Submitted by Lauren Maes-Forbey
Area Loss Prevention Coordinator
Stein Mart

Most mid-level and senior-level Loss Prevention executives pride themselves on running a tight ship. They spend countless hours on educating themselves, their teams, and making outstanding hiring choices. They want to hire the best; they want their team to BE the best!

But here's my thought: as a parent, you spend countless hours teaching your children responsibility, how to make proper choices and decisions. You then send them off into adulthood, safe in the knowledge that you know you helped shape a responsible human being. Why not extend that same trust and courtesy to your LP team?

When hiring the best, trust your team to make their own decisions. Those of us who have been in this industry a while are quite aware that we make million-dollar decisions every day. We make our decisions and do not take that responsibility lightly. In the past, I've worked for LP Managers who wanted me to verbally or otherwise account for every little decision I made throughout my day. Rather than worrying about how to do something right, I began to worry that I was doing something wrong-- that I would somehow forget to include some tiny detail that would earn me a lecture. I pride myself on being dedicated to my career and being flawless in my cases, yet in the past I never felt like I was trusted to do the right thing by my LP Manager or DLPM.

My point is this: If you hire the best, TRUST them to be the best! If you make a worthwhile employee feel like a failure, they will begin to doubt themselves, which is never a good thing. Unconfident people don't make cases. We want to look good, and we want our teams to look good, too! So trust us, will you? :)