25 minute read
INTERVIEWING
It’s All about Context: Part 3
In our last two columns, we discussed how context matters in conversations and the questions that are appropriate to ask. In part two, we began the discussion of context and questions as they relate to the beginning of an admission-seeking interview. In this third part, we will look at the introductory statement as the context changes for the subject and the interviewer.
The Interviewer’s Introductory Statement
The beginning of the introductory statement transitions the context of the conversation from eliciting information about the subject’s life and interests to a discussion about the interviewer’s job and responsibilities. To a large extent the transition of the discussion to center around the interviewer’s role in an investigation is controlled by reciprocity. Reciprocity simply means a change in obligation. For example, if one is invited out to dinner there is an expectation that at some point the invitee reciprocate the invitation of the inviter. Simply stated, if I buy you dinner there’s an expectation you buy me dinner. Reciprocity is a cross-cultural, cross-gender, cross-geographic human characteristic making it applicable to almost everyone.
The subject has had a chance to talk during the development of rapport and now is expected to listen while the interviewer discusses his or her job and interests. So essentially the context of the conversation has become an obligation where the subject should politely listen in the same way that the interviewer has done previously. However, as the interviewer begins to describe herself and what she does for a job, there is a subtext applicable only to the guilty party who now interprets the interviewer’s words in light of criminal activity.
What starts out as a simple description of what the interviewer does for a living quickly turns into a somewhat disquieting conversation for the guilty. The interviewer describes their job and introduces the idea of employees stealing or other criminal behavior. An innocent individual does not understand the subtext and views the conversation as an interesting disclosure of what an investigator does. However, a guilty party views the same words as an indication that their dishonest behavior has been discovered.
In the next part of the introductory statement, the interviewer describes different forms of dishonesty that they are responsible for investigating. The context for an innocent person is non-stressful and merely revolves around an interesting discussion of the ways criminals commit crimes. The guilty party listens carefully wondering when and if their method of theft or criminal activity will be listed in the discussion. For example, when the method of theft the subject is using is presented, there
by David E. Zulawski, CFI, CFE and Shane G. Sturman, CFI, CPP
Zulawski and Sturman are executives in the investigative and training firm of Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates (w-z.com). Zulawski is a senior partner, and Sturman is president. Sturman is also a member of ASIS International’s Retail Loss Prevention Council. They can be reached at 800-222-7789 or via email at dzulawski@w-z.com and ssturman@w-z.com.
© 2015 Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates, Inc.
is often a behavioral response reflecting the potential threat this discovery may have on the guilty person’s future.
The third part of the introductory statement is a discussion of how investigations are conducted. Again, the innocent party reacts with interest since they have no fear of detection or discovery because they have done nothing wrong. The guilty party listens to the discussion of how investigations are conducted with a sense of fear that the interviewer knows of their dishonesty. At the conclusion of these three parts, the guilty party often comes to the conclusion that their guilt is known. Psychologically and
physiologically the deceptive individual is rocked by the realization that they are about to have to face what they have done.
So the same words presented to an innocent and a dishonest individual provide an entirely different context to the discussion. The introductory statement’s words and message have no effect on innocent subjects because they have done nothing wrong and
Essentially, the context provided by the first three parts of the introductory statement creates a collaborative environment where the guilty can come to their own conclusions whether or not their dishonesty has been discovered. In allowing the guilty to come to their own conclusions, it prevents them from seeing the investigator as an opponent and someone to be challenged.
continued from page 12 therefore have nothing to fear. Guilty parties find themselves in an entirely different mental state and context.
No Opportunity for Denial
The interviewer has not directly accused the guilty party of doing anything, which makes it difficult for that subject to mount a defense using denial. The context set up by the interviewer is a non-confrontational approach that makes it difficult for the guilty subject to engage in any type of aggressive or denial behavior because the interviewer has not made any direct statements or accusations. Essentially, the first three parts of the introductory statement convey the message to the guilty that their dishonesty has been uncovered, but provides no opportunity for them to attempt a defense.
Instead, the context created by the interviewer does several things in a very powerful fashion. First, the introductory statement brings the guilty to the logical conclusion that their guilt is known without producing evidence or making any direct accusation to the individual. This is incredibly important since one of the primary reasons people ultimately confess is that they believe their guilt is known.
The guilty subject desperately wants to know what the investigation has revealed and what evidence exists that indicates their involvement. The interviewer uses the context of the conversation to speak in generalities allowing the guilty subject to expand the evidence in their own mind. Ambiguity in the discussion of evidence creates a context where it is easy for the guilty party to apply the message to their own actions.
A spiritualist often uses ambiguity to allow an audience to believe the statements apply to their own lives as in the following example.
“I see that you have suffered a loss and this loss still troubles you today.”
“My father passed away a number of years ago.”
“I sense there were things left unsaid between you and he.”
“Well, I wished we had more time at the end.”
“Your father is here, and he says he feels the same way.”
The interviewer, even if they have specific evidence indicative of the subject’s guilt, can withhold these specifics and allow the context of the conversation and the ambiguity of their words to let the subject come to their own conclusion about what is known. The interviewer can observe the guilty party’s behavior and be relatively certain the person believes he or she is caught. However, what the subject believes is known may be entirely different than the evidence held by the investigator.
Creating a non-confrontational context at the beginning of an admission-seeking interview also avoids an adversarial relationship between the investigator and the subject. Academic researchers recently explored the planning done by guilty parties in anticipation of an interview. About 20 percent of the guilty individuals planned to enter the interview and deny any involvement in the alleged incident. However, the non-confrontational approach does not provide a context where it is easy for them to deny their guilt because there is never a direct accusation nor an overt indirect accusation that allows them to do so.
The remaining 80 percent of the guilty parties plan to do one of two things—admit their guilt or wait and see what the investigator was going to do or say. The non-confrontational context established by the investigator fits perfectly with this remaining 80 percent as well. It provides a context that allows guilty subjects to come to the conclusion that they are caught, but allows the interviewer an opportunity to show understanding, which preserves the person’s self-image. This encourages the percentage of guilty who are predisposed to confess to maintain that position while at the same time not doing anything to make the investigator reveal their overall strategy to the subject.
Moving Toward Admission
Essentially, the context provided by the first three parts of the introductory statement creates a collaborative environment where the guilty can come to their own conclusions whether or not their dishonesty has been discovered. In allowing the guilty to come to their own conclusions, it prevents them from seeing the investigator as an opponent and someone to be challenged. This sets the stage for the next part of the admission-seeking interview where the investigator shows understanding for the subject’s plight and offers reasons and excuses that mitigate the seriousness of the incident and preserve the subject’s self-image.
In part four of this discussion in the next issue, we will continue to explain the evolving context of the conversation between the guilty party and the investigator. This is a complex exchange that occurs primarily during the investigator’s monologue, which moves the guilty subject incrementally through the process reducing resistance to making an admission. This is all done in a collaborative non-confrontational way that allows subjects to preserve their self-image even in light of participation in criminal acts.
The key in the introductory statement is developing a context where the individual can come to their own conclusion about whether or not their guilt is known. In addition, if the same words are said to an innocent person, these words have no effect on the innocent because they have no fear of discovery.
After hitting a pause button several years ago, companies are back to sending employees on the road. Global business travel is on track to grow 6.5 percent in 2015 and should hit a record $1.25 trillion, according to a forecast released in July by the Global Business Travel Association. Business travel will continue to spike in the years ahead, the group predicts, with growth between 5.8 and 6.9 percent through 2019.
Retailers are central to this surge in employee travel. As they look to become more nimble, many are focused on maximizing global sourcing opportunities, seeking new customers in emerging markets, and sending employees to comb the globe for the next jungle superfood or local fashion to turn into a trend on Brooklyn streets.
Of course, opportunity—as it often does—runs headlong into risk. More workers on international assignments puts more workers outside of the protective shield that companies try to place around their workforce, and it’s tempting to let the prospect of capitalizing on the next hot global marketplace overwhelm security concerns. In a survey of clients, International SOS, a provider of medical and security assistance, found that of 3.5 million international trips taken by employees, 25 percent were to what the firm identifies as high- or extreme-risk destinations.
Companies aren’t blind to the security and safety risks of international travel, of course. In a world where luxury hotels have become recognized terrorist targets, most organizations appreciate the importance of helping traveling workers stay safe. So why do companies struggle to make security central to corporate travel programs?
The Coordination Challenge
Communicating with traveling employees, tracking their whereabouts, and extending help to them if necessary are important parts of an organization’s effort to protect employees from harm. However, a survey of 300 corporate security directors by Security Director’s Report (SDR) found that many international trips that employees take go without a security review (see chart above). Without sufficient advanced notification of employees’ travel plans, threat assessment and
5.1%
42.6% 25.3%
27% Always Sometimes No Don’t Know
Based on a survey of 300 corporate safety and Security Director’s Report.
Travel Security Responsibility Security Review/Approval of Employees’ International Travel Plans
Entity or Department in Charge of Monitoring Travel Security Threats
Security
Contract security/risk rm
Human resources
39.8% 3.5% 3.9%
Risk management
In-house travel
8.7% 3.9%
Travel agent/contract travel services company
Traveling employee’s dept. manager or representative
Not monitored/none
Other
7.8% 16.0% 7.8% 8.7%
Internal Department Overseeing Travel Risk Information Dissemination
Security
Human resources
34.4% 9.5%
Risk management
In-house travel
9.5% 12.7%
Traveling employee’s dept. manager or representative
Not monitored/none
Other
17.6% 7.2% 9.0%
logistical planning to support safe travel are impossible.
The SDR survey points to another difficult challenge—goal alignment. Employers may fail to meet their responsibilities for protecting traveling workers because responsibilities fall to different business areas and functions, which often have very different objectives. Individuals with
responsibilities often such diverse roles as corporate security managers, risk managers, travel managers, medical directors, insurance managers, legal managers, heads of HR, global HR, and line managers.
Improving the security of traveling workers overall relies on the extent to which the different players fill the security aspects of their broader assignment. For example, a corporate travel manager may issue a request for proposal (RFP) to develop a preferred list of hotel properties, with the ultimate goal of improving efficiency and reducing the cost of travel. Within the RFP, hotel properties will be asked a range of questions on which their suitability will be judged, from services and amenities, available technology, rate proposal, to whether or not they will provide a traveler with free transportation to a new hotel if they are oversold.
A safety and security module will typically be part of this RFP, but the extent to which security criteria is examined in the selection of preferred properties can vary. A travel manager, whose primary objective is to please workers who want convenient and quality accommodations and heed management’s desire to trim expenses, may not let something like incomplete responses on safety issues interfere with property selection.
So what is the key? In a word—coordination. With the amount of corporate travel ramping up, security executives might start by mapping out the security roles that different function areas are
Scott McBride, vice president of loss prevention, safety, and security for American Eagle.
expected to play in the protection of traveling associates and ensuring that the responsibility for those roles are assigned to specific employees.
Security leaders might also want to review how well information is being shared among departments. It can be helpful to use a comprehensive database that houses all travel-related information, including employee profiles, corporate and employee contact information, and risk intelligence information on travel destinations. Through a centralized data collection point, security, HR, and the corporate travel department can better coordinate their activities and responsibilities with respect to ensuring the safety of traveling employees.
Finally, security leaders might find it helpful to determine whether individuals who provide security advice to traveling employees are sufficiently informed and knowledgeable, and get them up to speed if they’re not.
Companies aren’t blind to the security and safety risks of international travel, of course. In a world where luxury hotels have become recognized terrorist targets, most organizations appreciate the importance of helping traveling workers stay safe. So why do companies struggle to make security central to corporate travel programs?
A Good Foundation
There are challenges beyond coordination to keeping a travel safety program operating effectively—including cost and management complacency—and Scott McBride knows them well. As vice president of loss prevention, safety, and security for American Eagle, his security team regularly assesses the risk of international travel by staff in sourcing, design, business, and compliance, among others. In all, McBride and his American Eagle security team assess and manage more than 2,000 international employee trips annually.
In a presentation at the recent National Retail Federation (NRF) Protect loss prevention conference in Long Beach, California, McBride described how his company’s travel
safety program has, over time, built out to include a complete compendium of traveler safety information.
A travel safety program typically includes the following items: Risk ratings for travel locations, A traveler tracking system, Pre-trip assessments, training, and awareness briefings, A travel safety website, and Emergency response procedures in the event a traveling worker runs into trouble.
It should also define a process for examining employee travel itineraries, comparing them against the unique risks and availability of services in the destination region, and concluding if additional security steps need be taken before travel, such as specialized traveler education or equipping the employee with tracking technology.
But a travel safety program starts, of course, with a company travel policy, which McBride says to write with your duty of care in mind. To demonstrate a company’s due diligence, it should cover and include the following elements: A statement from management that employees’ personal safety is a primary concern of the organization
and that it does not want business interests to put workers at undue risk. How the company will determine which destinations are unsafe for travel, such as prohibiting employees to travel to countries or regions the
US State Department has declared as unsafe. Responsibilities related to business travel for both employees and those in charge of monitoring the safety of travel destinations. Special action employees should take if they are traveling to high-risk locations.
Benchmarks on Travel Security Program Elements
24/7 travel assistance hotline available to traveling employees
Subscribe to a commercial travel threat information service
Contract with an international crisis response rm
Require pre-approval by security or risk department for all proposed business travel
Web site with up-to-date travel alerts and security information is available to employees
Hold mandatory pre-trip security awareness brie ngs with all traveling employees
Hold mandatory pre-trip security awareness brie ngs with all employees traveling internationally
Require some employees to travel with devices, so organization can monitor whereabouts
Require all employees who travel for work to attend a training session in travel safety/security
74.6% 62.4% 48.1% 24.9% 57.5% 11.0% 22.7% 16.0% 13.3%
The individuals who are responsible for the daily monitoring for notices about travel to high-risk countries to ensure the safety of employees during their travel out of the country. Procedures for communicating warnings to employees and for locating and communicating with employees in a crisis event. Actions employees must take before departure, such as leaving their supervisors with a detailed itinerary, flight information, destination contact information, contact numbers, and updated emergency contact information.
As he built off the company’s core travel policy, McBride said his team realized that ancillary policies are also an important part of a robust travel safety program. Data security, for example, has become an integral part of minimizing a company’s risk with respect to workers traveling abroad. Some of the ancillary policies his team identified included the following: Travel Code of Conduct. “We have a travel code of conduct policy in addition to an ethics policy,” McBride explained. More than just keeping
30.5”
SMALL GATE. BIG PROTECTION.
The Classic N10 shares the same superior detection technology as Checkpoint’s standard EAS antennas but in a smaller size, making it the perfect solution for convenience store environments. Small enough to t entrance or exit doorways, the N10 will deter potential thefts and notify you if shoplifting occurs.
Back eld & Jammer Detection
Works with Alpha® Solutions, Hard Tags & RF Labels
Simple to Install & Maintain
Flashing LED Provides Visual Deterrent
Mounts to Wall or Floor Stand
If you are looking for EAS security where lack of space has been an issue, Classic N10 is the perfect t.
CheckpointSystems.com
workers in line, American Eagle strives to provide traveling workers with information that will prevent them from unwittingly getting into sticky situations, which can result when local laws or customs differ from the US, such as on the treatment of homosexuality or alcohol consumption. “What about people living in a hotel overseas for two months? What are the acceptable behaviors? You need to spell those out in a policy so you have evidence you told people about them,” McBride warned. Foreign Ground Transportation
Policy. “With us, you’re not permitted to rent a car if you can’t read the language,” said McBride. Foreign Corrupt Practices Policy.
Traveling workers need to be aware of actions they might take—to smooth out a travel snafu, for example—that could violate the FCPA.
Beyond the Basics
McBride and other security pros SDR interviewed offered additional tips for enhancing the value of a travel
Security Director’s Report Now Part of LP Magazine
Since 1998 Security Director’s Report (SDR) has been helping security professionals manage their departments, boost their careers, and keep current with trends in security management. SDR is published monthly in a quick-read, printed newsletter format with additional source materials available online.
SDR is a subscription-based publication comprised of original content with a singular focus— to help security, loss prevention, crisis management, and other corporate professionals across all industry segments do their jobs better and more cost-effectively.
SDR disseminates best practices, provides updates on security regulations, and offers news and independent analysis on topics such as security budgets and ROI, contract security, crime prevention, emergency preparedness, information security, risk and threat analysis, workplace violence, and much more.
SDR regularly conducts original research, which allows corporate executives to benchmark their operations and is included in the annual subscription. Readers of SDR enjoy unrestricted access to the subscription website, with complete access to the publication archives as well as SDR’s online toolkit consisting of 100-plus sample policies, checklists, and forms to simplify security directors’ most time-consuming chores. New time-saving tools are added weekly.
For a limited time, LP Magazine readers can subscribe to SDR for the discounted rate of $295 for fifteen monthly issues by going to SDRsubscription.com and using the discount code SDRLPM. safety program—without breaking the bank.
Extend a Personal Touch. McBride says he tries to do at least one in-person safety briefing with each employee who travels internationally for work. “That way, you’re able to get a read on them,” he said. “Some people clearly have a handle on it and are capable of getting themselves out of a jam and some people are scared to death.” After an in-person briefing, a travel safety department should have a good sense of who will need hand-holding in the future.
It’s Not Just “Where” That Matters, But “Who.” In line with its personal touch, American Eagle doesn’t just assess a trip’s risk based on danger at the destination, but also on who the employee is that is traveling. The Excel-based matrix it uses to grade the risk of each international trip includes a “traveler rating” category.
For example, for Employee X’s trip to Mexico, the trip’s risk score goes up if he or she has never before traveled to a “level 4 country” or has expressed nervousness about traveling to Mexico. A trip for a more experienced traveler, expat, or a Mexican native would be scored lower. A trip’s risk rating is also influenced by the length of the trip, the frequency of the employee’s travel to the location, whether he or she is traveling alone or with others, and the level of direct support they’ll have available once they arrive.
Based on this overall assessment of a trip’s risk, McBride’s team will provide the level of protection that is needed to keep the worker safe. For example, the level of risk will indicate whether the security team will ask the worker to consent to install a GPS app on their phone, so the company can keep track of them.
Share Responsibility. When employees travel internationally for work their mindset of protection needs to change, from having security provided for them to playing a primary role in their own security and safety. Bruce McIndoe is the CEO of iJET International, a firm that offers myriad services to keep workers safe
Communicating with traveling employees, tracking their whereabouts, and extending help to them if necessary are important parts of an organization’s effort to protect employees from harm. However, a survey of 300 corporate security directors found that many international trips that employees take go without a security review.
worldwide, from daily intelligence briefings to worldwide emergency evacuations. He told SDR that “the most important thing a company do to keep traveling workers safe is to provide employee training.” He said every employee needs general instruction on staying healthy, avoiding danger, and accident avoidance. “It will have the largest impact on the outcome [of dealing with global workers] than anything else a company can do,” he said.
Look for Help—You Might Already Have It. The loss prevention director for a midsize grocery chain said he discovered by accident that their medical insurance company had available many of the services they were looking to extend to traveling workers. They also learned that their security company had developed an app that they could use to check-in on traveling workers. In both cases, the helpful tools were always available (and free). They just weren’t aware they existed. “So in two days I already had a workable program,” he said.
Be Practical. Terrorism, international crime, regional unrest, environmental disasters, and political upheaval may drive a company to start a travel safety program, but the problems it manages are typically more mundane. “In recent years, most of the needs of our travelers have been medical,” said McBride. And even then, he explained, it’s typically not medical emergencies, but things like employees losing their prescription medicines. McBride said a travel safety program should include spelling out how it will enable the “little things” that make travel smoother, such as procedures for when an employee loses his or her phone while traveling abroad. Scott Shaw, CPP, CBCP, director of corporate security, transportation, Scott Shaw and emergency preparedness for Aflac, says he is always careful to stress the practical in travel safety training. To impress upon workers what they don’t know—employees who travel extensively often assume there is nothing for them to learn in travel training—“I like to throw out scenarios and have them
Terrorism, international crime, regional unrest, environmental disasters, and political upheaval may drive a company to start a travel safety program, but the problems it manages are typically more mundane. “In recent years, most of the needs of our travelers have been medical,” said Scott McBride, VP of LP, safety, and security for American Eagle.
continued from page 21 break out into teams to discuss the best course of action,” said Shaw.
For example, what happens if it’s 10 p.m. and you’re eating alone in a Cairo café, and you realize your wallet and passport are missing? What would you do?
What would you do if you suspect someone tampered with your laptop while you were out of your hotel room?
What if you had a personal home emergency? Who could you call?
If you lost your cell phone, would you know the actual phone numbers of your emergency contacts?
Shaw thinks it’s a good idea to give workers plenty of time to share their own travel safety stories during training. “It always provides new scenario ideas,” he said.
“Hide” Security. To encourage workers to do their part, such as entering all their travel itineraries and information into a tracking system, provide them with security tools that help—rather than hinder—their work routine. For example, the same intelligence monitoring and alert systems that inform workers of developing security situations can also warn workers of weather events and transportation strikes, assist with trip planning, and notify them of immunization and other health requirements of countries they visit. So rather than security blocking their work, international travelers can perceive travel safety protocols as a way to make trips easier and more productive.
Workers can quickly become advocates for the travel safety program if they see it as a tool for avoiding two days stuck in an airport by finding an alternate route to their destination, offered D. Jerry Rubino, CPP, senior security advisor at Creative Associates International, an international development organization.
Stay Visible. McBride said it’s not uncommon for a travel safety program to fight complacency and for management to take a view of “why are we doing all this when nothing ever happens?” His team pushes out a daily report that accounts for every American Eagle worker traveling outside the country and issues a weekly report with a watch list of “developments we’re tracking that could impact our company’s travelers.” In addition to helping keep workers safe, McBride said the frequent touch points help advertise the value of the travel safety program. A program can also gain support by extending it to the personal travel of members of the board of directors.
Finally, to pitch the ROI of his travel safety program, one security director told SDR he tracks business trips that the program enables. If a company relies on sensationalized general media reports about violence overseas, it can be easy to make snap decisions to restrict business travel. But a robust travel program—one that debriefs traveling workers and puts travel threat information in context for the organization—often helps workers stay on the road and productive.
Join OSAC. The Department of State’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) has been aggressively recruiting member organizations. SDR bumped into an OSAC representative at the ISC conference in April and then again at the NRF conference in June. The representatives provided several good reasons to join: First, it’s free. OSAC provides businesses with information on threats abroad. They monitor and pass threat information to named US organizations and issue topical and country-specific reports. They have a deep repository of travel safety information that can supplement a company’s program or get an organization’s new program off the ground quickly. For example, they just released, Driving Overseas:
Best Practices. They hold domestic and in-country meetings to facilitate exchange of security information and best practices. They created sector-specific councils, such as for academia, aviation, and energy, to facilitate targeted information sharing.
OSAC can’t replace the 24/7 monitoring and real-time alerts from commercial travel threat information services, but with security budgets tight, it makes sense for companies to exploit all the free local resources available to them. For information on joining, visit OSAC online at osac.gov.
GARETT SEIVOLD is a journalist who has been covering corporate security for industry professionals for eighteen years. Since 1998, he has served as the principal writer and editor of Security Director’s Report, a monthly publication highlighting trends and best practices in corporate security management. Seivold has been recognized by several organizations for outstanding writing, investigative reporting, and instructional journalism. He has authored dozens of survey-based research reports and best-practice manuals on security-related topics. Seivold can be reached at GarettS@LPportal.com.
Introducing Our New Real-Time Online Management Tool
Guardian EdgePro security management tool features responsive mobile design that makes remote management a simple task, whether you’re at the office or on the road.
It’s simple, effective and mobile – EdgePro.
Anytime, anywhere control from your web-connected PC or mobile device* Intuitive dashboard for easy site navigation Instant access to real-time security data Alarm incidents and history Notifications via text or email alerts Late-to-open/early-to-close reports
FREE SECURITY CONSULTATION. LET’S TALK. 844.631.9800 | GuardianProtection.com/LossPrevention
*Internet connection is required to remotely access EdgePro.
