COVID-19 Heroes: ‘It’s a Team Effort’ for LP Associates
Winford Smith, loss prevention associate at JB San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, helps a customer at the main store.
Winford Smith is willing to help out wherever Exchange managers at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston need him.
“It’s a team effort to keep everything going,” said Smith, a loss prevention associate for 13 years. “I’ve stocked everything from household goods to luggage. Wherever they need me, I’m there.”
At six of the largest CONUS Exchanges, LP prevention associates like Smith are stepping out of their usual roles to help in main stores because of personnel shortages. The crunch is caused by associates staying home for various reasons, from sickness to daycare problems created by their children’s schools closing because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We put the call out to Exchanges that if they need any of our people to help out, then let us know,” said Steve Boyd, vice president of the Loss Prevention Directorate. “We are still doing our loss prevention duties. The larger stores generally have more LP staff and we can offer the staff sharing, but there also are a lot of Exchanges where our staffing may not allow us to share.”
In addition to Smith at JB San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, other LP associates lending hands include Ronnie Lee, Barbara Pitalla and Brooke Trammell, Fort Stewart; Shanika Miller, JB San Antonio-Lackland; Charles King, Jessenia McElroy and Aron Watson, Fort Belvoir; Cooper Stegman and Shawn Thomas, Fort Lee; and Michael Ezzell, Maria Hoffman and Kirsten Welsh, Fort Bragg.
Watson helps in Fort Belvoir’s Ship-from-Store department.
“I’m more than happy to pick the merchandise from the store shelves, bring them back to the Ship-from-Store department and help prepare the packages to send out that day,” Watson said. “This is my way of giving back to the customers, making sure they get their packages they ordered online as quickly as possible.”
At Fort Stewart, Lee completed inventory, restocked shelves, waited on customers, helped with planograms and relieved stress in the Ship-From-Store department.
“It was a great experience helping out in the main store,” Lee said. “It’s a chance to build rapport with customers and associates, further deepening your knowledge about how everyone fits in the puzzle to make the Exchange work better as an organization.
“It was a nice change of pace to see the other side of things.”
