Associations in Action by Lisa LaBruno
A Year in Review A
s I reflect on the initiatives driven by the RILA LP team in 2011, two things stand out to me about the loss prevention profession. First, retail LP continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Second, LP executives are stepping out of their corporate silos to collaborate with industry peers and external stakeholders. Gone are the days of LP professionals living their professional lives as crime stoppers. Retail crime remains a significant risk that will require our ongoing attention. But, today there is much more to retail LP than fighting crime. Thanks in part to corporate reorgs and budget constraints, LP professionals have been forced to diversify. Individuals hired years ago to catch shoplifters have taken on additional roles, like safety manager, hazmat specialist, human resource investigator, and auditor. With diversification comes the reality that LP professionals may not always have the answer, and they may need to look outside their organizations for help. All one needs to do is look at RILA’s key LP initiatives in 2011 to see how diversified the LP function has become, and how the spirit of collaboration is alive and well in the industry.
Workplace Safety
Our Workplace Safety (WS) Committee grew exponentially with nearly 100 safety professionals representing forty retailers. The numbers in and of themselves show a desire on the part of retailers’ to collaborate. In 2011 the committee convened regularly to discuss emerging trends (the good, the bad and the ugly), top challenges, and leading practices for minimizing workplace injuries. In the fall committee members met in Washington, D.C. and welcomed the unprecedented participation of executives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), delivering on our commitment to look outside our organizations for sustainable solutions. Throughout the year, the WS committee commissioned several benchmarking surveys covering a broad range of topics including fall protection, corporate safety programs, and trends in general liability and workers’ compensation claims. RILA closed out the year by hosting more than 150 safety professionals on a webinar addressing the impact of OSHA’s enforcement actions on the retail industry.
Disaster Preparedness
2011 saw its share of natural disasters, both domestically and overseas. With each event came a reminder to LP executives of the critical role of preparedness in a retailer’s response and recovery efforts. This past year, RILA’s Disaster Response and Preparedness (DRAP) Committee was keenly focused on corporate and industry preparedness,
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Lisa LaBruno leads the asset protection offerings in the areas of loss prevention, retail crime, workplace safety, disaster recovery, operational audit, research, and benchmarking for the Retail Industry Leaders Association. RILA members include more than 200 retailers, product manufacturers, and service suppliers, which together account for more than $1.5 trillion in annual sales, millions of American jobs, and more than 100,000 stores, manufacturing facilities, and distribution centers domestically and abroad. LaBruno can be reached at 703-600-2024 or lisa.labruno@rila.org.
working together and with external stakeholders to develop strategies for mitigating the impact of disasters. DRAP members met regularly to discuss preparedness and response protocols, leading practices, and strategies for streamlining industry efforts. They “downloaded” in the days following significant weather events to share challenges, successes, and lessons learned. They developed a communication mechanism to facilitate information sharing during a crisis. In addition to peer collaboration, we…once again…looked outside our industry for answers. We forged strong partnerships with key external stakeholders, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In the spring FEMA hosted DRAP at the National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) in Washington, D.C., where Administrator Fugate and other FEMA executives spent a full day brainstorming with committee members about methods for driving public-private partnerships and opportunities for enhancing the agency’s initiatives to better align with retailers’ needs and capabilities. Several months later, RILA and DRAP members played an important role at FEMA’s first national conference on building resilience through public-private partnerships. And, RILA takes pride in the fact that two of the four companies to sit in the private-sector seat at the NRCC this inaugural year were DRAP members. One of the most humbling experiences of my professional career occurred this past year when I had the opportunity to travel to Joplin, Missouri, to lead DRAP members and 250 other volunteers from RILA retail member companies in “Retailers Rebuilding Joplin,” a large-scale cleanup and rebuilding effort following the F5 tornado that ripped through the small Midwestern town.
Operational Audit
This year, the Operational Audit Committee (OAC) released the second edition of the RILA Store Operational Audit and Loss Prevention Guide, written in partnership with KPMG. The guide is a resource tool to help retailers develop, enhance, and update store audit department structure and reporting hierarchy, store audit processes, selection criteria, and reporting. Following its release, committee members helped lead a webinar to review the guide’s contents with the more than 250 audit professionals in attendance. Throughout the year, the committee commissioned several benchmarking studies, including surveys on regulatory compliance, store and distribution center inventory practices, and store-level receiving processes and controls. continued on page 40 |
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