Prevention of Employee Theft
Why do employees feel free to steal? Most employee theft occurs because it is too easy. What can a company do to prevent employee theft? What should a company do to employee thieves? The following paragraphs summarize a few ideas.
Employee theft is a crime that is costing U.S. companies a great deal of money. Employee thefts are growing in number, partially because the perpetrators really do not see themselves as criminals and rationalize what they are doing in much the same way as taxpayers rationalize income tax fraud. Employee theft is one of many personnel problems that is easier to prevent than to solve. Prevention should begin before an applicant becomes an employee. Some theft
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Other techniques include limiting the likelihood of collusion by regularly changing work-team assignments, strengthening internal control, and separation of duties. A phony theft might also be set up to see how quickly managers and staffers report it.
Another way that might prevent employee theft is through surveillance. In the early 1990's Long John Silver's Restaurants, Inc. installed surveillance cameras in their stores after having a history of internal losses. The cameras proved to work during one of many instances. One instance included a young cashier who had stolen over eighty dollars in less than two hours while working at the Long John Silver's drive-through window. Unfortunately for her, in the ceiling, over the drive-through register, a surveillance system had recorded her every move.
When presented with the videotaped evidence during a security interview, the cashier confessed to stealing more than $500 in five weeks. The employee later pled guilty to felony theft charges. She was ordered to make restitution to Long John Silver's for the full amount of her confessed theft. The restaurant recovered the stolen money and avoided the greater expense of prosecuting the theft (Price).
When a company finds evidence of employee theft, company officials must
Cash is such an important current asset to a business, especially for the every day running of it, so ready access to cash is crucial. Therefore, every company must utilize safeguards to protect and manage their cash. An alarming statistic in one of The National Restaurant Association’s (NRA) reports shows that employee theft cost $8.5B to its members in 2007 – the equivalent of 4% of food sales. Furthermore, only 10% of employees do not commit fraud in any situation, while 5% do commit fraud, and the other 85% will actually consider
The final step in financial control is training your people. Everyone must be prepared to identify any irregular behavior. This behavior is not just with regards to the bookkeeping, but individuals whom are displaying signs of unexplained wealth, extreme changes in demeanor, or financial hardship, could be potential threats to the financial health of the organization because of illegal behavior or a propensity to such behavior. An anonymous whistle-blower program can help to provide employees with a way to report suspected colleagues for suspicious behavior without a fear of retaliation (Clevenger, 2009).
Company X is committed to providing education for each employee to report unethical behavior and resolve conflicts without fear of retaliation. One such example would be the need to report employee theft. Employee theft is not only unethical but could also be criminal in nature. Regardless of employee status (entry level or upper management), each employee should feel it their responsibility to report any unethical behavior they observe. Employee theft can range from theft of money, time, office supplies or merchandise to providing proprietary information to unauthorized entities. These activities can result in a negative public image of Company X and should be reported as quickly as possible. Prior to reporting such offenses, each employee should ensure the accuracy of the evidence they will be reporting. There are various methods to report such abuses including but not limited to an anonymous toll free hot line number, verbal or electronic reporting to the local Human Resources office and the open door policy which encourages employees to approach members of management without the fear of
In today’s society, people can be dishonest and cheat their way through life. Working in anywhere, your bosses and coworkers have to gain your trust. For over a year now, I work at Panera Bread. We are always hiring new staff throughout spring and summer. People come and go for stealing food or not treating customers with respect. Until recently, one of my managers experienced embezzlement. My manager is sending her child off to college and taking care of the rest of her family, which is a big expense. Someone apart of our staff stole three hundred dollars from her purse. She lost her whole paycheck that she had earned.
According to Walsh (2000) one of the major reasons for employee theft is low morale at the workplace. Second a lack of control over inventory. Sometimes young employees are subjectivity to peer press to be part of the group can encourage theft. The employee feels that the business or company has wronged or mistreated them in some way. This may be why employees feel underpaid and under-appreciate for their “hard” work done. Like any crime, there must be motive, method and opportunity. It is easy to steal because the employer does not have preventive measures to stop them. Preventive measures are crucial to reducing the risk of employee theft. If preventive measures are not existent then the opportunity to steal is very high. Employers should limit the opportunities to steal. Employers should open their own mail, segregate duties, and particularly bookkeeping functions. Also, employers should not have the check writer balance the checkbook and do not use cash. Younger employees do not think prudently, and tend to be impulsive (Walsh 2000). This is also a major reason why businesses suffer from low production and profit loss.
Committing a corporate crime seems tempting at times, and the culprits usually feel as if their crime is justified. They justify their choice to steal from the company by assuming that the only person who would be affected is the CEO, or somebody that would not notice a dent in their hefty salary. However, it is naive to think of these types of crimes in a way that doesn’t adequately explain the ripple affect each crime has on society.
There is no “sure” way to stop identity theft from happening to someone. There are only measures that may make it harder for thieves to steal someone’s identity because nothing is foolproof. People can shred their important documents after they’re done with them to help prevent their identity to be stolen via dumpster diving, but the thief may find all the shreds and put them together just like a puzzle. The odds of this happening are slim, but there is still a chance, a chance lower than just throwing it out. People should make sure to not use ATMs and not to do personal banking in public, but this will only slow down a thief who is determined to steal someone’s identity. Once a thief is determined to steal someone’s identity and only their identity, there are not many obstacles stopping him/her.
At some point in everyone's life, they are confronted with the eighth commandment: Thou shall not steal. Mine came during high school. I had several friends who worked for various businesses, one of them at a fast food restaurant. Every Friday at midnight, my other friends and I would visit him with empty stomachs. We would pay for the cheapest item on the menu, a 49-cent cookie, and he would give us all the food we wanted. We never gave a second of consideration to the effect of our actions. My story is not uncommon, and it should create concern. Even though it is not often talked about, employee theft is one of the most serious
Need to get be better rewarded: theft is a symptom that managers are not well remunerated. Pocketing the
Theft is a general term that refers to a wide variety of misconduct by which an individual is wrongly deprived of their property. Theft has been an ongoing issue for several years and is taken very seriously. Many different types of theft include property theft, petty theft, robbery, embezzlement, receipt of stolen property, and newer forms of electronic theft, such as
When discussing all forms of workplace deviance it is estimated that the cost associated to take preventive and corrective measures for it are in billions and a total loss account for 50 billion dollars annually in U.S .An estimated figure states that 95% of organization in U.S experience employee theft, talking about third world country like Pakistan the case might be worse if not similar. The astonishing stats tell that workplace deviance causes a serious dent to productivity and profitability of an organization and the reasons need to be addressed by the researchers (Hastings & Finegan, in press). In the past several years such behavior at work has been under severe consideration by the critics and
Is stealing becoming more acceptable in the workplace? Generally, when people think of stealing or theft they are referring to the act of physically taking property from someone else. In reality there are many different ways that an employee can steal from an organization, and I have seen three different ways in my short career. The basic definition of theft is the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another, and this is one way in which people can take away from an organization. The most common way for people to steal from an organization is theft of time, and this includes; taking extra time on breaks and
Need to get be better rewarded: theft is a symptom that managers are not well remunerated. Pocketing the
This section of this chapter aims to interpret the findings and critically evaluate the study. This research indicates that internal control can prevent and detect fraud in Nigerian banking sectors. The first section of the findings contains the first objectives of this research which is to find out the employee knowledge based on the concept of fraud in banking sector. Therefore, According Biegelman, Martin T, (2013) said The penchant for extortion happens when three basic components meet up; intention, opportunity, and rationalization each of these components is fundamental and interrelated all together for a man to commit fraud and the nonappearance of any of them would not permit a man to commit fraud. Opportunity is the driving variable. Without circumstance, fraud plan can 't succeed. Similarly, if a person 's honesty is affected by pressure and justification, and opportunity presents itself, unless the individual has the ability to confer the extortion, the plan won 't succeed (Dennis M. Lormel 2011). However, from the researchers’ findings having asked the staff at the bank there what they think fraud is, 50% of the respondent defined fraud as an illegal act of acquiring wealth, Aderibigbe (1999) and Onibudo (2007) also contributed to fraud immensely, these authors mentioned that one of the causes of fraud is because of inadequate compensation no increase in salary or fringe benefit given to staff, poverty and infidelity of employees fraud is bound to
Companies with a constant turnover of low-salaried part-timers or large businesses lacking competent supervisory personnel to oversee operations, leave themselves open to intentional or unintentional sabotage. Underpaid and undervalued employees, especially when unsupervised, lack any sense of obligation to their employer. They often demonstrate