From employee training to video monitoring and community engagement, Mac’s fights crime from all angles.
By Erin Rigik, Senior Editor
Mac’s Convenience Stores Inc., a Toronto, Canada-based division of Alimentation Couche-Tard, is taking a multi-faceted approach to preventing theft. Proven tools include a growing Crime Busters Program, best practices in preventing internal shrink and graffiti art mural community projects to better connect local residents to its store locations.
As a result, its efforts are paying off in a big way. Mac’s store robberies were down 8% in fiscal 2015 (May 2014 to April 2015) compared to fiscal 2014, and down a whopping 49% compared to fiscal 2012.
Mac’s owes much of this reduction in crime to its Crime Buster program through a partnership with the Ontario Crime Stoppers Association, which debuted in 2012. The program involves taking videos and images of thieves who have robbed a convenience store, placing those images on social media and asking the public to identify them.
Since its inception, Mac’s has posted 240 suspect images, which resulted in 189 apprehensions and 204 cases being cleared. The numbers demonstrate that many of the thieves targeted multiple stores. The program has resulted in a 79% clearance rate. Mac’s has only paid out a total of $1,200 for the tips, which translates to a strong return on investment when looking at industry loss statistics.
PERFECTING BEST PRACTICES
In 2008, Mac’s was facing massive total robbery losses of $154,916. In fiscal 2014, the total monetary amount related to store robberies at Mac’s was a mere $9,662.05. Comparably, fiscal 2015’s total loss of $9,913.98 reflected a slight increase of $251.93. Of the $9,913.98, the total cash loss was $3,426.39, which represents a per-incident loss of only $47.59.
“The loss figures lost in a robbery do not even come close the potential loss associated with a WSIB (Workplace Safety and Insurance Board) claim for trauma of the employee. The average potential for a WSIB trauma claim (robbery related) is approximately $100,” said Sean Sportun, ICPS, manager, security & loss prevention for Mac’s Convenience Stores. “As a result of the reduction in robbery incidents since fiscal 2008, our Crime Prevention Through Community Engagement strategy has assisted Mac’s in reducing incidents of robbery by 125 incidents—with a potential savings of $12.5 million in WSIB claims. This is the number that makes you pay more attention to the residual effects of a robbery and the importance of taking steps to prevent them from occurring.”
Sportun attributed the drop in total robbery losses per incident to best practices in training and monitoring.
“When I first came over from 7-Eleven to Mac’s in 2007, it was frustrating to see the safe was open and employees were keeping $200-$300 in the till. We had to treat that culture of security and safety so that they understood why it was important,” Sportun said. “If you have $200 in your till and you get robbed, then the robbers are going to come back here, or they’re going to go down the street to the next Mac’s and rob them because they assume they also have a large amount of cash on hand.”
Today, employees are required to keep no more than $100 in the cash register during the day and $50 at night. While Mac’s does not use safes that count money, it does use drop safes that employees cannot open.
In addition, workers go through a computer-based training program, which includes an operational awareness program with in-depth robbery prevention strategies. The loss prevention team also visits different areas for on-site, in-person training sessions, where it shows actual video footage from stores where employees follow procedures to a positive result or don’t follow best practices to a negative result.
“I think that concept of showing them tangible videos of actual employees that have done well, as well as made mistakes resonates with them,” Sportun said.
EYE IN THE SKY
Mac’s has a monitoring center that keeps tabs on the stores’ activity. “From the monitoring center they are able to dial into the stores—to the DVR—and what we do is called a virtual introduction where we will monitor for 10-15 minutes the activity of the employees,” Sportun said.
Whether money isn’t being placed in the drop safe frequently enough or there is a wet spot on the floor that requires a sign to prevent slip and falls, those monitoring can alert employees and prevent costly mistakes.
“I think the combination of the training and the remote monitoring have impacted our employees so much that they are following the proper procedures that we have in place,” Sportun said.
The chain also completes physical inspections of the stores at least once a year, during which it is ensured all windows are clear and the visibility line is good, and that no escape routes or places to hide exist on the property. Fences are sometimes added to eliminate an escape route.
To prevent employee shrinkage, Mac’s encourages its store operators to review all exception-based rings, such as a no sale, a refund or a void and check the video just for those transactions.
“If something like a refund happens and the video is unclear, the very next shift, which should be the next day, you bring in that employee and say, ‘Hey, listen, I saw you make a refund yesterday for Tylenol. What was all that about?’ And if they are doing something they shouldn’t be doing, the message will get across that we’re watching,” Sportun said.
Combined with random virtual monitoring inspections employees get a sense someone is always watching.
“What we tell our monitors is you come in for your shift, you pick any single store, any single area that you want and you do your inspections on those stores,” Sportun said. “Then if through the three shifts we end up targeting one area all three shifts, so be it. This makes it random, makes it fair and it lets our employees know we are watching.”
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Mac’s has seen continued success using a mural project to combat crime at its stores, and introduced a fifth store to the program in May in Brampton.
“It’s been phenomenal,” said Sportun of the program, which he introduced in 2012. “We had some real challenging issues up in Thunder Bay in 2012 and I had this idea of engaging local graffiti artists to put up a mural.”
The theory behind the project was to use graffiti art as a community-engagement activity, encouraging the residents in the community to feel some ownership for the store, thus making them less likely to commit crimes against the store.
“Since we put the first mural up in Thunder Bay, we have had not one issue in that store,” Sportun said.
The program was so successful that Mac’s repeated it at four stores—with identical results at each. At a store in a Rexdale plaza, crime not only ceased at the Mac’s c-store, but also decreased at the whole plaza. At a store in Keswick plagued by graffiti, once the mural went up, the graffiti stopped.
Mac’s expects to see similar results at its Brampton store.
The York regional police even talked about the program in its annual magazine, noting it is an effective crime prevention tool to break down barriers with kids, Sportun said. Long term, this will have a positive impact.
