Employee Theft Reaching New Highs

By Author: Emily Robinson
Total Articles: 45
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If you're manager of a business it's highly important to invest in a security recording system such as CCTV not only in order to protect against theft from customers and the general public, but also to protect against theft from employees. With cases of employee theft steadily on the rise, CCTV can help protect not only you, but your employees from theft and false allegations.

Millions of pounds are stolen annually from businesses and much of the time this is the result of ‘inside jobs'. Polls suggest that as many as 75% of employees today have stolen from their employer at some point and at least 37% have done so more than once. Chances are at some point you'll have done this yourself. Whether this is a pen or stapler, or something larger such as money from a till, or something far more destructive such as information however, it still needs to be limited as much as possible if a company is to thrive.

You may not think you have a problem with employee theft. Occasionally you may lose a pen - but that's to be expected, and the till float adds up fairly well at the end of the day on most days. However this ...
... may just mean that you currently have a narrow view of employee theft.

Perhaps most common is actually theft of something more abstract that you might not necessarily notice. Theft of time is actually much more common than theft of property (which itself could be further delineated into theft of supplies versus products) and occurs on a daily basis. This can mean employees falsifying records - claiming that they've worked more hours than they have, or employees not working during their shifts, taking long cigarette breaks or talking instead. Legally this is more difficult to prove, but a CCTV camera can help monitor it and you can then let go of staff who aren't pulling their weight.

Most dangerous of all however is the theft of information. This can include company plans and investments, information about company finances or information regarding employees. This can then be sold to rival companies, used for the employee to set up their own competitive business, or even just used to damage the company for malicious reasons. While bunging cash from the till may damage a day's profits - stealing information can cut profits and share prices for decades to come.

Employees might not even steal from the company however and in some cases can steal from the customers themselves. This can be achieved by them purposefully mispricing stock, or short changing the customers. This is particularly common in pubs and bars where the customers often don't notice due to levels of intoxication. This can badly damage the reputation of your company and can leave you with many unhappy customers.

All of these phenomenons are rising in number in recent times and when you consider the variety of ways employees can steal from companies chances are the numbers are even greater. While it will never be completely stamped out, it's important that employers keep it at least under control.

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