In this special format bonus episode I’m chatting with Sean Sportum, most recently Manager, security & loss prevention, Central Canada, for Circle K who joins me in advance of his appearance on the virtual stage ad RCC’s Loss Prevention Forum, April 8. I Sean ask for two starts, and one stop, based on what he has learned and experienced over the past year of the COVID era.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In this special format bonus episode I’m chatting with Sean Sportum, most recently Manager, security & loss prevention, Central Canada, for Circle K who joins me in advance of his appearance on the virtual stage ad RCC’s Loss Prevention Forum, April 8. I Sean ask for two starts, and one stop, based on what he has learned and experienced over the past year of the COVID era.
********
Thanks for tuning into today’s special RCC LP bonus episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
If you are a retail LP professional you don’t want to miss the RCC Retail Loss Prevention forum, April 8th Learn more and register at https://rcclpconference.ca/
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. In this special format bonus episode, I'm chatting with Shawn Sportun, most recently Manager, Security and Loss Prevention, Central Canada, for Circle K, who joins me in advance of his appearance on the virtual stage at RCC's Loss Prevention Forum, April 8.
Sean Sportun
So I guess the one thing I would say is never stopped learning, right. And I think the pandemic has kind of brought that to light for you know, every industry, especially the security industry is,
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in.
Sean, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Sean Sportun
Dude, awesome, Michael, thank you for having me.
Michael LeBlanc
Oh, fantastic. Thanks for joining me what part of the, what part of Canada you're joining me from?
Sean Sportun
I'm just north of Toronto. In a small little cottage town called Island Grove right on Lake Simcoe.
Michael LeBlanc
Oh, very nice, very nice. Well, listen, thanks again, for joining me, you're going to be live on the Retail Council of Canada's Loss Prevention Forum stage coming up April 8. So this is an an opportunity to kind of get a glimpse of you and your tradecraft, and what you're going to be talking about on the stage. So let's let's jump right in, first of all, first and foremost, tell me about yourself. I was looking at your, your LinkedIn profile, you've got a lot of involvement in and around the industry, not just with Circle K. But tell me a bit about how you came to be and what you do at Circle K.
Sean Sportun
Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you. So, 28 years in the corporate security industry. Spent the last almost 15 years as a security manager for Circle K stores in central Canada. Tasks was everything from you know, the safety of customers and employees to crime deterrence programs, and then managing all the investigations in the division's locations.
You know, I started my career off at Canada's Wonderland. I was there for the first two weekends in uniform, and then was basically seconded, if you will, into the plain clothes undercover unit. Which they call retail security, and never really looked back. You know, it was one of the best jobs I ever had. Was there for eight summers, and then slowly progressed up the chain getting promoted from one company to the other, and then landed with Circle K.
Michael LeBlanc
Like many I find in retail, you didn't exactly set your sights out on retail, but you found your way there into a really interesting role. So tell me about, tell me about the role you do a little bit of of the scope of it. And then, you know, everyone knows Circle K, as a name. But tell us a little bit, you know, how many units there are, and kind of scope and scale, just in case where, you know, as I said, we're all familiar with the brand, but maybe not so familiar with a few of those details?
Sean Sportun
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we're the largest convenience store in Canada. You know, really close behind, you know, the other major brand, I won't say who it is, you know. Internationally, we are growing. There's 740 locations in central Canada that I, you know, directly oversee. And then we support about another 310 stores now, in Western Canada through our security operations center.
You know, we've grown the department since I first started, you know, it was me by myself. Started getting involved in a bunch of different things, put a business case together, got an extra body, that then led to then led to the Security Operation Center. And right now, there's 11 of us. There's myself, I have a loss prevention supervisor that overlooks the Security Operation Center. Two field investigators, and then the remaining staff working in the Ops Center.
And we do everything from internal investigations to the external stuff. You know, we dive into a lot of armed robbery and work, you know, in parallel with our law enforcement partners and support them in their role, you know. Everything and anything that happens on the property, you know, as a convenience store, we are a transit type retailer. You never know who's going to come into the store. So, as you can imagine a bunch of different things kind of present themselves. And, you know, from a health and safety perspective, to a security perspective to, you know, VIPs and supporting, you know, some of the marketing initiatives that are going out there. So it's basically a melting pot of, you know, whatever we do, and then whatever other departments can't figure out, they kind of throw it in our lap and say, "Hey, can you guys support and help us out here?"
Michael LeBlanc
I'm sure your days are never dull. That's for sure. So listen, let's so the format for this is a short form format, for a profile of a bit of you, what you've got to say on the stage and, give us, and the format here is two starts and one stop based on your experience. Maybe probably the COVID era, the first year of the COVID era, give the listeners a sense of two things they should start doing if they're not or prehaps it'ss something you started doing. And then one thing they should, they should probably no longer do or stop doing, or and yeah, something in between.
Sean Sportun
So I guess the one thing I would say is never stopped learning, right. And I think the pandemic has kind of brought that to light for, you know, every industry, especially the security industry is, is always preparing. And don't think that, you know, just because I'm in the retail space, and there is a health and safety component, that you never really let your guard down from that health and safety perspective. And make sure you keep your education and your awareness and your tentacles out there and staying within those associations and, and whatnot. Because, we ended up being an essential service, right, we sell gas, we sell, you know, grocery products. And, you know, how do we keep our employees safe? And then at the same time, how do we keep our customer base safe?
And, you know, some of the things that we've learned during the pandemic, when it came to, you know, barriers and hand sanitizers and PPE and, you know, all the regulations. And meeting the different needs throughout the province of Ontario, with the municipal health units and whatnot, really brought a focus that hey, listen, you know, we're not just a, you know, security function.
There is a health and safety, you know, an HSE perspective to that. So, you know, and we started, you know, we always had that kind of forte and skill set, but it reinforced the need to make sure that we keep our training. Make sure that we get involved in different aspects and webinars, and you name it, to keep, you know, our level of education and thought process to a high level.
Michael LeBlanc
And, you know, again, back to you're, just looking at your LinkedIn. You're really involved in, for example, Toronto Crimestoppers. And you brought it up, is that I'll always be involved always be, you know, connecting. Is that, how important is that to your, to your job? And really doing a great job in your environment, being connected to external organizations like that?
Sean Sportun
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's paramount for any security professional to stay connected to associations that support their role. You know, I've been with Crime Stoppers in Toronto going on 20 years. I've been involved in the Ontario level,
Michael LeBlanc
Senior level, I see your chair, I mean, very senior levels, right.
Sean Sportun
Yeah. And I've been, I've been asked to speak at, you know, global conferences around Crime Stoppers and what we've been doing, specifically at Circle K. As well, as you know, within the regional program of Toronto, and some of the things that we've launched. And, you know, what I've learned over time is, you know, you wear two hats, right? So, I could be, you know, looking at a security problem, or a safety problem, within my environment, my work environment at Circle K and going, hey, wait a minute. There could be a crossover Crime Stoppers here. And how can we leverage that. And then with that you leverage your police partners. You leverage your, you know, your politicians and the stakeholders that actually have, you know, the leadership, if you will, to make change at the positive level. So absolutely, it's important to have those associations.
Michael LeBlanc
So, the first one is his stay connected, stay, nimble, what's your second one?
Sean Sportun
Sharing information. I mean, you know, again, with the pandemic, what it's brought is that we all face the same challenges. And quickly, you know, the industry getting together to share ideas, you know, hey, here's what we're doing. It's working for us, could it work for you? And being on some of these these calls and learning and saying, you know, when we, you know, not only the pandemic, but when we had the, you know, the civil unrest, and some of the riots that we were seeing, how it affected our retail space. And, you know, should we be boarding up? Should we be locking down? You know, where do you, what's the intelligence on where these are going to happen? And, and that, you know, sharing of information was crucial.
Otherwise, you're sitting their blind saying, okay, well, what should we do? And you know, upper management's leaning on me to make certain recommendations and decisions.
Michael LeBlanc
And you're trying to make decisions in a bit of a vacuum if you're not connected the way you're describing, right?
Sean Sportun
Yeah, absolutely. And because we had that intelligence and that sharing base, we were able to say okay, listen, these stories on this side are not going to be affected but on this side, hey, you know, we might want to beef up security and do some risk assessments on those sites. And you know, remove anything that could be used as an object to throw from our property. And maybe put security guards in place and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, absolutely, you know, that sharing piece and the security industry came together, right. It wasn't us against the world. It was, it wasn't you know us against another brand. It was awe need to work together to make sure that we keep our people safe.
Michael LeBlanc
One, one retailer once told me at one of our Retail Council, kind, of Canada conferences is like we come together we compete at the cash register. But here together we come together to lift the industry.
Sean Sportun
Absolutely
Michael LeBlanc
We'll compete together later.
Sean Sportun
Absolutely, Yeah, and that's the difference between security right. I mean, you might not get the marketing departments, let's say sharing information, for obviously. But, when it comes to security, yeah, there are some proprietary things that you're not going to share. But you're facing the same bad guy. You're facing the same exposure and risk, right. So, working together to combat that and make it so that you're not going to be victimized is crucial. And that's the difference within the security retail spectrum compared to, you know, some of the other departments that, you know, are truly competing from register right to the end,
Michael LeBlanc
Right on, right, and it's kind of a one plus one equals three, in your situation. Alright, so one thing that maybe you've used to do as an organization, you stopped or something you see other organizations doing and you say, hey, if I were you I might consider not doing, what would that be?
Sean Sportun
I've tried to I mean, as an organization, I think we're pretty open minded and versatile to change. from a security perspective, I've always tried to lead by if somebody else is doing something, and it can work in our environment, why not try it, right. And keep that in a vision of thinking, to get things done.
And, but what I do find is that there are some retailers out there that are adverse to thinking that way. And then they have their reasons for it, whether it be brand reputation or whatnot. But you really do need to think outside the box. Especially in the retail security environment, because you know, looking at best practices is good. But, who's to say that that is the best practice unless you challenge it, right. So challenging the norm is going to lead to new inventions and new ways of thinking. And it's going to increase not only the safety, but it's going to increase your sales within your environment.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, right on right on. Well, you're going to be on the virtual stage, as I said, at the LP Loss Prevention Forum, what are you going to talk about?
Sean Sportun
Um, so we're going to be talking about a bunch of the different things that we've been doing here at Circle K. We've implemented a bunch of crime prevention, if you will, programs that caught the attention of Harvard. They've done some, some studies on it and reduce, released some Harvard Business reviews on what we're doing.
And, I guess the biggest thing that I want to be able to share is that, you know, security department has always been seen as an expense center, right? You're always asking for cameras or whatnot is. That is that's not actually the case, if you deploy ideas and resources, and they're done in a proper way that you could actually look at the security department as a revenue generator.
And part of that is the the work that we've been doing with Crime Stoppers and being able to work with our law enforcement partners and Crime Stoppers to identify, you know, the people that are taking advantage and committing crimes at our stores. And the results that we've seen, excuse me, that we've seen out of that.
Michael LeBlanc
Right on, right. And, so it's a very strategic look, as opposed to, if something happens, pick up the phone and call the LP department. It's, it sounds like it's gonna be, you know, here's how to integrate a very forward thinking division in your organization and see it that way. Right?
Sean Sportun
Yeah, absolutely. I think speaking to the senior level, mostly, I think most LP professionals will get it, right. But understanding, you know, having the the C Suite folks and those that can actually support an influence, or help influence the change for their LP departments, to understand it and say, hey, wait a minute, you know, that might make sense in our environment. Or, they take something that I say and redefine it into their environment and tweak it and make it work for them, I think is what I really want to get through to the audience.
Michael LeBlanc
All right, well, fantastic. Well, listen, thanks for joining me. Congratulations on on your success. I'll be looking forward to hearing the full discussion at the LP conference. And for now, thanks so much for joining me and have a wonderful rest of your week.
Sean Sportun
Thank you so much for having me on.
Michael LeBlanc
Thanks for tuning into today's special our RCC LP bonus episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to follow the podcast so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news and insights. And if you enjoy this podcast, please consider leaving a rating and reviews it really helps us grow so that we can continue to get amazing guests onto the show. If you are a retail HR professional you don't want to miss the RCC Retail Loss Prevention Forum April 8th. Learn more and register www.rcclpconference.ca, or retailcouncil.org. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc Company Inc. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc co. Until next time, stay safe and have a great week.