LPRC - CrimeScience Episode 42 – Response to COVID-19 ft. Peter Chie (Bloomingdale’s)

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

Peter Chie, Vice President of Asset Protection and Risk Management of Bloomingdale’s and LPRC Board Member, discusses his organization’s response to the pandemic, early reactions, health and safety planning, closures, and much more. The post CrimeScience Episode 42 – Response to COVID-19 ft. Peter Chie (Bloomingdale’s) appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi everyone, welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of the science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. Co-host Dr. Reid Hayes of the Loss Prevention Research Council and Tom Meehan of ControlTech discuss a wide range of topics with industry experts, thought leaders, solution providers, and many more. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Use Bosch Camera's onboard intelligent video analytics to quickly locate important recorded incidents or events. Bosch's forensic search saves you time and money by searching through hours or days of video within minutes to find and collect video evidence. Learn more about intelligent video analytics from Bosch in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another special episode of Crime Science Podcast. Today I'm joined by

Peter Chee, the Vice President of Asset Protection for Bloomingdale's. And Peter is a member of the LPRC Board of Advisors, very engaged. His team is very engaged in LPRC working groups across the board. And Pete and I also are able to chat offline sometimes and share ideas and learn from each other a lot. And so, Peter, I just want to thank you and welcome you to Crime Science. Thanks, Reed. Appreciate you having me on today. I really hope you and your family are well and staying safe during these unprecedented times, I should say. Truly unprecedented in our time, that's for sure. So yes, everybody is well, And thank you for asking and, and, and certainly the same for you and yours. So what we'll do is, as I mentioned, we've got, we've had really six, what we're calling

retailer cluster calls, where we probably had better than 50 different retail chains, executives involved in the talk, in the calls, where they were sharing their issues, sharing their solutions, sharing where they're trying to go next, and just an incredible amount of powerful information. A thing of beauty to listen and be engaged with so many experienced and thoughtful leaders and so much sharing. And as you know, that's long been the loss prevention and asset protection community has been so tight. And hopefully the LPRC community at large, that's part of the mandate here is collaboration.

So that'll help inform our conversation a little bit. And so you and I have a few questions to touch on. But I think let's kind of go back if we could. I know that's probably not the most pleasant thing in your mind, but what did you start hearing, Peter, about this COVID-19? And, you know, and again, you know, only what you're comfortable talking about on a podcast, but what did you kind of first hear and start to think and want to know and do? and want to know and do? Well, certainly, you know, I think like most people, you know, out there,

we heard that it originated out, you know, in China. And, you know, the first thing you think of automatically is supply chain. And you think about everything that's coming out of there and being transported to the United States. So we were monitoring the threat from a global perspective, you know, not necessarily domestic initially until we started becoming concerned with the supply chain impact and really how to handle receipts, packaging, the lifespan of the virus on different services was a concern. As the issue became more prevalent in the stores where we do business, that's where we began impacting

and then taking a look more of some of the things that we need to look at more aggressively, different measures and different safety precautions. Again, that's all based on the stores that impact that we've seen based on the pandemic itself. Now, that's interesting. interesting. You're thinking initially, we've got a supply chain. It's fairly complex. You're totally relying on it. This looks like a possible

or maybe even a serious disruption. That's very interesting. Let me ask you if I could about when you started to learn that things might be headed our way and maybe even more rapidly than we thought, a little bit about that. And we had our annual board of advisors winter planning meeting branded as LPRC Ignite. Peter, you were here. You were interacting with us and helping provide guidance alongside another 20, 25 of your colleagues in the industry. And certainly we were talking about this, but I don't think anybody, at least from my perspective, of course, had no idea where we'd

end up going here, but that the seriousness didn't even appear on the radar screen for most of us. Any thoughts around that when we were back at LPRC Ignite in February? No, you know, Reid, I think we're all as a group collectively talking about our pre-crisis, pre-pandemic concerns, everything that we've all been exposed to beforehand, what we've been combating for many, many years, and trying to provide some solutions and some tactics as well as research to those problems that we're all facing as a collective group. This pandemic was not, I don't think, was right in anybody's eyesight at the time. I think it's just, you know, as we all got back and got, you know, heard more and more about it, like I said before, coming and transferring over to the

state side and domestically, that's when we said, okay, let's stop everything that we've been doing and we've been discussing for a second here and let's take a look at this and see how big it's going to become before we can try to go back to what we were talking about before. So I think it was a disruption that happened. And unfortunately, it's a continued disruption that we haven't been able to go back to what we had discussed before at this point. I'm sure we will, but not at this point. No, that's very helpful. And like you say, I think it's just the pandemic evolved and unfolded in so many different ways and had so many different effects. And again, most of the people we're talking to didn't seem to have the effects.

Now, some of our members that have stores in Europe started talking to us a little more rapidly about it or sooner, let's say, about the issues that they were starting to see. There were those discussions. let's say, about the issues that they were starting to see. There were those discussions. I know then the CDC and the government decided, well, we're going to go ahead and halt flights from China, and we'll see if that might, you know, slow some kind of spread of this epidemic at the time. And so, you know, I think, can we talk a little bit about supply chain, maybe, because you started there. Did you start to see any effects or did it all of a sudden the domestic issues sort of overwhelmed those considerations? You know, I think, you know, our business partners on the Macy's side did an excellent job in supply chain identifying and really understanding and ascertaining what the issues were on their end. And I think they pretty much took care of most of those

without us having to be intricately involved in it. And where we really took more control and more notice and more action was when it did impact the states that we had stores that we did business in. And once it got to, you know, the store associates, once it got to our buildings, we had to, at that point, you know, react very quickly. And, you know, that took over our action standpoint. And, you know, when we needed to do going forward.

Excellent. You know, one thing I wanted to talk to you about is, in a way you have two roles that appears to me me or, you know, it seems to me. One, you are the asset protection expert, the leader, the advisor in your organization for the issue. And that is safety and security. To put it bluntly, I think at the same time, you're also the leader of your organization as you implement your strategy and your process out there. Let's go to the first one, if we could, a little bit about that as much as you're able to talk about, Peter. What did that look like? You talk about where you started to get some warning signs.

The team, in this case, being the team was, the team in this case being the corporate leadership, starting to look at things, you know, what are some things you can talk about as far as your role, what you were asked to do, or you on your own decided you needed to do? Well, you know, once we realized how widespread this was and what kind of impact it would have to our business, we immediately stood up our EOC, formalized our structure, cadence for calls, meetings with the appropriate business partners, got everybody engaged that needed to be, you know, from a business perspective. We executed our business continuity plans to allow for, you know,

remote work requirements and capability in case that was going to come to play, which, of course, as eventually it did. And really, our number one priority for our group is to ensure the safety and security of our associates, customers, and buildings. And I think that's what really dictated all our actions, all our, you know, from our business partners' perspectives, you know, what was it that we needed to do to ensure that for as long as we can remain open and viable from a business perspective, what are the things that we can do at that point to keep our associates and customers safe, keeping our buildings intact?

Obviously, down the road, we moved to a closed-door situation and a furloughed situation, Obviously, down the road, we moved to a closed-door situation and a furloughed situation. But at the end of the day, prior to that, we really had to focus on, okay, what does it look like now? What's the business look like now? And what do we need to do to ensure our business continuity is in play and our associates and, again, our buildings are as safe as possible as well as our customers? So how do we maintain that business angle? That was really the key piece of it. Okay, excellent.

So it sounds like it would be expected that you spent, overwhelmingly spent the lion's share of your time with your team doing planning, even though you were still, of course, working with your counterparts in the business and at some point also serving as sort of the advisor on some of these asset protection topics as the corporate team, the C-suite and others, were trying to operate the business now and so on. Certainly. Okay. So another thought was, how did you start to look at health and safety issues in addition to

you're normally looking at theft and fraud and violence? What were you sort of learning? What were data sources that you had internally or places you could turn to? What were you thinking and talking and planning around? What was informing your decisions and operations? Well, certainly, you know, the data is very important, you know, versus historical versus current data. You know, we kind of compiled both and then looked at everything to get a very macro view of where we needed to focus on. But in this particular case, with this particular crisis, you know,

because it impacts the entire organization at the same time, outside of the ordinances that, you know, that came in kind of different spurts of time where they mandated certain ordinances locally and statewide, everything else was very, very global when it came to the impact to our business. And, you know, I just want to, I want to say, Reed, before, before I even answer the question that, you know, it's, it's unfortunate that we had to close all of our stores, you know, and furlough majority of our associates. We all know that. And during this time, it just goes without saying that, you know, really, I can't tell you that we miss him dearly. I'm hoping that everyone is doing well, staying safe. And I'm really looking forward to the return to the business and welcoming

everybody back. So I just wanted to get that out there to those who are listening, because I think it's just know that we're thinking of him in this tough time. No, that's a huge, huge point. And we are, I believe that some or many of your team, including those, and that's most that are furloughed right now, currently furloughed, are hearing you and hearing your mission and your concern. But that there's a plan, there's optimism going forward. Absolutely. So what we've seen and appreciate around not only the data, but where we get a lot of our ground intel,

we've seen some really great support from our mall security and property manager partners. We've got some robust plans to help keep our businesses safe and secure, but these partners have been really integral in supporting our efforts. You know, just like our pre-pandemic issues, violent crimes, ORC activity, you know, we're all in this together. Like I stated before, I mean, just leveraging our partnerships, just maintaining that good communication is not only necessary, but I really think it's critical during these times to ensure alignment. And what we've seen, you know, in the various areas throughout the country, just solid, solid partnership. So I want to thank those ball partners and security partners as well.

They've done a fantastic job supporting our business during this crisis. That's good to hear. Surprisingly, in a way, in going through these cluster calls, and I went through five of them, had the opportunity and the pleasure of getting to interact with so many people in the heat of battle here. But we rarely, rarely heard any complaints about local law enforcement, even though law enforcement already had lower staff issues going on. enforcement, even though law enforcement already had lower staff issues going on. But in this case, with even lower, particularly where certain departments or precincts and others were lowered right now due to the crisis, they were still getting a lot of good response. Now, there's a lot of prioritization going on. Things take a little longer sometimes, but there was still an earnest, you know, a very serious effort by their partners out there to support them in every way that they can. Yep.

Let me ask you about theft, fraud, and violence. Did you start to see any changes before you all had to change the business and move to a closed situation across most of the, all the storefronts in this case? I think pre-crisis, Reid, I think we were handling things. I mean, you know, this was the beginning of the year, right? January, February or so, coming out of the holiday season. So, you know, we generally had, had the same, I guess, issues and scenarios that we would normally have every year. And you would see the same type of activity.

I think I would say it was pretty par for course. I think it was flat to the year before as far as activity goes from a theft and a fraud perspective. And then obviously when this crisis hit us, certainly we saw a steep decline there, obviously because of the stay-at-home initiatives and everything else that's out there. But we certainly anticipate to be ramping up as we continue going through this crisis. I think bad actors are going to seize the opportunity to take advantage of where they can, both from a theft and from a fraud perspective. Another good insight. Much appreciated.

So let me ask you about right now. You're thinking ahead. Clearly you're planning ahead. But how are you able to communicate with your team right now in a distributed way? What are you kind of going through? What are your priorities? And how are you all working and playing together in such a distributed way? Yeah, main focus right now, I mean, you know, it's daily communication.

We have a morning call. We have an evening kind of a shutdown call that we'll recap. But, you know, just the important thing here is to keep everybody engaged, keep everybody with some sort of normalcy, even though everybody's working remotely. We really have been focusing on the physical security and safety piece more than anything. I don't, you know, the theft and fraud piece certainly has grinded to somewhat of a halt at this point because, again, we don't have any activity with the stores being closed. However, you know, that doesn't mean that we're not still planning for that going forward. But I think the majority of our time is being spent on how do we ensure our store leadership teams that may still be intact in our stores are taking ownership of and being engaged with the store security, the physical building security, the alarms, things like that. And I got to tell you, they've been fantastic partners.

They've been very, very engaged and very supportive with everything that we've been, you know, putting on their plate to manage that process. But, you know, outside of that, it's just really trying to keep a good ear to the ground on what's out there, you know, from a CDC perspective, from a political perspective, you know, where everybody, I think the number one question in everybody's mind is, when are we going to get back to opening stores? So the re-store opening process has been a pretty big part of our workload, you know, in our thought process, you know, day-to-day at this point. No, that's interesting and a good point. I know

with our cluster calls, there's been a lot of dialogue and discussion around reopening. What's the new normal going to look like? What's the bridge, the pathway to that new normal, whatever that may look like? What are opening checklists? What all should be on those checklists as far as supply chains, reopening stores, even some of the minutiae like returns that, wait a minute, how are we going to take merchandise back that may or may not be infected? And there are those sorts of health issues, but just the logistics of it. And any thoughts?

And are you guys getting to that granular level of planning right now? What does that sort of look like from a higher level, Peter? Absolutely. The focus on the store reopening process, and like you had said, what does the new normal look like, the future state of business? It's not going to be the same as it was pre-pandemic or pre-crisis. continue to regulate and be compliant with CDC and safety guidelines once we reopen? Because clearly there's going to be some reservation more by our customers, by our associates. How do we mitigate that? What concerns that we didn't have to deal with pre-pandemic and how do we manage them post-crisis? So for example, budget challenges. I think everybody's budget is going to be impacted based on the lack of revenue that's coming in this year.

And, you know, what will the resources look like? You know, how do we manage the emotional and psychological aspects of the crisis? I think separating facts from fiction, don't believe the hype. I think that's a big one. Everybody's emotional. Everybody's taking things out of context. Sometimes everybody's being swayed by whatever media that they're looking at today. So I think that's just keeping the facts and keeping everything as factual as possible for our teams and for our customers is going to be important. And then, you know, associate engagement,

like, you know, the wellness checks and reaching out and making sure everybody's okay. But when you look at the granular level, you returns and disposition returns, fitting rooms. We're in the apparel industry. Fitting rooms are another place where you have hygiene and having to have a sterile component there. But just everything we do from a loss prevention, asset protection standpoint too, when you think about the things that we take for granted, apprehensions, deterrence, internal interviews, how is that going to change?

How do we maintain social distancing when we do an apprehension, when we make an apprehension? How do we do that when we do an internal interview? There's a lot of things that we have to think through in order to make sure that we're operating correctly and safely in the new world ahead. Now, good points all. That's been a lot of the planning. And again, I think as we will probably be rerunning the cluster calls, we'll certainly send out an invite to make sure that your team

is well represented on the calls. There's a lot of sensitive issues being mentioned, but there's a lot of clarity and a lot of forthcoming people are really making sure that all the details are being put on the table. That's the only way for everybody to learn from each other. And it really has been pretty powerful in that way.

But those are a lot of those details, even PPE, what do you get? How do you push it through? And just, you know, we're hearing that just even securing PPE and particularly for retailers that don't even sell that, they're seeing some unique changes and movement of some of the issues they're having, whether their stores are open or closed. Have there been any clusters of issues that you can talk about generally, Peter, as far as burglaries and those types of incidents where the stores are all closed, if you will? Anything like that that might be occurring? So, knock on wood, we haven't had any burglaries or break-ins at this point.

We feel very comfortable with our process that we have in place. You know, I think from facilities and from an HVAC perspective and things like that, water leaks and based on, again, the mother nature, you know, having to do with something, some things internally in the stores, we're always going to keep abreast of that and making sure that we ensure that we're trying to manage any type of damage control there from that perspective. But nothing on that side of it at this point. And hopefully as we continue to success going through this whole crisis and we come out of this unscathed, but from a building physical security perspective. But like I said, I think I chalk it up to the diligence of the store leadership teams

and the processes they have in place that they're enforcing and they're executing every day. It's really, really making a big difference for us right now. It's interesting. And we've talked on some of these podcast episodes about guardianship and that the guardianship comes from the people that work there, especially the asset protectors, but all the team. It comes from customers that are moving through there and might disrupt or even report or sometimes intervene in a situation. It comes from passersby outside the building that, again, the same thing. They might intervene or at least report or unknowingly disrupt something.

And then finally, the law enforcement strata, that sort of official guardianship that takes place. And in a lot of cases with the smaller stores that have been temporarily shut down, they don't have any of that happening for them, particularly in certain jurisdictions. There's nobody in the stores. And we talked to a chain the other day where they closed down thousands of stores. They had completely shut down all stores within about six hours and there's nobody there. So, um, other than occasional checks on, like you talked about maintenance, things that needed to be done. So you can imagine they're just sort of there, um, and trying not to

stand out as a target to to their neighbors to somebody. So in that way, for whatever that's worth, take a little bit of solace in that fact. Anything else, Peter, that strikes you that you would like your team to know, your counterparts to know, or other listeners to know out there about asset protection leadership and how you're planning and executing through this terrible time, as well as planning and executing to get ready for when we come out of this and go back to whatever normal looks like. Any other thoughts? Well, you know, Reid, I think this pandemic, this crisis is, like I said, unprecedented. And, you know, it's peers would agree, I think we're all doing it as diligently as we can. But I think being as understanding that the environment can be changing and evolving pretty much daily at this point, whether it's ordinances that change or non-essential to essential business priorities that change. that change or non-essential to essential business priorities that change.

We have to be able to be as standardized as possible, but also be as flexible as needed to be able to accommodate and then change towards these different evolutions of what's out there right now in the landscape. And I think sometimes it's getting everybody to support that and engage that and to understand that there is light at the end of the tunnel and not to to have this doom and gloom mentality right it's about attitude sometimes and i i have a i'm a big fan of quotes and and they really resonate with me in a deep way at times and you know one of my mainstays is believe it or not from from from a guy called socrates right and he said the secret of change is to focus all of your energy,

not on fighting the old, but on building the new. And I think we all have to accept that this is going to be a new environment that we're all going to be operating in soon. And nothing is going to be the same way. And for those of us who've been in retail for a long time, we know we've seen several iterations of evolution and change,

but this is probably the biggest one yet. You know, and I tell you, I think having the resolve that I know my peers and myself have and being in this business a long time, I think we know that if we're standardized in what we're doing, but flexible in our approach, I think we're going to make it out of this, you know, this situation as best we can. So I really thank everybody for their patience and everybody out there that is going through this. It's really a tumultuous, but we'll get through it. Really will.

Very well said, Peter, and very much appreciated. Like you say, we've all got to maintain optimism. Let's work with each other. Let's use evidence that we're able to get and let's be focused, but we're going to win. We will win. So let's keep it rolling. Peter, I want to thank you for appearing on this special Crime Science Podcast episode. We're going to be getting this out as quickly as possible. We want to put your expertise out there as well as your inspiring words. So, again, safety and stay well to you and yours.

And you and your team will be back together sooner rather than later, fighting the good fight. Thank you, Peter. So thank you for your time today, Reed. Just want to say again, please be well, be positive, stay safe, and happy Easter. Fantastic. And thank you, everybody, for listening to another episode of Crime Science, the podcast out of Gainesville by the LPRC. I want to thank Peter Cheave, Vice President of Asset Protection at Bloomingdale's, as well as our producer, Kevin Tran. Thank you, everybody. Have a great, safe time. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode,

you can find more Crime Science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Office of Prevention Research Council.