What are the expectations your customers have of you during the current economic times?

As business partners the expectation is that we’re in this together. So, we have taken the unique circumstances which we find ourselves in to ask our clients “how can we help?”

We realize that 2009 may not be a growth year for us necessarily, but our primary focus is to ensure the companies we do business with remain as stable as possible through these challenging times. By concentrating on what we do best, we can help retailers maintain a strong level of control within their stores by engaging their associates – even with budget and resource constraints.

Our customers are also turning to us with the expectation that we will help adapt their messaging for the times and to critically assess the various modes of communication for their timeliness, effectiveness and overall value to employees. There’s an understanding that messaging must change, in terms of both the tone and delivery.

When budgets are squeezed, what is your argument for maintaining awareness programs during these times?

Communication should be deemed even more essential during tough economic times, not just from a loss prevention perspective but also from an employee motivation and overall engagement perspective.

In terms of building the justification for loss prevention and ethics awareness, one should simply turn to the M.I.T. behavioral economist Dan Ariely’s teachings. In his book, entitled ‘Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions’, Dan shows how emotions and social norms systematically shape our behavior.
 
One particular human behavior experiment caught my attention, as it should so many within the loss prevention and ethics fields. To understand how social situations impact honesty, the author created tests that made it easy to cheat, then looked at what happened if they reminded people right before the test of a moral absolute. It turned out that being reminded of any moral code – whether it’s the corporate value system or even the Ten Commandments, caused cheating to plummet significantly.

A loss prevention training and awareness program is a necessity as it provides that consistent reminder which is so critical to shaping an ethical culture and encouraging self-policing and reporting of violations – especially in a period of time with downward pressure on sales, rising theft and cutbacks leading to weakness in internal controls. This is a time where loss prevention can make an even greater impact to an organization by putting dollars back on the bottom-line. As retailers try to grapple with altered expectations as it relates to consumer spending, it is far easier to reduce costs than to increase sales.

What unique values do you bring to your customers that allow them to justify doing business with your company?

Creative Options is the internal communication and training group of Protiviti. So, we can leverage Protiviti’s global network of over 3,200 professionals worldwide in both the retail space as well as specific content areas (i.e., loss prevention, business continuity, supply chain) to help ensure the message is on point. In these current economic times, the ability to take ownership for not only the creative execution but also the content of the message can be a real boon for the department and the time they expend on communication development.

In addition, as a full service creative agency, we bring a higher-level strategic approach to the development of employee communications. After all, we are competing in the same space, fighting for mindshare, as the world of consumer marketing. Just like consumers, the average employee encounters 3,000 advertising messages each day. Ten connect. Three can be recalled the next day. We live in a society where we are bombarded constantly with different messages – from billboards and print advertisements to commercials – all fighting for our attention. We help the individual department, unsupported by corporate communications, to understand what they’re up against and break through the clutter to connect with their unique audience.

How has the buyer-vendor relationship changed with reverse auctions and purchasing involvement in the process?

It’s a different way to look at employee education - the commodity mindset versus understanding the complexity of human behavior and the critical importance of taking a strategic approach to employee communications. The challenge truly arises when purchasing applies a standard request for proposal format which you would utilize when sourcing software with clear requirements or a commodity good.

When seeking a communications agency to partner with, consider requesting solution recommendations based on your unique environment, business objectives and employee culture, instead of the standard request for a quote related to what may be deemed ‘standard components’. A well crafted creative brief may elicit a more powerful solution, rather than just minimizing costs for a communication program that might not work.

How do you measure the impact of an awareness program?

Loss prevention awareness is about employee behavior - an extremely difficult concept to measure. Different organizations adopt different measurement methodologies to assess loss prevention awareness effectiveness, depending on their overall maturity.

In general, there are three main approaches, each with their unique metrics for benchmarking performance:

Process measurements: measure the effort surrounding the program as opposed to the direct impact on shrink reduction. Specific metrics could include: frequency of messaging and the extent which it is updated and kept fresh, compliance audits to assess program execution and implementation, and cost of messaging per employee.

Knowledge measurements: measure how prepared the employees are to fend off or respond to potential loss situations. Specific metrics could include: quiz response testing knowledge retention, surveys, focus groups or ethnographic research soliciting attitudes and beliefs, and simulated loss scenarios to provide direct evidence of employee preparedness. 

Results-oriented measurements: measure the impact of the program on shrink reduction. Specific metrics could include: benchmarking shrink rates by source prior to and after program implementation, root cause analysis to determine the extent in which human behavior has caused losses of cash or merchandise.

Each and every organization needs to find the right balance for them; there is, after all, no “one size fits all” solution to measuring the effectiveness of an awareness program. Keeping the approach simple tends to keep it cost-effective.

In the current economic times, with staffing reductions and cut-backs, store management is being asked to do more. So, process measurements related to the implementation of the program are critical. You want to know if your program is the one that is falling through the cracks.

In the end, what separates the compliance-driven organizations from those fostering true cultural change is the use of key performance indicators from each of the three major areas as a part of a comprehensive dashboard.

Patricia Quinn is Managing Director of Creative Options, the internal communication and training group of Protiviti. Pat has over 24 years experience building custom training strategies for some of North America’s leading organizations. As an expert in communication, as it relates to change management, she has led an array of different initiatives to modify employee behavior and to create a level of risk-consciousness.

Pat can be reached via email at pquinn@creativeop.com, or via phone at 519.746.6644 ext. 116.