LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 211 Ft. Liz Burkholder

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

In this episode of the LPRC CrimeScience Podcast, Cory Lowe speaks with Liz Burkholder, a seasoned leader in loss prevention and retail operations. They explore the evolving role of operational audits, total retail loss, and how cross-functional leadership and servant-minded collaboration drive more effective LP programs. Liz also shares insights on navigating career growth, the value of professional networks, and how aligning teams around shared goals strengthens outcomes across the business.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to crime science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone, depending on where you are. My name is Corey Lowe, I'm the director of research at the LPRC, and I'm joined today by Liz Berk Holder, a very long-time leader in the loss prevention profession, but also a longtime operator. as well. So Liz, it is great to have you. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, Corey. Thanks for having me. Yes. You know, we've been doing these podcast interviews with a lot of different

leaders. And when I saw you, NIRF, I was like, oh, I need to get Liz on the podcast because we're going into this operational space more at the LPRC. And of course, you just did a presentation at NRF Protect on that very issue. So I just want to start out by having you tell everyone a little about your background, you know, your journey into the field of asset protection, loss prevention, and then just to give some of that background. Yeah, sure. So, you know, my very first job was retail as a frontline sales associate and a specialty business. And, you know, I thought that I was going to be an aeronautics engineer and do all these other things, but really just enjoyed retail and progressed throughout my career.

So whether it was specialty or going into big box retailers, I grew and really spent about two-thirds of my career on the operator side. So running stores, looking at sales plans scheduling and things like that, different processes, and had the opportunity to go into operations and really support some of the district leadership teams specifically in operations with the retailer, and then that led into asset protection. So I've spent the last eight or so years in the lost French and asset protection world.

Excellent. Thank you for that. Like I said, at NRF, you had a session, eating the elephant, tackling total retail loss one bite at a time. Can you speak a little bit on what that session covered and why do you think it's so important for retailers to be thinking? more in terms of total retail loss. Sure, I was joined by Tim Murphan and Mark Stindy,

and the three of us really engaged as a panel to discuss how we've tackled total retail loss. And when we think and talk about total retail loss, it really goes beyond that shrink percent that has been our guiding light and asset protection or loss prevention for a while, we recognize that there are many different buckets across our operational processes,

and how we do business that are both malicious and non-malicious that indicate or affect or impact the loss that the company has. So when we look at, you know, how do we drive profitable sales, it's worth taking a look at all of these different buckets to see where we're where we can lean in and control and reduce of losses. Excellent. Now, you were up there with Mark Stendy and Tim Murfin, who are at Casey's and Southeast, respectively. Both are pretty heavy in the food business.

You have a lot more experience on the department side and the apparel side. So can you tell us about some of the key operational challenges as an LP leader in the soft lines business and department stores, specialty business, all of those? What would you say are some of the key challenges there? Yeah, I think for us key challenges, a lot of it has to do. with merchandise handling, making sure that the product comes, you know, if you're in a store, you know, from that truck and how you process it to the floor. Different retailers have different things, you know, the product can be damaged or not make it to the rack or the floor fixture in the right way.

But then again, digging into some of those things like damages, defectives, reverse logistics, where you're doing transfers to other stores to ensure the right assortment. And then there's a lot of things that happen at POS. And we've got great exception-based reporting tools that assist us in, you know, being able to identify some of the things that happen at POS. But we also have other things like, you know, e-com, where our systems have started to integrate. And how do you go from brick and mortar to an Omni-Channel integration and understand where some of the gaps may be in those systems? Yes. All key challenges. The brick and mortar and omnichannel piece, I think, is probably one of the greatest challenges. You know, having things purchased online and returns in stores, having things and vice versa and everything else.

It's just an incredible number of changes that have been made recently. You know, what are some of the things that you've done at organizations you worked at the past to first, you know, begin to, understand the root causes of some of the problems. How do you approach just a problem analysis process? Yeah. You know, so I think if you talk to anybody in retail, whether you're an asset protection loss prevention or you're an operator in a store, you can walk into an environment and you get a feeling on whether or not that store is operationally sound, whether the associates,

the store leadership, they're engaged. And sometimes you've got data that comes to you, and most oftentimes it's a shrink percent that may not be consistent with what you're seeing in that environment. So we really look at the art and the science. And when the art and the science and the observations that we have are not matching up, that's when I think we've got to take a deeper dive in. And so in my experience and recently, we had situations where we would have some really high shrink percent or we would see some of the category or sub-level sales have shrink that,

was going up and down without a reasonable explanation, which caused us to really start to have cross-functional conversations with our partners and understand what was happening or influencing because we looked at case management systems and we didn't see the activity in the case management systems that would show like a known fact report or any kind of external or even internal cases to support that shrink percent. And so when we dug into it, we really looked at all of the different aspects and it led us to creating this team to identify and really define what our product lifecycle is. So how does that, how do we decide that we're going to purchase this product source it, purchase this product as a company, put it on a boat across the water, it comes into

you know, sometimes different, you know, regional distribution centers. And then how does it flow out and ultimately wind up in the store? And then how does the store process it, go through POS and come back through? And so in that product lifecycle, we just identified different areas where we had gaps. And the cool thing about it was that we started to expand our conversations class functionally. shortly after that we started having conversations with our merchants and our buying team supply chain was involved finance and the controllers were involved and we really got to bring this kind of think tank together to say hey what is going on here what do we not understand and how can we get some assistance and I think that's when

we brought our IT folks in because they really helped uncover some of the systemic issues we were seeing Fantastic. Now that's that's a super cool. So you pretty much looked at the entire process and started to identify all of your potential aiming points where things might might be going missing along along the lines. So that's a that's pretty cool. That's how we think about things, the LPRC as well with the five zones of influence and the bow tie. But that's been always been so focused on crime and less on those operation losses. In recent years, there's been this big debate. around, you know, well, I don't think there's been so much debate on the retail side. I think all the retailers understand exactly how bad the criminal element is, but then there's been a lot of pushback in the media about, you know, what percentage of this is actually operational? I don't like that conversation because it treats these as two separate things when if you have a criminal issue, a malicious loss issue, that's going to have a lot of impacts on store operations. Absolutely. How do you see those two things?

being intertwined. Yeah, I don't think, I think where we do misstep sometimes in loss prevention or asset protection is when we decide to pivot solely on, you know, one of the specific areas, whether we're looking at external criminal theft and we're just blind to maybe some of the things that are going on internally and operationally. I think the most successful and effective programs out there in retailers are really those teams that are agile enough to understand how they intertwine, because sometimes you can have some criminal or external events that do influence how your associates make decisions inside the

store, which can lead to some of those operational controls, internal cases that we've seen enclosed in the past. Thank you for that. At the LPRC, we are much more interested. I mean, historically, if you look at our research team, we're mostly criminologists, criminal justice, scholars. We've got some cognitive psychologists and some geographers and things, but it's been very focused on the criminal element for a very long time. We are getting more into this operational area and trying to understand total retail loss, really. So what do you think are some key elements of any program, any LP program specifically, that is really taking operational losses seriously? Yeah. So, you know, most retailers have an operational audit. And the operational audit is only as effective as the person who's conducting it, their understanding of the different elements and how it affects their specific business. So, you know, for a store general manager, it's that one location for a district, right? It grows up and, you know, to, you know, like a vice president with a zone or a region. But all of it has to do with human.

behavior because, you know, the associate that's in the store that needs to follow these guidelines or these practices, they make a decision every day whether or not they want to follow the prescriptive process or if they're going to cut corners or if they feel like, you know, there's pressure and they don't have time to do things. And so I really think it is understanding what that frontline associate is going through with that store owner or store. shopkeeper, if you think of, you know, how they're making decisions in their building and then how it rolls up. Because these really, these everyday decisions are part of what contributes to, you know, that kind of operational shrink really growing and starting to form a snowball. And the same thing

happens in a home office area too, you know, where you've got maybe a store operations group or an IT group, and even the merchandising and buying teams, too, is that how are they making decisions from where they sit every day and maybe not being as familiar with what happens once their product gets in the store? So anything that we can do from where we sit in a home office or a headquarters standpoint in understanding how that frontline associate behaves or processes the information that's where we're going to help fill the gap now that's that's very helpful and that allows me to kind of pivot to leadership and cross-functional partnerships a little bit more when you are when you lead the LP program you have to still work with all of your partners you have to lead your own

team and you have to also lead within the company to get your partners um to take the necessary steps to help solve the problems that you have. How do you approach those issues of cross-functional partition? How do you build those relationships so that you can effectively lead others who are not necessarily within your hierarchy? Yeah, I think two things. It's really seeking to understand and understand, you know, what their processes are, what their goals are and some of their challenges and to do it proactively.

A lot of times we'll see an asset projection or loss prevention. Those cross-functional partners will engage with us when there's a problem. We would love to get in front of that and create that relationship ahead of time. And then secondly, find out what's important to them. Because once we know what's important to them, then I can look at what my function is and see how we kind of mesh or dovetail together and where I can support their efforts as well. We're not so different in what we're trying to do.

We're all rolling up to an organizational goal. And there's a lot of different ways where we can support our partners, understanding where sometimes our asks may complicate or burden a department. So how do we prioritize better as asset protection or loss prevention partners, and then, you know, where are their challenges and how can we relieve some of the stress that they're feeling?

We understand that. So what you're saying is that we shouldn't just engage them whenever we need something, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's key. There's a great little book that Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And it really starts with trying to understand other people's perspectives so that you're not just coming to get that you're actually bringing something to the table and making sure that they understand that you

understand what they what they're trying to accomplish while simultaneously trying to get them to help you now that's that's external that's that's working cross-functionally you know you've had a very long and illustrious career in this profession you know how has your leadership style within your departments you know evolved over time and what are some key lessons that you've taken in a way, just as a leader, leading teams to get the people to do the things that you need them to do. Yeah, so you mentioned it. It's really understanding that it's about people.

It doesn't cost anything extra to be kind and respectful in any situation. And that's really been my guiding light to be a servant leader. How can I remove obstacles and put those individuals in the best possible environment and giving them experiences and exposure to things that help them grow throughout their career. And then we just touched on it, too, but developing a network and really understanding relationship currency, how do we not ask, overask when we need something, but to really be a good partner and have those balanced relationships as well? Yes.

that relationship currency or social capital is always a very, very helpful. I want to go back to that servant leadership that you mentioned. What do you, when you say servant leader, what do you mean by that? I think it's really having honest and frequent conversations with the people you work with. And it could be your direct reports. It could be your peers. And even those that you're beginning to establish relationships with. And having an honest conversation is just your observations.

It's also understanding, admitting maybe where you're having some learning curves, where you need some additional support, you know, in your career as well. So that's really where we've tried to figure out, you know, and go back to just human behavior, where the relationship forms, first, and then what you need to accomplish comes after. Yes, I've seen that as well. You were also just presenting it in our protect recently. And so one way that you've led is you consistently been engaged in these professional

associations, professional organizations. You know, how do you think this has influenced your work beyond, you mentioned networks, so that's very important. But beyond that, how do you think being engaged in? and these different organizations have helped you throughout your career. Yeah. I'll be honest, it's been huge for me, especially making the transition from an operator into an asset protection

or loss prevention practitioner. And especially as I kind of promoted and took up more scope and responsibility to include things like ORC investigations and areas that I didn't accept. experience as an operator. So I was fortunate enough to have some of the people that that worked with me. Some of them were direct reports and they made sure that I was invited and included. And I think it's really valuable to, and it kind of goes, but honestly, right, to that servant leadership is how do you be inclusive? And for me, I was fortunate because that inclusivity was not just about me including a direct report, is my direct report's making sure that I came on the

journey with them. So I was, you know, fortunate enough, I think that the first place that I engaged was actually clear in the Orlando areas. I live in Florida. And so it was great to engage with that team, the coalition of law enforcement and retailers. And so, you know, from there, we just decided to see, you know, how you can participate. And participating is not always about influencing. Participating is about learning. Participating is about contributing your perspective, your experiences, and being able to add to the conversation. I had no idea that was your first intro to LP was clear. That's a pretty awesome introduction. Yeah. As I'm sure you know, we're partners with clear this year on the annual conference and we're super excited about it. But it's

highly tactical. It's probably my, it's by far my favorite tactical conference because you just get the, you get a very close and personal introduction to how some of these investigations go down and by understanding that working backwards to think

strategically as well. That's super cool. I think the last place that we can end is looking back over your career. What advice would you have for aspiring professionals who who want to do big things in this industry? Yeah, I would say, first of all, have a growth mindset,

which also means having a curious mindset. You have to be curious about everything that's out there. I think it's don't stop it, maybe the first answer that you get. and don't take the first or even second or third experience you have as the way that you might need to move forward. So be curious and apply that to networking. Expand your network. Take on a diverse group of people within your community and start building those relationships. And too often than not, I see people who are just new in position and they tend to be a little timid about joining groups or organizations, being on a working group, let's say, for the LPRC, I would take that chance and take that risk, start getting engaged in the community of asset protection and loss prevention early.

Gotcha. That's all very, very helpful advice. I think very wise advice. So thank you for that. Anything else you wanted to cover today? No, I just, I really appreciate your time, Corey. Thank you for inviting me on. It's one of my favorite podcasts. So I love being able to participate and have a conversation with you. And you are one of the LPRC's favorite people. So it was very good to have you, very good talking to you today. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you for joining us once again for the crime science podcast. My name is Corey Love and joined by Liz Berkholder. Thank you all very much.

Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast, presented by the Lost Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lprosearch.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 Loss Prevention Research Council.