This article discusses a theory and approach to a modified form of general loss interviews. Before making any practical use of this theory please partner with your respective supervisor and decision- makers at your company to ensure it complies with their guidelines. This is an approach that takes a skilled, experienced interviewer to maneuver through the conversations appropriately.
We have so many resources nowadays to help us identify internal theft or dishonesty. Now we see IP cameras, remote monitoring, exception reporting, biometrics and other technology that provides us with alerts and reports pointing us to who the bad guys are in our company. However, regardless of what technology is out there; sometimes the best resources to identify issues are the employees themselves. They are a wealth of information; anything from knowing who is dating whom or which employee just got a DWI and is in some serious financial trouble. Our employees can provide us with invaluable information initiating an otherwise vague investigation.
Normally we would get a call from the boss regarding an awful shrink number and start scrambling, hoping that the answer is hidden in some exception report. After looking for a few hours, calling your peers freaking out and maybe doing some video review, odds are that you haven’t identified the problem. If it was that obvious, shouldn’t we have found it months ago?
My suggestion is we start talking to people. Normally this would be a great time to initiate selective or general loss interviews. But we all live in the real world, and especially in retail, it may be difficult to schedule 8-12 people and pull them out of the store. Maybe you’re in a drugstore or a specialty retailer and you only have 3 people working all day! Don’t let that scare you away… that’s when we implement “the walk and talk.”
Hopefully when you are visiting stores you are taking time to talk to everybody, whether it’s the General Manager, the cashier or the receiving team. If you’re not, you need to start. This will help you develop rapport and minimize any reputation you may already have of being the “terminator.”
During these quick meetings and touch-bases, let’s integrate a few selective interview questions. Now we don’t want to jump right into them, so calm their nerves a bit. Develop some rapport and explain that your job is to help identify the shrink issue in that location.
You’ll be amazed what people will tell you. You just have to ask the right questions.
What do you think is the cause of the shrinkage?
- 9 times out of 10 times in a retail environment, you’re going to get an answer similar to this: “I think our shrink is bad because of shoplifting.”
- Agree with the employee that external theft is part of shrinkage, but now is a great time to give your sales pitch on internal theft and get their minds thinking in that direction.
What would be the easiest way for an employee to take merchandise/money from the store?
- More than likely you’re going to get 2 different answers here:
– If they have some specific details, they are telling you either how someone in the store is already stealing, or even better, how they are stealing.
– If they are vague or give a few examples, these are probably good indicators of operational opportunities in your store that you need to clamp down on.
Who would have the best opportunity to cause a loss at the store?
- Sometimes they will look at you like you have a horn coming out of your forehead, so you may need to follow up with a good probing question, such as: “If you were conducting the investigation, where would you start? Which department?”
- If and when they do answer the question, they are giving you a good idea of where you may want to start looking. Sometimes you’ll be lucky enough to get an actual name of somebody!
When is the last time you saw another employee cause a loss at the store?
- Again, you don’t know unless you ask! We phrase this like an assumptive question to make it easier for the employee to tell us they do know something. It almost makes them want to give you an answer to satisfy your question.
- If they don’t have any examples, or claim to not know anything, follow up with “What would you do if you saw somebody doing something dishonest?”
Depending on your relationship with the employee and the environment that you’re in, you will have to back out of the conversation after 10-15 minutes.
There are two different ways that I end the “walk and talk”:
- WZ Method: If the employee gave you enough indications that they are up to no good, then this may be a situation where your “walk and talk” results in an actual interview back in the office.
- Back-Out: Once you’ve collected your information you need to professionally and politely back out of the conversation without causing them to feel uncomfortable. I would suggest ending by describing your companies anonymous tip-line, and hand them a business card. You’d be surprised how many emails and calls I’ve received after these conversations where somebody happened to “remember” who they saw stealing.
Remember, generally people want to help and people like to talk. It’s our job to reduce resistance, ask the right questions and elicit the truth. Keep in mind that you are in a public area, so you don’t want to discuss anything confidential or ask about anybody specific.
Good luck out there, and after your next store visit… I think you’ll be happily surprised!
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Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates is a consulting and training organization dedicated to supporting professionals in the difficult task of identifying the truth. Our passion for the truth has led us to become a world leader in non-confrontational interview and interrogation training.
