Let's Hear From You - How has working from home impacted you?

Question of the Month: What do you think will happen when workplaces reopen after coronavirus lockdowns?

Will things return to the way they were, or has the grand work-from-home experiment forever altered office culture?

In the coming days we'll share the community's thoughts. Thanks in advance for your time. Remember it takes a community - Gus Downing (Email us at lpnews@d-ddaily.net)
 

Coronavirus Update: April 13

US: Over 577K Cases - 23K Dead - 34K Recovered

Worldwide: Over 1.9M Cases - 118K Dead - 439K Recovered
 

'It feels like a war zone'
 
As more of them die, grocery workers increasingly fear showing up at work

At least 41 grocery workers have died of the coronavirus and thousands more have tested positive in recent weeks

Next to health-care providers, no workforce has proved more essential during the novel coronavirus pandemic than the 3 million U.S. grocery store employees who restock shelves and freezers, fill online orders and keep checkout lines moving. Although the public health guidelines are clear - steer clear of others - these workers are putting in longer shifts and taking on bigger workloads. Many report being stressed and scared, especially as their colleagues fall ill to the highly contagious coronavirus that is responsible for more than 21,000 deaths in the United States alone.

Some liken their job to working in a war zone, knowing that the simple act of showing up to work could ultimately kill them. At least 41 grocery workers have died so far. They include a Trader Joe's employee in New York, a Safeway worker in Seattle, a pair of Walmart associates near Chicago and four Kroger employees in Michigan, as well as employees at meatpacking plants and food processing facilities around the country.

More than 1,500 supermarket workers throughout the country have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 900,000 grocery employees at chains such as Kroger, Safeway and Giant. Nearly 3,000 members are not working because they are quarantined, hospitalized or awaiting test results, the union said.

Now workers across the country are staying home or quitting altogether, according to interviews with more than a dozen employees, leaving many markets short-staffed and ill-prepared to deal with demand. That's complicated the scramble led by Walmart, Kroger and Safeway to fill hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Demand for groceries has doubled in recent weeks, employees say, as Americans avoid restaurants and prepare most of their meals at home. washingtonpost.com

How transparent should grocers be about employees infected with COVID-19?
Trader Joe's, H-E-B and ShopRite are standing out for providing transparency about the number of their employees testing positive for coronavirus. The majority of retail is largely keeping such incidents under wraps.

Trader Joe's prominently displays a "Today's Temporary Closures" update on its website that shows how many stores have been temporarily closed for cleaning because at least one associate has tested positive. The update includes the latest date when an infected "crew member" was in the store. Trader Joe's also appears to be one of the few that is temporarily closing locations to conduct a deep cleaning after an incident.

H-E-B similarly details on its site when an associate has tested positive and was last in a particular store. The Texas chain notes that the store has been thoroughly cleaned. ShopRite details on Facebook pages how many associates have tested positive and how many are showing symptoms.

Walmart is among a number of larger chains that has declined to confirm employee infections, citing medical privacy laws. retailwire.com

Authorities order grocery workers and customers to cover their faces
State and local authorities are starting to require customers and employees of supermarkets to cover their faces when inside grocery stores, the latest step in a campaign by public officials across the United States to stop people from spreading the coronavirus when they leave their homes.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive order Tuesday mandating that employees of non-medical essential businesses, which include grocery stores, wear face coverings that enclose their noses and mouths while performing their jobs. Businesses covered by the order must either their workers with cloth face coverings or reimburse employees for their cost. Customers are also required to cover their faces while in stores. ​The order goes into effect Friday.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on Wednesday that employees and customers of retail establishments like grocers that are permitted to operate despite the pandemic must wear face coverings, according to The Hill. Murphy also said stores must limit the number of people they allow in at a single time to half of their approved capacity. Local officials are barred from imposing tougher rules, NJ.com reported.

Miami also issued an emergency order Wednesday requiring all customers and employees of essential businesses to wear masks or face coverings. retaildive.com

Sneeze Guards and Temperature Checks Are the New Normal for U.S. Retail

One-way aisles, advanced cleaning tech and employee temperature-taking have transformed the retail landscape - perhaps permanently.

Each day, before the 350 employees at Fresh N' Lean enter the company's food preparation center in Anaheim, California, they fill out a health questionnaire and have their temperature taken. Anyone with symptoms, even if they seem like seasonal allergies, is asked to take paid emergency sick leave. Inside, workers are spaced widely apart and wear gloves and masks as they prepare food for delivery. This week, employees received a $1 an hour raise just for coming in, since demand for mail-order meals has surged with so many people staying home.

By all accounts, Fresh N' Lean - and other companies considered essential to the U.S. economy such as Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's and Kroger - are creating a standard for operating during a pandemic. For retail locations, that includes wider or one-way aisles (or both) to keep shoppers farther apart, touchless payments and Plexiglas shields (and sometimes masks and gloves) for cashiers. Store hours are being reduced, and the number of customers allowed in at any one time is limited. All the while, store surfaces are cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned again.

Under pressure to show they care for fearful employees (and not to mention customers), companies have been devising a playbook that may change the way shopping looks long after the coronavirus has ceased being a global threat.

Medical professionals are of course most in jeopardy, and are regularly becoming ill and dying. But cashiers and supermarket clerks are falling victim to the virus, too. From grocery stores and pharmacies to transportation, utility and health-care companies, other workers necessary to keep the economy from collapsing are relying on their bosses to keep them safe. bloomberg.com

4th Avenue & Fresh Value Supermarkets Roll Out New Shopping Cart Sanitizers

Loss Prevention & Operations help lead safety effort chain-wide

4th Avenue and Fresh Value Supermarkets are going the extra mile to keep customers and employees safe. The supermarket chain has teamed up with the Alabama-based Sanitizit company. Customers can now roll their shopping cart through a machine and it sprays nontoxic, CDC-approved chemicals that kill viruses, germs, bacteria and other toxins immediately within seconds. No drying is needed.

"The organization is trying to stay ahead of this deadly virus and go the extra mile to keep our customers and employees safe with this cutting edge technology," said Randy Guarneri, Vice President of Loss Prevention. "I expect other grocery chains to follow our lead."

4th Avenue and Fresh Value Supermarkets are adding the new shopping cart sanitation to its daily cleaning regimen chain-wide, which includes employees spraying the sanitizer throughout the day and stores closing early each night so employees can thoroughly sanitize the store after hours.

Amazon is building its own Covid-19 testing lab for employees
As pressure mounts on Amazon to keep its warehouses running smoothly and at maximum capacity while also addressing safety concerns from workers, the e-commerce giant has hatched plans to build its own Covid-19 testing facilities.

Amazon announced this past week it has started assembling equipment for its first testing lab. The company said it hopes developing "incremental" testing capabilities will help it monitor the health of its hundreds of thousands of workers, including those displaying no symptoms of the virus.

"Regular testing on a global scale across all industries would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running," the company wrote in a blog post. "Unfortunately, today we live in a world of scarcity where COVID-19 testing is heavily rationed." qz.com

Amazon was already powerful.
The coronavirus pandemic cleared the way to dominance.
The global health crisis has forced 250,000 US stores closed, clearing the way to Amazon's dominance.

Amazon already accounted for nearly 40 percent of all US online retail sales - that's around eight times more than its next competitor, Walmart. Before the pandemic, the US e-commerce industry only represented between 10 percent and 15 percent of overall retail. Now, that percentage seems likely to grow, setting up Amazon to have a bigger advantage over most other retailers, including Walmart.

With millions of Americans ordered to remain home, Amazon is now, more than ever, a lifeline for essentials for millions of people rather than just a convenient option for online shopping. Consumer spending on Amazon is up 35 percent from the same period last year, according to estimates from Facteus. The labor numbers also reflect the company's growth; Amazon has hired 80,000 new workers in the past few weeks alone.

"When this is over, I think this could be the biggest boon ever to Amazon," David Kahan, the US CEO of shoe brand Birkenstock, told Recode. "Who's going to survive this? Well, you know Amazon has money in the bank." vox.com

Michigan to Ban Retailers From Selling 'Nonessential' Items
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a new stay-at-home order via YouTube on Thursday that bars large stores like Walmart, Costco, and Target from selling "nonessential" items such as plants, furniture, paint, and more. With the order, Michigan joins Vermont and several local governments that have taken similar measures, prompting stores to rope off aisles and bar certain purchases. The order, which stays in effect until May 1, specifically requires stores larger than 50,000 square feet to close areas dedicated to carpeting, flooring, furniture, garden centers, plant nurseries, or paint. The order suggests that stores close these sections by "placing signs in aisles, posting prominent signs, removing goods from shelves," or using other means. mytotalretail.com

Can Law Enforcement Handle Scofflaws Amid A Pandemic?

Jails have become a COVID-19 'death sentence' - Incarceration viewed as a last resort

While most have voluntarily complied with stay-at-home orders in an effort to protect themselves and others from COVID-19, scofflaws put police in a pickle: How do you enforce public health directives at a time when jails and prisons incubate the very disease you're trying to suppress?

"There's the dilemma - you don't want to put anyone in prison," said Judge Nancy Gertner, a professor at Harvard Law School. "Detention facilities are petri dishes. You send someone to jail, it could be a death sentence."

Jail as capital punishment is no hyperbole: Cook County Jail in Illinois is the hardest-hit per-capita COVID-19 site in the country, with more than 350 cases and at least two inmate deaths. Rikers Island in New York City has had over 700 cases between inmates, staff and health care workers, including seven jail employee deaths and two inmate deaths.

Law enforcement has generally agreed that incarceration should be a last resort. In Prince George's County, Maryland, for example, police have released an infographic detailing protocols for enforcing the local stay-at-home order. Officers have been instructed to inform and educate and only issue citations or make arrests if all else fails. law360.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci says "We'll never shake hands again."
Why do we do it to begin with?
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was "somewhat serious" when he said "we may never shake hands again" last week in a Wall Street Journal podcast. He also said it would likely never happen that we would quit shaking hands.

Which makes one wonder: Why do we shake hands at all? And how did we decide that shaking with the right hand was the acceptable way to shake?

There are lots of practical theories about shaking hands. For one thing, it shows that you don't have a weapon in your hand - and moving your hands and arm up and down might shake loose a weapon if you had one hidden.

Historians say the handshake has also been useful because it conveys a lot with no words. It works across languages and cultures.

Shaking hands is also a signal that the parties involved are equals, rather than bowing or curtseying which sends the signal of subservience.

Do you know where that hand has been?

OK, so here is why Dr. Fauci may be concerned about handshaking. It turns out that after we shake hands with people, we tend to fairly quickly put our hands to our faces. Look at this undercover video from the Weizmann Institute of Science (in Israel). The experiment recorded 153 people who, strangely, touched their hands to their noses right after shaking hands with a stranger. poynter.org

The 6-Feet Office
Our offices will never be the same after COVID-19
Here's what they could look like
It's hard to imagine now - as most of us are reading this in quarantine, with our feet propped on Costco boxes of spaghetti noodles - but we will one day have to go back to our offices. COVID-19 won't be eradicated, and not everyone will be immune. But we'll still be expected to sit at a desk and work. So how will work... work?

That's the question that commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield is answering already, because in the past month, the company has helped 10,000 organizations in China move nearly one million people back to work. Using learnings gathered in China, along with World Health Organization data and the advice of medical specialists, the firm developed a new concept inside its own Amsterdam headquarters dubbed the Six Feet Office. It's both a working laboratory and a showroom for the firm's clients meant to call attention to how people might safely go back to work in offices.

The core premise is to ensure that six feet, the recommended measurement for safe social distancing, stays between people at all times. This behavior is encouraged through properly spaced desks, but also visual signals, such as a circle embedded in the carpeting around each desk to ensure people don't get too close. fastcompany.com

World's largest pork processor shuts down plant, warns of meat shortages
Smithfield Foods, the world's biggest pork processor, said Sunday it will shut down its plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving "perilously close to the edge" in supplies for grocers. Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the US food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock. nypost.com

The LPRC COVID-19 Resources Page
As a response to the current pandemic, the LPRC is providing retailers and practitioners with a COVID-19 Resources Page. This landing page will include access to the LPRC webinar "COVID-19: How Retail Offenders Take Advantage of Crisis Situations", the LPRC COVID-19 CrimeScience episode "COVID-19 and Retail's Forecast", federal and state resources, access to LPRC's ongoing projects, and news and announcements on the current pandemic. Also available is a contact form for any specific questions for the LPRC research team. View the page here.

Interface Security Systems Announced as Newest LPF Partner
The Loss Prevention Foundation (LPF) announces its newest Bachelor Level Partner, Interface Security Systems, LLC. The Bachelor level partnership allows Interface to provide LPQ and LPC certification course scholarships, as well as LPF memberships, to loss prevention industry professionals. Interface Security Systems is an industry leading managed services provider specializing in delivering managed network, asset protection, and business intelligence services to distributed enterprises. Its Loss prevention portfolio includes Interactive monitoring services that act as a Virtual Security Guard, Video Verified Alarm, Managed Access Control, Intrusion Alarms and POS Exception Reporting. yourlpf.org

WZ Launches New Virtual Classroom Courses
Get ready to become #WZTrained in a virtual environment! Our NEW, LIVE virtual classes are led by the same trusted and highly qualified WZ instructors. Just like our traditional classroom, you can ask questions, participate in group breakout sessions and join in on classroom activities to enhance your learning experience.

We are excited to announce that you can now attend the Level 1 Interview and Interrogation Seminar or Level 2 Practical Advanced Workshop in a completely remote, social-distanced, virtual environment.

Our team of WZ Instructors have gone through an in-depth review of our training programs to adapt their delivery while leveraging technology. We are confident that this delivery venue will provide attendees with the same knowledge and practical toolkit that has come to be expected after a typical WZ training seminar. Every virtual training program will be hosted by a WZ instructor, with multiple forms of engagement and interactive activities built throughout. These programs will incorporate the use of breakout rooms, whiteboards and role-play with the instructor and peers.

For more information, or to register for these exciting remote learning programs, click here.

Working from Home During the Pandemic? Turn Alexa and Siri Off!

Allied Universal to Hire 30,000 Security Professionals Nationwide Over the Next 2 Months

UK: Luxury department store Fortnum & Mason furloughs 700 workers

Tapestry, parent of Coach & Kate Spade, extends closures for 2 weeks; will reassess bi-weekly

Hobby Lobby, JoAnn Fabrics, Menards comply with state orders to shutdown

Texas Governor extends disaster declaration; Dallas County reports 79 new coronavirus cases

Michigan Extends Retaliation Protections Amid COVID-19 Outbreak

Demand for real-time payments rises amid COVID-19 pressure

The Fresh Market requests shoppers cover faces

Nearly Three-Quarters of Adults Say They Will Start Wearing Face Masks in Public

Nordstrom pledges to make nearly 1M masks for health care workers

Feeding the Need: Domino's is Giving Away 10 Million Slices of Pizza Nationwide

EBay pledges $100M to help small businesses move online

On Thursday, eBay announced the launch of "Up & Running," an accelerator program aimed at helping retailers without an e-commerce presence transition to selling online. The e-commerce platform is pledging $100 million to support North American small businesses.

As part of the program, eBay is offering new businesses a free basic eBay store for three months and waiving selling fees for up to 500 sold items, according to the company's statement. Additionally, eBay will provide marketing and merchandising tools, discounted shipping supplies and customization features so businesses can build their brands.

The Up & Running program will also provide educational webinars, individual support and access to sellers who can mentor e-commerce novices, the company noted in its statement. Over the next few weeks, the platform will highlight small businesses on its site. Read more

8 key security considerations for protecting remote workers
Your boss just called and all your employees are mandated to work from home for the next two to three weeks due to the potential COVID-19 pandemic. What could go wrong? What risks are you now bringing to the firm? These are the actions should you take immediately to ensure you can allow your workforce to work remotely and securely:

1. Determine what endpoint protection you will require for home users
2. Review what software remote employees need
3. Ensure remote access does not introduce more risk
4. Implement two-factor authentication (2FA)
5. Use a virtual private network (VPN)
6. Assess the impact to firewalls, conditional access policies and other logging
7. Educate employees on COVID-19 scams
8. Update acceptable use policies for employees csoonline.com

Criminals Selling Videoconferencing Credentials on Dark Web
As the number of cases of Zoom bombing has risen and companies lock down their videoconferencing calls behind passwords, attackers are now posting and selling videoconferencing credentials online, two security firms said this week.

In one case, a cybercriminal posted a database on the Dark Web containing more than 2,300 usernames and passwords for Zoom accounts, stated threat-intelligence provider IntSights in a report posted today. The credentials could be used for denial-of-service attacks and pranks such as Zoom bombing, as well as potentially for eavesdropping and social engineering, says Etay Maor, chief security officer for global threat intelligence firm at IntSights. darkreading.com

As Coronavirus disrupts retail, augmented reality (AR) shifts to necessity
As consumers have become more confined to their home, online shopping is now more important than ever and augmented reality (AR) technology has been thrust into the limelight to help online retailers deliver an efficient shopping experience.

Retailers that already have AR capabilities in place are better prepared as consumers are able to use their smartphones to view furniture and other products and bring to life how they'll look in their home. Instead of having to guess basic questions like, "Will it fit?", "Does it match?", "Are the colors right for the room?", or "Can I still walk around the couch once it's in my living room?", customers can use AR technology to know for sure, leading to better buying decisions.

AR technology has been growing in use by consumers for several years. Pokemon Go brought AR to the forefront when it took the world by storm in 2016, but since then, the technology has matured substantially. Over two billion phones are capable of displaying high quality, true-to-size AR content, unlocking a new reality for online shoppers. Moreover, the evolution of WebAR (augmented reality that can be accessed via a web browser instead of a dedicated native app) is allowing brands to offer AR directly on their website, bypassing the need to build and maintain expensive apps that few will actually download. chainstoreage.com

Apple and Google want to turn your phone into a Covid-tracking machine
The contact-tracing tool Apple and Google want to create would have your smartphone log when you've come into close contact with other people. If one of those people later reports Covid-19 symptoms to a public health authority, your phone would send you an alert. It works a bit like exchanging contact information with everyone you meet, except everything is designed to be anonymous and automatic. Instead of contact info, your smartphone will periodically exchange anonymized tracing keys with nearby devices. Both devices maintain a list of the keys they've collected on a cloud server, and when one person reports an infection, they have the option of sending an alert to people they've recently been in contact with. That alert will share information for what those people should do next. vox.com

Robots and new technologies become mainstays in Hong Kong malls, offices as landlords adapt to pandemic
Landlords in Hong Kong and mainland China are embracing new technologies with greater urgency as many are struggling with dwindling retail footfall and rents amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"We have used this opportunity to explore and adopt new and innovative measures to keep our customers, tenants and staff safe," said a spokesperson at Swire Properties, which is using robot cleaning machines at its HKRI Taikoo Hui mall. "We're looking into how we can extend its use in other areas, such as car parks or surrounding areas around our malls." scmp.com

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