Loss Prevention Service
Business owners and entrepreneurs share a commonality in attitude – they are in business for themselves because they believe in their ability to provide excellence to others. This is the cornerstone for success and their greatest risk. The goal of our Loss Prevention Services is to provide information, processes, and suggestions that can be adapted to their own operations and utilized with their own business style.
Our focus is on an industry’s “best practices.” These are proven and effective practices and processes used to prevent and reduce the risk of loss. Each engagement provides an overview that explains “why” a particular practice is necessary. In this manner, the owner can decide the importance to their particular work environment and prioritize the implementation of each suggestion. It should be noted that all of the practices work together, so ultimately all of the practices should be implemented to some degree. One may use machinery to make products, but having power to operate machinery in the process makes things a little better. So think of these items as a complete set of tools to achieve your loss prevention goals. Start with the most important, cater to your own style, but set your goal to have a complete toolbox.
In general, the Standards and Practices focus on the three elements of loss prevention – Attitudes, Behaviors and Structure or ABS. Attitudes refer to the thoughts and beliefs of your people. Our goal is to help them to understand and to embrace the protection against loss in your business. We want and need their help in creating a culture of integrity and loss prevention. In order to get there, however, we need to provide training and awareness in order to achieve understanding. Particular process or policy helps to reinforce the right attitude.
Behaviors are the things that people do. While we cannot necessarily see “attitudes,” behaviors are easy to observe, monitor, and correct. Our focus is on the implementation of standards and practices that ensure loss-preventing behaviors. One of the best methods to evaluating business behavior is through review.
The third element is Structure. Structure is easy to build and employ as it includes things like security systems and written policy. Standards and Practices include policies for critical areas such as High Risk Transactions. These policies must be tailored to suit your business operation. Your Standards and Practices also include information on associate theft and theft detection. This information should be protected from distribution to your people for two reasons. The first is that your honest people (which are probably 99% of your people) may feel as if you don’t trust them. The second is that a dishonest associate will have your playbook and be better prepared to avoid detection.
If you choose to utilize certain written policies, the code of conduct or the Crisis Manual, then it is best to make copies of these items and place them in a separate store binder.
