Protecting Your Business from Employee Theft

If you have employees you might want to consider the possibility that they are stealing from you. Often we assume that theft is from shoplifting and customer but in many cases it is actually our employees who are taking us for a ride. Protecting your assets is necessary in business when low-skilled labor doesn't engage in the luxury buying experienced by other members of society.

According to the 2006 National Retail Security Survey, theft accounts for 41 billion dollars annually. 47% of this amount comes from employees. The amount that employees are stealing ranges from a few simple items like a pack of cigarettes to unloading pallet size loads of liquor onto their pick up trucks.

In one particular business located in Escanaba Michigan young workers were putting entire cases of beer into the garbage cans and then selling these cases at local parties. It was a lucrative business for the young gentleman as they earned some side money. This type of theft is not unusual.

The U.S. Department of Commerce believes that 75% of all employee theft goes unnoticed. The average about of theft per incident was around $1,700 to $4,500. One employee can take this much out of your profits and your pocket with nothing more than a few minutes of their time.

There are a few methods of helping to curb these thefts if employers take appropriate action. Even though many of these actions are a deterrent by nature they may still be enough to raise the level that someone will get caught. If employees feel that they will get caught they may not engage in the action in the first place.

Methods to Avoid Employee Theft:

1.) Cameras: Placing video cameras by the cash registers, back rooms and other places will reduce the overall chance of people steeling. Since these cameras are expensive some of them can actually be "dummy" cameras. The fact that an employee has no idea which cameras are real will likely deter them from stealing.

2.) Audits: Auditing your financial records helps you find discrepancies that wouldn't have been noticed. Even better these audits can help to produce meaningful reports that can be used in strategic planning.