TJ Maxx will have workers wear body cameras to deter shoplifters
Body cameras, much like the ones police have been wearing for years, are becoming more common among retail employees as theft increases.
The parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods has announced it is having some workers at its stores wear the body cams to decrease “shrink,” the retail term for theft. TJX, the parent company, said it expects shrink to be flat this year, in part because of the measures.
“One of the things that we’ve added, we started to do last year, late towards the year, were body cameras on our LP associates,” TJX CFO John Klinger said on an earnings call last month. “And when somebody comes in, it’s sort of—it’s almost like a de-escalation where people are less likely to do something when they’re being videotaped. So, we definitely feel that that’s playing a role.”
Not many U.S. retailers have so publicly embraced body cameras yet, but in the U.K., grocers including Lidl and Tesco, Britain’s biggest grocery chain, equip employees with cameras.
