Archived Possible Integrity Issue

[706]

Around my store it has become a recent occurrence that personal friends of the upper management (senior TL's and ETL's) have been receiving preferential treatment because of their relationship. Initially what was going on was fairly innocuous. These individuals would shop right up until we closed and make the front end stay late to accommodate them or they would use the service desk as their private checkout regardless of how much they had, but lately the favors have made me uncomfortable. Recently we have been directed to carry out price matches that violate our price match policy or accept coupons that we shouldn't solely because of their friendship. We had one instance where despite having their return denied by POS the LOD, who is in the circle of friends, overrode POS to give them back several hundred dollars on a gift card. In another instance the LOD was specifically requested to come up to guest service to process a missed coupon because of their friendship, and the individual was given 20 dollars back as a missed coupon despite having not met the purchase threshold to use the coupon as well as already having gotten to use two 10 dollar off coupons. I can't decide if what is going on in my store is an issue, or if I'm just overreacting to being walked on by these people; however, I would greatly appreciate some opinions on this situation by anyone who knows better than I.

 

[RetailWorld]

Do you have an ETL-AP in your building?

 

[706]

Unfortunately we don't. We do have an APTL who I'm friends with, but they felt that this issue was outside of their domain given the fact several ETL's were involved. They recommended the hotline, but I don't even know if this situation is a problem or not.

 

[mrknownothing]

This is absolutely a problem. If your ETL-HR and STL are out of the question and AP can't do anything, then call Integrity.

 

[706]

Well I'm glad to hear that someone else feels that this is an issue. It's been hard to know what to do as the ETL HR is one of the people involved. In the beginning it didn't necessarily feel like they were having us do something wrong, but lately it has started to cross the line.

 

[RetailWorld]

See if you can contact your AP Business Partner. You should still have one for your group. Your APTL friend should be able to get his email address or cell number via the internal contacts list.

 

[RetailWorld]

And if you are the one to address the APBP, remember, it's not your place to determine guilt or crime. You are simply uncomfortable with the position you are put in. Accusations and finger pointing typically looks like petty in-store politics. And it's up to the the APBP to determine any kind of violation or even crime, not you.

Besides, if it's as blatant as you are saying, it should be clear cut. Just provide dates/times....they can pull up a surprisingly large amount of info from POS logs and DVR files.

 

[706]

I really appreciate your advice on the situation. I know sometimes it makes sense to take care of the guest and go against policy, but in these instances it always felt off. Obviously I didn't know whether this would be considered an integrity issue, but the fact that these people would ask for these LOD's by name to assist them when we have perfectly competent guest service team members behind the service desk seemed off. I wouldn't have even bothered asking if it hadn't been for the day that the LOD gave them twenty in cash for a missed coupon without even checking out the receipt.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Ap maybe watching them without your knowledge. Based on details presented, calling the hotline would be ineffective. Unless you have document proof & not heresay. You might want talk to your hrtl or hrtm on your concerns. They could tell you, if any policy was violated. My hrtm is really good at keeping things quiet, btw.
Then, talk to your stl.

 

[Nauzhror]

Shopping late and using the service desk as checkout seem non-ossues to me. Coupon examples is harder to determine. If a coupon is for $20 off of $100 in a certain department I will override it if a guest is just shy of the $100 mark (say $98, not $85). Not sure I'd ever feel comfortable doing it for a TM though due to potential accusations of nepotism.

 

[redandkhaki]

Are these things your store would do for other guests?
How do you know they are friends with the ETL?

 

[Retail Girl]

Your friend in AP isn't giving you the whole truth because they cannot do so. They can absolutely investigate an ETL, but they cannot tell you about any internals that are going on. So if AP wants to investigate this, they can.

Calling the hotline will only kick it back to the STL and ETL-HR who will say there is no problem and start a witch hunt to see who made the call.

 

[706]

I think the biggest problem for me is that what has been going on is not what we would normally do in our store for a guest. With the coupons for instance we would normally be more than happy to give them the coupon if they were close, but the need to cut out the service desk is what's concerning. What happens most of the time is that if these individuals don't receive the special treatment they want they inform their friends in management who then give hell to whoever it was who didn't just take care of it.

 

[POGguy]

Like someone else said, AP isn't going to tell you anything. Or atleast they shouldn't be. I would be surprised if he hasn't brought it up to the APBP.

If you see the APBP in the store by chance I would introduce yourself (if you haven't already) and ask if you can speak to him about your concerns.

 

[tgtguy]

I would say call the hotline. Yes, a run down of the call will be given to your stores leadership but its also gets reported to people way above your stl. The only way I wouldn't call is if I had one hell of a hr/etl that I knew I could trust.

 

[dave white]

Unfortunately we don't. We do have an APTL who I'm friends with, but they felt that this issue was outside of their domain given the fact several ETL's were involved. They recommended the hotline, but I don't even know if this situation is a problem or not.

Just report it to AP and move along. As said prior, AP can't tell you about internals. Typically AP has to partner with at least etl hr, maybe stl and apbp as well, to investigate an ETL.