Training to reduce employee theft-3                                                                          WC Blog 482
Employee theft-3

Employee Theft May Impact You More Than You Realize Part 2

     In Part 1 of this article I talked about how training to reduce employee theft is a must for store owners and managers. The problem is it isn’t as easy as doing a quick internet search and learning from whatever search result happens to pop up. Who is it that is giving advice? Do they really know anything about internal theft? To get training that will make a difference you want to learn from people with experience in the field of Retail Loss Prevention. You want people that know different methods of employee theft and understand that frequently patience in an investigation is necessary to find out how extensive a theft case may be. It is also important that trainers can demonstrate what a store owner or manager can do to minimize the chance that someone will steal from their employer. If training is done well owners and managers should have the tools to help prevent theft from happening or catch it sooner if it does.

     Where can you go to get trustworthy training to reduce employee theft? Loss Prevention Systems Inc. is the best resource for information. Professionals from the Loss Prevention Management field incorporate years of experiences and investigations into a comprehensive training session that prepares managers to understand employee theft. You can learn the cues that employees may give to indicate they are thinking about stealing. Find out steps you can take to minimize the risk of hiring the wrong person in the first place. Did you know that a dishonest worker could be hurting your store’s reputation by stealing from customers? All of these are things that are best learned from someone who has dealt with theft and fraud and can speak from real life experiences.

     One of the issues with employee theft is it does not always show up in obvious ways and if you do not know what you are looking for it can have a significant impact on your business. For example, I once had a return desk employee who was keeping receipts from customers and doing fraudulent returns from them. This cashier was doing legitimate returns for customers from the receipts and then keeping the receipts. If there were other items that had not been returned on the receipt she would pretend to do a return of one of the items on the receipt but there was no merchandise.  Aside from getting money dishonestly for something that was not returned, she was also causing stock shortage issues with inventory. The inventory system assumed the merchandise was put back into our inventory or returned and defected out. In either case it was an item that was put back in inventory that had not made it there. It caused shortage that was only corrected when I caught the employee and she signed an admission form for all of the fraudulent returns and a promissory note that she would pay restitution for the losses she caused.  Think for a moment what it would do to your inventory if you have a worker doing the same thing and you have no training to identify that it is taking place. What would the ramifications be? 

     I mentioned that employees can damage the reputation of a business if it isn’t caught early. I once had an employee who was stealing from our customers. The shoppers were supposed to receive a gift card with the purchase of a particular item. This cashier was keeping the gift card unless a customer returned mentioned they had not received it. On one occasion a victim didn’t speak with the cashier she spoke with a manager (which initiated my investigation). After spending quite a bit of time reviewing video and conducting live surveillances I caught the employee doing it to other customers. Had enough time gone by it could have really hurt our reputation with shoppers. 

     Left unchecked dishonest employees can hurt a company and the integrity of the business within the community. The chances of this happening can be minimal if an owner and managers take time to go through training to reduce employee theft. Find out more about how training from Loss Prevention Systems Inc. can make your business more profitable now and in the future.
Get more information on Training To Reduce Employee Theft. Contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today. 

In Part 1 of this article I talked about how training to reduce employee theft is a must for store owners and managers. The problem is it isn’t as easy as doing a quick internet search and learning from whatever search result happens to pop up. Who is it that is giving advice? Do they really know anything about internal theft? To get training that will make a difference you want to learn from people with experience in the field of Retail Loss Prevention. You want people that know different methods of employee theft and understand that frequently patience in an investigation is necessary to find out how extensive a theft case may be. It is also important that trainers can demonstrate what a store owner or manager can do to minimize the chance that someone will steal from their employer. If training is done well owners and managers should have the tools to help prevent theft from happening or catch it sooner if it does.
     

Where can you go to get trustworthy training to reduce employee theft? Loss Prevention Systems Inc. is the best resource for information. Professionals from the Loss Prevention Management field incorporate years of experiences and investigations into a comprehensive training session that prepares managers to understand employee theft. You can learn the cues that employees may give to indicate they are thinking about stealing. Find out steps you can take to minimize the risk of hiring the wrong person in the first place. Did you know that a dishonest worker could be hurting your store’s reputation by stealing from customers? All of these are things that are best learned from someone who has dealt with theft and fraud and can speak from real life experiences.
     

One of the issues with employee theft is it does not always show up in obvious ways and if you do not know what you are looking for it can have a significant impact on your business. For example, I once had a return desk employee who was keeping receipts from customers and doing fraudulent returns from them. This cashier was doing legitimate returns for customers from the receipts and then keeping the receipts. If there were other items that had not been returned on the receipt she would pretend to do a return of one of the items on the receipt but there was no merchandise.  Aside from getting money dishonestly for something that was not returned, she was also causing stock shortage issues with inventory. The inventory system assumed the merchandise was put back into our inventory or returned and defected out. In either case it was an item that was put back in inventory that had not made it there. It caused shortage that was only corrected when I caught the employee and she signed an admission form for all of the fraudulent returns and a promissory note that she would pay restitution for the losses she caused.  Think for a moment what it would do to your inventory if you have a worker doing the same thing and you have no training to identify that it is taking place. What would the ramifications be? 
     

I mentioned that employees can damage the reputation of a business if it isn’t caught early. I once had an employee who was stealing from our customers. The shoppers were supposed to receive a gift card with the purchase of a particular item. This cashier was keeping the gift card unless a customer returned mentioned they had not received it. On one occasion a victim didn’t speak with the cashier she spoke with a manager (which initiated my investigation). After spending quite a bit of time reviewing video and conducting live surveillances I caught the employee doing it to other customers. Had enough time gone by it could have really hurt our reputation with shoppers. 
     

Left unchecked dishonest employees can hurt a company and the integrity of the business within the community. The chances of this happening can be minimal if an owner and managers take time to go through training to reduce employee theft. Find out more about how training from Loss Prevention Systems Inc. can make your business more profitable now and in the future.

 

Get more information on Training To Reduce Employee Theft. Contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.