10 Loss prevention training courses
Guaranteeing a safe and comfortable shopping experience is key to driving a business’s profitability. But with organized retail crimes becoming increasingly complex each year, it’s up to you to enact preventive measures to keep your shop and employees safe.
Teach your crew to be one step ahead with these ten loss prevention training courses. Topics include operational excellence, common shoplifting techniques, loss prevention measures, and more.
Loss Prevention Primer
We’re starting strong with SC Training’s comprehensive loss prevention primer. This 5-part course offers the definition, common methods of theft, equipment for loss prevention, and proven techniques to combat loss. It caps everything off with a final assessment to test learners’ knowledge.
Through interactive images and friendly dialogue, it emphasizes the impact of theft on retail industries and the ensuing need for loss prevention training. This preventive measure establishes practices and policies to minimize inventory and profit loss.
As a mobile-first learning platform, SC Training (formerly EdApp) is specialized for teams on the go. It only takes five minutes to complete a bite-sized lesson, which can be taken on any device. Monitor employee compliance through its robust reporting suite. Using real-time updates, the slide-level analytics identify which area of the course your team is poorly performing on, so you can revise as necessary.
Let Rapid Refresh ease your quiz-making process so you can deliver game-like training in minutes. With a simple spreadsheet, feel free to input all the questions and answers and set the quiz frequency.
Created by: SC Training
Length: 5-8 minutes per lesson (self-paced)
Certificate: Available
Cost: Free (up to 10 users)
Retail Management: Retail Technology and Security
Up next is Alison’s loss prevention course, which is perfect for managers in the retail industry. Aside from sharing established procedures to prevent shoplifting and the benefits of hiring security, your crew will learn the importance of installing radio frequency identification (RFID) among your products, which sets off an alarm when set down near detectors.
Prevent retail crime by training your team to use the latest technology. This course also offers tips for managing customer relations, such as handling complaints and mitigating aggressive behaviors.
Loss Prevention Detective
This extensive 10-hour course is for those who wish to work undercover as a loss prevention detective or law enforcement officers looking for refresher training. Learn ways to catch shoplifters, pinpoint dishonest employees, and report writing standards.
Aside from discussing the different types of shoplifting, you’ll also be introduced to surveillance techniques to minimize theft in the workplace. There are quizzes after each module to test learners’ knowledge. A certificate of completion is available for download upon passing the final exam.
Loss Prevention for Managers
Compared to other loss prevention programs that cater to a general audience, this is specially designed for managers in charge of safety and inventory. The course offers tips on how to better supervise your team to prevent unwanted theft.
It’s heavily priced at 169 USD, so more than discussing employee theft and shoplifting, it covers other topics too. Discover the guidelines for hiring the right employee, mastering operational excellence, and opening and closing standards. Your learners can access their completion certificate after scoring a passing mark on the final assessment.
Loss Prevention Course
Perfect for entry-level learners, this quick 45-minute program caters to the general industry. Learn the basic principles of loss prevention and its significance to securing your company's assets. This includes real-life case studies in the pharmaceutical and retail sectors.
Accessible on mobile devices, your team will learn how to conduct thorough risk assessments, incident responses, and investigations to address instances of loss. A completion badge and certificate will be issued upon finishing the course.
Online Theft Awareness Class
Nationally recognized throughout the United States, this theft awareness class is separated into 13 sections, where you’ll learn all about shoplifting, its impact on society, the rationale behind people stealing, and more.
Topics on stress management and communication skills are also included in this asset protection certification program to give a comprehensive outlook on theft. This course can be accessed on any device and is self-paced to accommodate each learner’s schedule. But if you’re looking for a more in-depth program, they also offer 8 and 12-hour courses priced at 45 and 65 USD, respectively.
Essentials of Retail Asset Protection Certificate Course
Every year, theft and fraud account for billions of dollars lost by the retail industry. Help reduce this trend by equipping your security crew with loss prevention certification programs like this. As frontline workers, they’ll study the ins and outs of retail business operations, physical security, and soft skills like team building and leadership.
Though costly, this course was created with the Loss Prevention Foundation to guarantee your team’s training is in good hands. They must complete a final proficiency test containing 35 questions to access their digital certificate.
Loss Prevention for Employees
Designed for new hires or seasoned employees seeking refresher training, this course tackles the basics of shortage control, shoplift prevention methods, paperwork accuracy, and safety programs to protect the business.
This loss prevention training program runs for 2-hours and is a good choice for small businesses. Learn how shrinkage, or losing inventory due to various circumstances, hugely affects your net income. Additionally, it offers practical steps on how to act during a robbery.
Applied Data Loss Prevention
Tangible products aren’t the only valuable asset in a company. Many businesses have switched their physical paperwork to online repositories in today's digital economy. So what happens when a data breach occurs? Prevent this from happening to your business through EC-Council’s applied data loss prevention course.
The 5-hour course discusses essential concepts for safeguarding private data. It offers an in-depth look at stakeholder alignment, regulatory requirements, data discovery, and policy creation. Note, however, that foundational knowledge in cybersecurity is necessary for learners to maximize this course.
Safety for Retail
Our final loss prevention course caters to distribution centers or retail store workers. In an extensive 8-10 hour program, your team will learn about claims management, how to build an effective awareness campaign, store records, and determine the root cause of accidents.
They’ll also learn how to establish a safety-first audit program and the various tools for engaging all levels in the building. Though heavily priced at 169 USD, this course covers a range of essential topics for maintaining safety in the retail environment.
Theft and fraud immensely cripple a business’s net income. Nearly 100 billion USD worth of inventory loss (from causes excluding sales) was reported in 2022, according to the National Retail Foundation, the largest retail trade association in the world.
To combat this, loss prevention training adds an extra layer of security to your business. So your employees can uphold workplace safety and maintain customer satisfaction.
This includes training your teams to recognize and flag internal threats like employee theft, fraudulent refunds, and inventory data errors. As well as educating your teams on how to identify and create records for external threats like shoplifting, burglary, credit card fraud, and other crimes executed by non-employees.
Here are five points of loss prevention to help you protect your business from theft through a mix of formal and informal learning.
What are the 5 points of loss prevention?
Getting to the root cause is key to widespread awareness. The next step is to enact preventive measures through loss prevention, which covers a system of practices to safeguard profit by minimizing preventable losses. Here are five points to consider in reducing shrinkage:
Promote Vigilance
Employees on each work shift are the frontliners of your business. Rather than fully relying on surveillance cameras, nothing beats the traditional on-floor observations, as the response here is immediate. Building a well-trained team deters potential shoplifters, as their vigilance would throw off their plans — whether it’s workers assigned to check and clean the fitting rooms or simply taking turns to patrol the area.
Improve Customer Service
Aside from the goal of offering a comfortable shopping experience, improving customer service is a great way to minimize losses. Constantly engaging with customers subtly informs potential thieves that no one in the shop is neglecting their jobs, as they’re familiar with customers’ appearances.
Manage Access Control
Manage the workers that come in and out of your business. Start by adding an extra layer of security to your business by implementing checkpoints, an employee login system, or a visitor log. For an organized workflow, digital tools can help ease the transition.
Help your team pull up essential data anytime, anywhere. Luckily, mobile-first platforms like SC Training’s Briefcase feature are a great way to store all your essential policy documents, as they can easily be shared across teams.
Install RFID
Technology is a cornerstone for improving a business’s safety policies. Strengthen your security with item tags. It uses RFID technology to inform retailers of when, where, and the exact time specific items were taken. The data can be used to map out shoplifting patterns, update the inventory system, and identify whether the theft was internal or external.
Invest in Employee Training
Lastly, regular employee training is the most effective way to prepare for any scenario. From customer handling to cybersecurity and locking up the shop, continuous learning instills knowledge and awareness among your team to safeguard your business against potential theft and fraud.
What are the skills that make a good loss prevention specialist?
Empower your employees to take a proactive stance toward protecting your inventory. Here’s an essential mix of soft and hard skills necessary to become a good loss prevention specialist:
- Active listening - Retaining key information is the first step to becoming an effective loss prevention specialist. During training, they’ll be introduced to plenty of new information, so everyone needs to cultivate this skill early on.
- Critical thinking - The capacity to self-reflect even under pressure is key to solving a problem. As the scenarios won’t always be black-and-white, employees must train to become critical thinkers.
- Conflict resolution - Settling disputes and restoring peace is what this soft skill is about. Being in the service industry opens up plenty of cases wherein your staff may face confrontation with aggressive customers. Teach them to resolve such conflicts calmly.
- Report writing - This hard skill promotes transparency and accountability among your team. Should any incident arise, they must know how to draft a comprehensive report detailing how the retail crime went down. This may serve as a reference for future legal actions.
- Knowledge of laws and policies - As a loss prevention specialist, laws and regulations must be the guiding light when charging someone with an offense, as this protects the business from potential lawsuits. Make sure to keep your training materials and guidelines updated to steer clear of any complications.
Reduce business shrinkage with loss prevention training
A few minutes of training each day will make a lasting impact on your business’s year-end revenue. Stop theft incidents before they happen by enrolling your crew in loss prevention training.
Promoting accountability among your team will enable them to perform their jobs well, guaranteeing customers a safe shopping experience each time.
Discover the best courses for loss prevention training. Sign up for SC Training today.