TORONTO — In a move designed to improve morale and reduce turnover, employees at stores operated by Loblaw here will be eligible for a 10% discount on purchases beginning this quarter, Dalton Phillips, chief operating officer for Loblaw, said during the retailer’s annual investor conference Tuesday. The colleague discount is among programs designed to make Loblaw “better shopkeepers,” said Phillips, who also discussed improvements in training and labor productivity, as well as shrink and out-of-stock reductions at certain stores, as keys to reducing costs and funding the company’s ongoing turnaround. Among the shrink reduction initiatives is a policy of more stringent background checks on employees, Phillips said. So far in 2008, 7.5% of applicants were rejected based on criminal records, he said.

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