Recap: RFID Journal LIVE! Retail @ RetailX
Solving Retail Challenges via RFID
At RetailX, consultants and experts from organizations such as Ralph Lauren, GS1 and Auburn University discussed how the use of radio frequency identification favors business.

Using radio frequency identification technology as a business tool offers several challenges, as RFID Sherpas consultant Kristen Munroe said during the first day of RFID Journal LIVE! Retail @ RetailX, held this week in Chicago, Illinois.

According to Mark Roberti, RFID Journal's founder and editor, RFID plays an important role, especially at these times, because it reduces the time to process, while accelerating the acquisition of product information, such as an item's real-time location.

Munroe, Ralph Lauren's chief operating officer, said RFID streamlines processes and makes life easier for professionals involved in business processes, by adding more features that solve business problems.

The themes of standardization and blockchain also gained space with the participation of speakers from GS1 and Auburn University, who presented studies including a comparison of the benefits of RFID and barcodes. The study shows that some brands and retailers are using blockchain and RFID to solve common challenges, including reducing complaints or returns, as well as enhancing product authentication. rfidjournal.com

Read Day 2 recap here

NRF Protect 2019:
How to handle workplace complaints
4 tips for LP professionals
“LP guys sometimes have to act like HR people,” says David Thompson, vice president of operations for Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates. When incidents such as sexual harassment, workplace violence, bullying or fraternizing are brought to their attention, LP leaders are often on the front lines to handle such complaints. Training is crucial in knowing what to say, how to act and, most importantly, how to gather as much information as possible. At NRF PROTECT, NRF’s annual loss prevention event, Thompson outlined how an intake interview is likely to be influenced by biases that come with experience and offered tips and best practices to preserve true facts. Read More nrf.com


Retail & food service jobs take 'brutal psychological toll' on workers
'Poor sleep, psychological distress and lower levels of happiness'
The rallying cry for millions of workers is a $15 an hour minimum wage. But in addition to low pay, erratic schedules are another bane of American workers, particularly in food service and retail: They interfere mightily with family life and are associated, our research finds, with poor sleep, psychological distress and lower levels of happiness.

Our survey affirmed the scope of the problem. Only about one in five of the people we surveyed work a regular daytime shift. About two-thirds of workers receive their weekly work schedule with less than two weeks’ notice, and one third get less than one week’s notice. Sixteen percent get less than 72 hours’ notice — a scenario that makes it basically impossible to plan child care, family meals or homework time.

A particular onerous task demanded of retail and food-service workers is to work a closing shift and then, immediately afterward, the opening shift (say, closing the store at 11 p.m. then returning to open a few hours later). That’s called a “clopening,” and half of our respondents said they’d worked one.

There’s a strong case for raising the minimum wage. But our research suggests that regulations that impose some semblance of order on workers’ hours could have an even bigger impact on workers’ well-being than a raise. washingtonpost.com

Macy’s recently named in a suit alleging its criminal background screening policy discriminates against certain applicants and employees
Earlier this week, a lawsuit was filed against Macy’s, Inc. in the Southern District of New York alleging the company has an “unnecessarily punitive criminal history screening policy.” The suit itself was filed by Youth Represent (YR), the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), and the law firm of Outten & Golden LLP (O&G). According to the allegations detailed in the lawsuit, Macy’s screening policy “disproportionately disqualifies Black and Latinx applicants and employees from job opportunities,” which violates not only Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but also the New York City Human Rights Law.

The plaintiffs in the case include Jenetta Rolfer and The Fortune Society, Inc. Together, the plaintiffs hope to bring about a change to Macy’s screening policy that often “results in a disproportionate number of otherwise qualified Black and Latinx job applicants and employees being denied employment or terminated due to their criminal background histories, including for minor or very old convictions that are unrelated to the positions at issue.”

One of the plaintiff’s, Rolfer, argues in the suit that she was a victim of Macy’s policy. According to her, she was hired as a member of the store’s Credit Granting Department, but was later “abruptly terminated by the company for a misdemeanor conviction stemming from a decade-old traffic-related incident.” legalreader.com

Family of robbery suspect killed by Phoenix police plans $6M lawsuit
The family of an armed robbery suspect fatally shot by Phoenix police in January is planning to sue the city for $6 million in the third multimillion-dollar claim over alleged misconduct by officers this month. The family and their supporters say the young man was fleeing and posed no threat when police shot him in the back. When the Jan. 11 shooting was first reported, police said Harris pointed a handgun at officers before they fired.

“They shot Jacob in the back,” Roland Harris said in a press release. “They lied about Jacob and made up a story that he threatened them. It never happened. “The only thing my son did was run for his life, and the cops shot him in cold blood.”

Black and white thermal video from a police helicopter that was leaked to 12 News on Wednesday shows a person getting out of a car and running away before falling forward and lying still. After 12 News broadcast the footage, representatives for Harris’ family distributed a 13-second clip of the incident. “The video footage is damning for the police department and shows that Jacob never once threatened the police,” Horne said in the release. Sgt. Tommy Thompson released a statement Wednesday saying the video had been released to the TV station in error. ktar.com

Couple embezzles over $5M from Jacksonville cigar company Swisher International
A man arrested last year along with his wife in the embezzlement of $5 million from Jacksonville’s Swisher International continued to use that money for legal issues and other things after being released on bond, according his new arrest warrant. Gretchen Michele Camp, a 37-year-old former tax manager for Swisher, was first arrested Dec. 3 after a State Attorney’s Office investigation showed money diverted from the almost century-old cigar company. According to her husband’s initial warrant, Gretchen Camp told Swisher officials she had created the bogus invoices “at the direction of this suspect [her husband] because he wanted more than she could afford to buy on her salary.” She said the money was used to buy a 460-acre farm in Metter, Ga., to build a cabin and other buildings and equipment to work the land. She also told investigators the money went to buy lots of gold and silver “due to the fact that her husband is preparing for the fall of the U.S. government,” the warrant said. jacksonville.com

Chick-fil-A is America's Favorite Restaurant Chain, Again
Americans really love Chick-fil-A. For the fourth year in a row, the Georgia-based chicken chain has been named America's favorite restaurant, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The index is based on input from nearly 23,000 consumers. The chain, whose customer service is perhaps just as well-known as its food, scored an 86 on the 100-point scale, down one point from last year.

Coming in third (behind a collection of smaller companies) was Panera with a score of 81. Four chains tied for fourth with a score of 80: Arby's, Chipotle, Papa John's and Pizza Hut. Other popular chains scored much lower. KFC scored 78, Burger King 76 and Taco Bell 75. McDonald's was among the lowest with a score of 69. Chick-fil-A's sales are also soaring. Though its stores are open only six days a week, the company managed to generate more than $10.5 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year, making it No. 3 in the industry behind McDonald's and Starbucks, according to Nation's Restaurant News  kgun9.com

Robot Security Guard gets boost to fight crime
Cobalt Robotics, which makes indoors autonomous security robots, just got a significant boost to give human guards a hand. Following a $13 million Series A last March, the company just closed a $35 million Series B. Like its better known competitor Knightscope, Cobalt's security guards rove around security sensitive locations to monitor facilities utilizing an onboard sensor package. Cobalt's five-foot blue robots have 60 sensors in all, including video, RGB, infrared, thermal, ultrasonic, and lidar. zdnet.com

The 30 highest-paid CEOs in retail
Some of the highest-paid chief executives in the US work for retail companies including Walmart, BJ's Wholesale Club, PepsiCo, and Gap, according to new data from The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest group of labor unions in the US.

Overall, the 30 top-paid retail CEOs each earned upwards of $15 million in total compensation in 2018, according to the data, which is based on company proxy statements filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1. $2.3 billion: Elon Musk, Tesla
2. $48.8 million Fabrizio Freda, The Estee Lauder Companies, Inc.
3. $43.1 million: Lewis Bird III, At Home Group, Inc.
4. $42.1 million: Christopher Baldwin, BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc.
5. $27.4 million: Robert Greenberg, Skechers USA, Inc.
6. $27.3 million: Laura Alber, Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
7. $26.6 million: Gary Friedman, Restoration Hardware
8. $24.5 million: Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc.
9. $23.6 million: Doug McMillon, Walmart
10. $21.9 million: Mary Barra, General Motors Co.

See the full list: businessinsider.com

UK: Unions and retailers urge action over violence in shops
Tougher sentences need to be brought in for people who assault shop workers, retailers and unions have urged, after it emerged there are around 115 attacks every day.

The letter to the home secretary, the lord chancellor and the minister for crime, safeguarding and vulnerability, called for a specific new offence of assaulting a retail worker. It recommended that offenders are sentenced in the same way as somebody who attacks an emergency services worker would. Last year, the maximum prison sentence for someone who assaults emergency services staff increased from six to 12 months.

According to the Association of Convenience Stores there were 10,000 incidents of violence and abuse last year in the stores its members work in alone, while the British Retail Consortium said 115 shop staff were attacked every day. personneltoday.com

Lowe’s taps North Carolina for new tech hub, to create 2,000 jobs

Z Gallerie closing more stores as part of its bankruptcy, 8 in Texas

UK health and beauty retailer Boots to close 200 stores

Amazon Adds Rite Aid Locations to Package Delivery Network

Tariffs Could Lead to ‘Widespread Store Closures,’ Analyst Says

Chipotle unveils new quarterly bonus program for hourly employees

4 Security Risks in the Cannabis Industry—And How to Mitigate Them