan would produce the best outcomes.
Since the training goal is to bring awareness to the behaviors loss prevention has identified shoplifters exhibit, and this asks employees to make judgment calls, training must be spaced over many weeks, and constant refreshers must be utilized.
PART One – Communicating to Employees
A brochure will inform employees of the desire to decrease shoplifting and ask them for help. The instructional campaign will be briefly laid out so they understand that Rathbone’s Emporium wants lost money to go to their employees and families, NOT thieves; therefore, Rathbone’s is training employees to increase their observational skills.
The employee breakroom will house a visual link to the online scoreboard. Creating points and scores increases competition between employees, which can create better outcomes for reaching the goal. For every shoplifter caught, 100 points will go on that employee’s scoreboard. When employees reach 1000 points, they receive 250 bucks. This is over and above the $50.00 reward given to employees for their tip, leading to a shoplifter being caught. Monetary rewards are incentives for employees to learn key behaviors and characteristics of shoplifters and follow the process loss prevention has indicated as best practice.
PURPOSE of Part One
Rathbone’s Emporium has never used a communication brochure in its history; therefore, it should draw considerable attention. It allows our office to clearly communicate the training process as well as control the message being sent to employees, as our office will be listed as key contact point for any information that might be needed. Clear communication is key. Our office will also create an information tab on the intranet where employees can gain this information at any point within their account.
The online scoreboard link will always be available to employees as it will be housed in the employee breakroom. This room is utilized by all employees at least twice a day (clock-in and clock-out), and statistics show that 97% of employees take their breaks in the breakroom, which allows most employees a third time to see the scoreboard on any work day. This means employees regularly see this message.
Our office will use the link to direct employees to our 7apps.com page. This allows our office to update the scoreboard weekly and use the built-in LMS to track employee engagement with this campaign, as employees could utilize it outside of scheduled training. Furthermore, our 7apps.com page will provide employees with mini-scenarios that change weekly based on loss prevention stories that have happened within our stores. These mini stories will ask employees how they would have handled the shoplifting incident compared to how it played out by a coworker. These microlearning events will utilize employee curiosity to practice behaviors in a manner different from the LMS training module.
PART Two
Each employee break room has two open available walls. One wall measures 15 feet by 10 feet (identified as WALL 1 from here on out). The other measures 6 feet by 10 feet (identified as WALL 2).
Larger-than-life vinyl banners will be created for WALL 1. The vinyl banners will draw attention to the seven identified personas of shoplifters our office has created based on information gained from loss prevention. The profiles will display five key points to help identify that person. This will be placed on the wall on the first of the month. One week later, the second banner will appear and hang beside it. In week three, the third banner will take the place of the first banner, and a smaller poster will appear beside the two large banners.
By the end of seven weeks, the large banners will have been seen for two weeks each, and there will be a lineup of the seven key personas for employees to reference.
Wall 2 will be converted into a scoreboard.
As previously stated, The online scoreboard link will always be available to employees as it will be housed in the employee break room, and it will lead employees to 7apps.com.
7apps.com will provide the weekly score and microlearning events, and it will house a job aid that corresponds to the visual banners used in part two.
PURPOSE of Part Two
The extra large shoplifter persona banners draw attention to the problem the store is facing in an environment the employees frequent. This room was selected for the following reasons.
- The clock-in device is located here, which means every employee must enter this space at least twice per working shift.
- Employee-assigned lockers are located here.
- Ninety-seven percent of all employees take breaks in the break room, which means a vast majority of employees will see the larger-than-life banners at least once per shift and while clocking in and out.
Our office will utilize marketing strategies to allow employees to read and think about three to four key characteristics of a shoplifting profile. Banners will not be changed out daily to allow all employees, those part-time or only working on the weekends, to have a chance to engage with the materials.
Part Three
Within part one of the plan, employees were notified that Rathbone’s Emporium has a game to help them identify shoplifters and increase their observation skills. Our office will create this e-learning gamification activity to help employees make judgment calls on customer behavior based on our action mapping activity with five store loss prevention managers. The game will be a choose-your-own-adventure, enabling employees to see and practice their ability to call an effective Code 10.
The game will have 15 tiles representing two of each shoplifting profile and a randomized tile that changes based on how many times the employee has logged in. These tiles correspond to the banners employees will see on Wall 1 of the employee break room in the coming weeks.
Training will only be assigned to employees working with customers within the store daily. Employees will have a one-time thirty-minute slot allotted to them per month.
The e-learning game can be utilized by employees at least five times, if need be, for training purposes without boredom because of the many branching scenarios offered.
As stated previously, employees are being asked by Rathbone’s Emporium to make judgment calls and read behavioral clues from a vast range of people, including people of different cultures. It is important for employees to practice this skill through a range of activities, and it will be a skill that needs to be continually refreshed as they are being called upon to keep many different factors in their minds but might never have witnessed one. On top of that, they must call upon their judgment to know the seven behaviors that customers might exhibit that warrant an instant Code 10.
PURPOSE of Part Three
The purpose of the e-learning game is to allow employees to practice different scenarios and witness their actions in a safe environment. This format is ideal for the vast ranges of ages and, experience levels, which coincides with the information gained from human resources of current employees.
Employees with good judgment skills will be rewarded with the challenge of detecting the shoplifter, and they will be exempt from month three of training. Those with less judgment skills will be taught the signs to look out for and provided with contextual lessons to help them learn how to identify behaviors indicative of shoplifters.
Part Four
The 7taps app will be set up to hold the scoreboard, which our office will maintain. We will update the app weekly to reflect who has won a reward and keep the running total for each employee’s points. Each loss prevention office will provide this information to us on Sunday of each week, and we will update the board on Monday by noon EST.
The scoreboard will be broken down by retail stores, and only employees within their store can access their board; however, we will keep a store-wide competition board updated monthly that reflects where each store is at within each province based upon overall shoplifters being caught. This allows store managers, loss prevention managers, and all supervisors within regional stores to check their rankings. This endeavor will coincide with the “Manager and Supervisor Support to Staff on Shoplifting Protocols,” which comes out simultaneously with this campaign.
Upon entry to the 7taps app, employees are confronted with four chapters.
Chapter One – “Did you hear?”
This area provides the employee with a real-world shoplifting scenario that happened at one of the Rathbone’s Emporiums. This will be a mini scenario for the employee to work through to ask how they would handle it. These mini-scenarios are to keep shoplifting prevention and the ways to identify it utmost in the employee’s mind. Most people like to hear behind-the-scenes stories, so our office will utilize this tendency to train employees in an undercover manner with real scenarios, which are the best to learn from.
Chapter Two – “The Scoreboard”
Each store will have its own employee scoreboard. The scoreboard will contain the names of those instrumental in capturing a shoplifter within the store. Our office will create a gamer avatar icon based on the employee’s picture ID from human resources to coincide with this information.
Chapter Three – “How to Win”
This will be a visual job aid employees can reference that houses all behaviors indicative of shoplifting as determined by loss prevention.
Chapter Four – “Regionally”
This hidden chapter is only accessible to managers, supervisors, and workers within loss prevention. This area will be a way for these key people to know how their stores compare to other stores, and it will be utilized in another training campaign geared toward these employees.
PURPOSE of Part Four
The purpose of 7taps is to allow each employee to see what is happening throughout the organization and have an in-depth look at how other employees are comparing to them.
Because this information will be updated weekly, we believe employees will frequent this space, and we will target it with aids and activities.
By creating activities based upon real-world shoplifting incidents within our stores, we will enable employees to learn in environments they choose, with a platform that is easily accessible by all devices. This continual practice on new scenarios will increase employees’ skill level in reading behaviors shoplifters typically display.
The chapter “How to Win” also provides all employees a job aid they can use to refresh any shoplifting behavior they might be unsure of.
Most importantly, the 7taps app allows our office to utilize analytics for formative evaluations and change tactics in our practice activities at any time, if need be, as well as help us understand week-by-week the choices people are making and the amount of engagement happening, which provides a formative evaluation to enable us to change tactics to meet the project goal.
Zoom was used to conduct the interviews and set schedules.
Microsoft products were used to create wordage and send communications.
Graphics were created in Adobe Photoshop.
The report was created in Adobe InDesign.
The results were exported by Adobe Acrobat and delivered through OneDrive.
Watershed was the LRS for xAPI and allowed data tracking. Scormcloud LMS housed the E-learning choose your own adventure game. 7apps.com housed microlearning scenarios, scoreboards, and analytics on the weekly mini-scenarios.
Evaluation will be multifaceted and cover all four Kirkpatrick’s levels.
Level 1
Employees will take a 3-5 minute survey upon completing their first practice activity. This will be a pen-and-paper survey, and it will be handed to them when they enter the training room, and employees will be asked to complete it, and place it in the evaluation box when they are done the e-learning training.
Level 2
Using xAPI analytics, our office will monitor the overall data to determine the degree to which employees pick the correct scenarios. xAPI data can track data down to the minuscule level, and this will allow our office to determine any gaps that might surface, allowing us to adapt and change any scenarios within the second month of training. We anticipate a high degree of employee engagement and exploration as they work through the practice activities; therefore, we believe some of the data we receive from xAPI will not clearly show what learning is being impacted within the first month. However, we will also be tracking 7apps data, which we feel will be a better gauge of evaluation at this time period.
Level 3
Loss prevention will keep statistics of what is happening with employees during the month and the rate Code 10 calls are made compared to the amount of shoplifting prevented. Our offices forecast an increase in Code 10 calls in the first month of training based on employees beginning to utilize their observation skills and scrutinize customers. Both Loss Prevention and our office feel a 15-25% increase in Code 10 calls, whether accurate or inaccurate, reflects employees utilizing the training. By the end of the second month of training, we forecast and aim for a 10% better accuracy rate than the previous month, and we feel this should increase by at least 3% by the third month of training.
Level 4
Ideally, the goal is a 20% decrease in shoplifting by 2025. However, based upon past statistics, it has been determined by our office and loss prevention that a 5-10% decrease would show the campaign successful as this would increase company sales by X amount in that year with only an X amount of cost. Therefore, the ROI is determined to be 85%.
All data will be collected using xAPI, with Watershed being the LRS. This allows our office to track employees and their choices to any level, as statements will be built throughout the practice activities. These analytics can be unpacked to a minuscule level and help us target the judgment calls utilized to help create more engaging and effective learning mini-scenarios in 7taps and tailor our e-learning for months two and three, if need be.
Furthermore, once analytics have been captured on the second attempt at the e-learning game, our office will inform the employees correctly working through 85% of the branching scenarios that they do not have to take the last e-learning module as it will be cost-effective to exempt them from training as they exhibit the ability to read shoplifter behaviors at the desired level as determined in our action mapping session.
* The images are cut off unless one views them from a desktop.*
The evaluation report comprised seventy-two pages, including visuals, timelines, and charts.
Some of my favorite examples are below.
The first set of visuals is a condensed visual for the action map. The right side blows that image up a little bit.
The second set of visuals is a condensed look at how the branching scenarios played out and a page from the report highlighting the importance of practice activities to the reader, and the last image is a small section from a page in the report on the branching scenarios.
The final set of visuals is two pages from the report showcasing the different shoplifter profiles, and the middle image is what one shoplifter profile looked like for the walls, posters, and job aid.