IGA | Insights

Institute Feature: Loss Prevention Basics

Written by Josie Balistreri | Aug 12, 2024 9:08:03 PM

With the retail shrink rate continuing to increase, store associates have become even more important in preventing losses and promoting community integrity. The Retail Learning Institute’s updated course on the basics of Loss Prevention provides insights for reducing shrinkage along with useful examples and action items. 

Course Description: 

As an associate at a food retailer, you and your fellow associates are critical to the success of the company and are the first line of defense against theft, damages, errors, and other issues that create losses for the company...and these losses can directly affect you! 

Loss Prevention is not about “catching the bad guys” or playing cops and robbers. Instead, it is about working as consciously as possible, following established processes, providing outstanding customer service and adhering to safety rules/regulations so that you and your fellow associates do not get hurt or injured on the job. 

This module will educate you on some measures and tools that limit, reduce, or completely eliminate losses and keep you safe. The goal of loss prevention is to increase profits by decreasing losses due to breakage, spoilage, not following process, inventory errors and even theft. 

This course first explains what retail shrinkage is and how the consequences can directly impact a store and its associates. By clearly defining the issue, the course proves why associates should care about shrinkage and how they can prevent it. Additionally, the course considers associate integrity and the motivation to steal, identifying trust and teamwork as key ways to reduce losses. 

Through this course, you and your associates will learn strategies to identify problem areas and solutions to resolve them. By creating a sense of responsibility, taking this RLI course will help to boost store profitability and associate accountability.