Pre-employment Screening- 4 WC Blog 275
Employee background checks-3
Background check company-4
Job Performance, Employment Terminations And Dishonest Employee Interviews Can Be Dangerous; Pre-employment Screening Can Make It Safer – Part 3
Whoever thinks about a discussion with an employee as having the potential to be dangerous? Well, I can look back over my career and I have had several instances of employees threatening me or themselves during job terminations and internal theft interviews. I had one young man I was releasing for performance issues and during the discussion he pulled out a box cutter and threatened to kill himself. I had several dishonest employees threaten to “get me later” as I was confronting them about their theft activity. I have even had an employee get mad at me when I was speaking with him about his job performance and what I expected of him to improve. None of these are pleasant conversations. I much prefer to give praise or recognition, who doesn’t? The reality is, we as managers HAVE to have the tough talks with our employees and when we don’t we damage team morale since others feel they have to work harder. We damage the store reputation because that employee’s performance reflects how the business is run. If the person is stealing then obviously it hurts profits and if they are intimidating or dangerous it scares employees and customers. If we have to have the really hard conversations involving job termination or employee theft, we have to prepare ourselves AND our environment. I am going to give a few pointers on how you can be ready for the hard talks with your employees. I do want to make a point first, if you aren’t using a background check company to conduct pre-employment screening before you are making hiring decisions, you could be making these talks harder and more dangerous.
A background check company that does pre-employment screening investigates the pool of applicants you send them. They validate application information such as dates of employment, criminal history, education qualifications and even driving history checks. If the pre-employment screening turns up omissions, information such as a violent past, or contradictions, an employer can remove the applicant from consideration. This is the type of information you can use to help make your workplace safer.
Tips to prepare for a conversation with an employee before talking to them about involvement in theft or the need to end their employment:
• Make notes on what it is the employee has or hasn’t done that has brought you to this point. If you haven’t reviewed your facts and you are addressing something out of suspicion or because you are angry, you can make an error and the employee can make strong rebuttals.
• Stay calm and don’t allow the employee to get your temper worked up. The employee may get mad or insulting, that is natural. Staying calm on your part diffuses the situation.
• If you conduct employee background checks, review the employee’s file for pertinent information you may have overlooked that could help you in challenging the employee’s defensive arguments. Have the employee file with you, but it should be for your review, don’t offer to put it in the employee’s hands.
• Prepare the office space where the conversation will take place. The office and especially the desk should be sterile. Any loose object on a desk can be used as a weapon. If the employee goes into a rage, you don’t want them to have an object available to throw or hit with.
• Have a witness sit in and take notes (or appear to take notes in the case of a termination). The appearance of being outnumbered can be a deterrent to violence.
• Do sit so you have access to an exit. If the employee becomes violent you don’t want to be trapped in the room.
• Be prepared with a cell phone and number to the police or ready to call 911 if the employee becomes violent or threatens violence.
• Report any threats by the employee to the police, even if you believe they are benign. “I’m going to get you” is a general statement but should be reported to the police to have the report on file.
These are a few ways you can conduct a safer conversation and minimize the opportunity for violence. Conducting employee background checks through a background check company also minimizes the chance you will have that violent person on staff.
Use employee background checks and pre-employment screening to improve your chances of hiring the best workers for your team. You will reduce the number of negative conversations you will have to conduct and when you do have to conduct them you can be more confident you will be safe doing so.
Get more information on Pre-employment Screening, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Whoever thinks about a discussion with an employee as having the potential to be dangerous? Well, I can look back over my career and I have had several instances of employees threatening me or themselves during job terminations and internal theft interviews. I had one young man I was releasing for performance issues and during the discussion he pulled out a box cutter and threatened to kill himself. I had several dishonest employees threaten to “get me later” as I was confronting them about their theft activity. I have even had an employee get mad at me when I was speaking with him about his job performance and what I expected of him to improve. None of these are pleasant conversations. I much prefer to give praise or recognition, who doesn’t? The reality is, we as managers HAVE to have the tough talks with our employees and when we don’t we damage team morale since others feel they have to work harder. We damage the store reputation because that employee’s performance reflects how the business is run. If the person is stealing then obviously it hurts profits and if they are intimidating or dangerous it scares employees and customers. If we have to have the really hard conversations involving job termination or employee theft, we have to prepare ourselves AND our environment. I am going to give a few pointers on how you can be ready for the hard talks with your employees. I do want to make a point first, if you aren’t using a background check company to conduct pre-employment screening before you are making hiring decisions, you could be making these talks harder and more dangerous.
A background check company that does pre-employment screening investigates the pool of applicants you send them. They validate application information such as dates of employment, criminal history, education qualifications and even driving history checks. If the pre-employment screening turns up omissions, information such as a violent past, or contradictions, an employer can remove the applicant from consideration. This is the type of information you can use to help make your workplace safer.
Tips to prepare for a conversation with an employee before talking to them about involvement in theft or the need to end their employment:
• Make notes on what it is the employee has or hasn’t done that has brought you to this point. If you haven’t reviewed your facts and you are addressing something out of suspicion or because you are angry, you can make an error and the employee can make strong rebuttals.
• Stay calm and don’t allow the employee to get your temper worked up. The employee may get mad or insulting, that is natural. Staying calm on your part diffuses the situation.
• If you conduct employee background checks, review the employee’s file for pertinent information you may have overlooked that could help you in challenging the employee’s defensive arguments. Have the employee file with you, but it should be for your review, don’t offer to put it in the employee’s hands.
• Prepare the office space where the conversation will take place. The office and especially the desk should be sterile. Any loose object on a desk can be used as a weapon. If the employee goes into a rage, you don’t want them to have an object available to throw or hit with.
• Have a witness sit in and take notes (or appear to take notes in the case of a termination). The appearance of being outnumbered can be a deterrent to violence.
• Do sit so you have access to an exit. If the employee becomes violent you don’t want to be trapped in the room.
• Be prepared with a cell phone and number to the police or ready to call 911 if the employee becomes violent or threatens violence.
• Report any threats by the employee to the police, even if you believe they are benign. “I’m going to get you” is a general statement but should be reported to the police to have the report on file.
These are a few ways you can conduct a safer conversation and minimize the opportunity for violence. Conducting employee background checks through a background check company also minimizes the chance you will have that violent person on staff.
Use employee background checks and pre-employment screening to improve your chances of hiring the best workers for your team. You will reduce the number of negative conversations you will have to conduct and when you do have to conduct them you can be more confident you will be safe doing so.
Get more information on Pre-employment Screening, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Pre-employment Screening – 5 WC Blog 274
Background Check Company-4
Employee Background Checks-3
Job Performance, Employment Terminations And Dishonest Employee Interviews Can Be Dangerous; Pre-employment Screening Can Make It Safer – Part 2
How do you conduct your job performance discussions with your employees? I’m not talking about the discussion with the high performing employee getting ready to be promoted. I’m referring to the talk you have to have with the employee who is not meeting expectations. What about the meeting you have to conduct to terminate an employee’s job? One that can be particularly difficult is the interview with the dishonest employee who has been stealing from your store. Each of these discussions can be very difficult and in some instances there are managers and business owners who do all they can to avoid these talks. It is not a comfortable position to have to end another person’s employment or accuse them of engaging in dishonest activity. If it is performance related you are telling that worker they are inadequate. In my career as a retail manager and library supervisor I have had to conduct all three types of interactions and it is never comfortable. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, a manager never knows how his/her employee will react in the situation. Pre-employment screening can help to minimize the chance that the employees you hire have violent backgrounds that you don’t want in your workplace in the first place. In this article I want to give some tips to help managers understand the importance of having these discussions and how to prepare for them before talking to the employee.
It is important to pause and review what a pre-employment screening is and how a background check company can help in your hiring process. A pre-employment screening is a review of an applicant’s record and verification against what they have entered on a job application. If an applicant indicates they have no felony convictions but in reality they have a prior assault conviction, a background check company can uncover this information. You may be hiring someone as a bookkeeper and they interview well but your conduct employee background checks and find out they have problems with debt and are behind on credit card payments. This would raise a red flag that this candidate could certainly be a concern for future employee theft. A background check company can verify if a person has lived where they said they have lived for the past 10 years. If they lied on the application and have moved frequently, what was the reason for the false information? Is the applicant avoiding legal issues or the police? The pre-employment screening process reduces the risk an employer takes when hiring a new worker.
My stated purpose of this article is to explain the purpose of having the tough discussions with employees even when it is uncomfortable and tips on how to conduct them. It is not unheard of for managers to avoid calling an employee into an office to discuss performance problems. The mindset is frequently that the employee may improve on their own or maybe they will see they aren’t working out and will quit. It may even be that there is the expectation that everyone else will pick up that employee’s slack. Avoidance does not help anyone, anytime and actually will hurt the morale of the good workers. Poor performance must be addressed and clear expectations established WITH deadlines and measurements for improvement. Ambiguous or general expectations are unfair to the employee and set them up for failure and will result in future uncomfortable conversations. Do NOT use an annual or semi-annual performance review as the time to address concerns. A review should never be a surprise to the employee. If a manager is talking with their workers during the year, and documenting conversations, that employee will already know what to expect. If you complete employee background checks, you will not be rid of all performance issues, but you may have eliminated worse situations and you may have still hired the worker who can improve through additional training.
Performance management discussions tend to be the least confrontational of my “Big 3” employee talks. Employment termination and dishonest activity/employee theft interviews are the hardest and in part 3, I will talk about how they are different and how to prepare for and conduct these talks. As I close this segment I want to reiterate the importance of conducting employee background checks using a background check company before a new person is hired to the team. Any of these discussions can be hard, if a person has a violent history it can be dangerous. Improve your chances of a smooth meeting by doing pre-employment screening.
Pre-employment screening is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
How do you conduct your job performance discussions with your employees? I’m not talking about the discussion with the high performing employee getting ready to be promoted. I’m referring to the talk you have to have with the employee who is not meeting expectations. What about the meeting you have to conduct to terminate an employee’s job? One that can be particularly difficult is the interview with the dishonest employee who has been stealing from your store. Each of these discussions can be very difficult and in some instances there are managers and business owners who do all they can to avoid these talks. It is not a comfortable position to have to end another person’s employment or accuse them of engaging in dishonest activity. If it is performance related you are telling that worker they are inadequate. In my career as a retail manager and library supervisor I have had to conduct all three types of interactions and it is never comfortable. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, a manager never knows how his/her employee will react in the situation. Pre-employment screening can help to minimize the chance that the employees you hire have violent backgrounds that you don’t want in your workplace in the first place. In this article I want to give some tips to help managers understand the importance of having these discussions and how to prepare for them before talking to the employee.
It is important to pause and review what a pre-employment screening is and how a background check company can help in your hiring process. A pre-employment screening is a review of an applicant’s record and verification against what they have entered on a job application. If an applicant indicates they have no felony convictions but in reality they have a prior assault conviction, a background check company can uncover this information. You may be hiring someone as a bookkeeper and they interview well but your conduct employee background checks and find out they have problems with debt and are behind on credit card payments. This would raise a red flag that this candidate could certainly be a concern for future employee theft. A background check company can verify if a person has lived where they said they have lived for the past 10 years. If they lied on the application and have moved frequently, what was the reason for the false information? Is the applicant avoiding legal issues or the police? The pre-employment screening process reduces the risk an employer takes when hiring a new worker.
My stated purpose of this article is to explain the purpose of having the tough discussions with employees even when it is uncomfortable and tips on how to conduct them. It is not unheard of for managers to avoid calling an employee into an office to discuss performance problems. The mindset is frequently that the employee may improve on their own or maybe they will see they aren’t working out and will quit. It may even be that there is the expectation that everyone else will pick up that employee’s slack. Avoidance does not help anyone, anytime and actually will hurt the morale of the good workers. Poor performance must be addressed and clear expectations established WITH deadlines and measurements for improvement. Ambiguous or general expectations are unfair to the employee and set them up for failure and will result in future uncomfortable conversations. Do NOT use an annual or semi-annual performance review as the time to address concerns. A review should never be a surprise to the employee. If a manager is talking with their workers during the year, and documenting conversations, that employee will already know what to expect. If you complete employee background checks, you will not be rid of all performance issues, but you may have eliminated worse situations and you may have still hired the worker who can improve through additional training.
Performance management discussions tend to be the least confrontational of my “Big 3” employee talks. Employment termination and dishonest activity/employee theft interviews are the hardest and in part 3, I will talk about how they are different and how to prepare for and conduct these talks. As I close this segment I want to reiterate the importance of conducting employee background checks using a background check company before a new person is hired to the team. Any of these discussions can be hard, if a person has a violent history it can be dangerous. Improve your chances of a smooth meeting by doing pre-employment screening.
Pre-employment screening is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
Pre-employment Screening-4 WC blog 273
Background Check Company-3
Employee background checks-3
Job Performance, Employment Terminations And Dishonest Employee Interviews Can Be Dangerous; Pre-employment Screening Can Make It Safer – Part 1
As a Loss Prevention Manager I had to conduct investigative interviews with dishonest employees on quite a few occasions over a 15 year period. It is never an easy thing to do since you don’t know what to expect from the person you are interviewing. In some cases you may anticipate the employee will be quiet or meek and during the interview process they become verbally aggressive or threatening. I have dealt with the employee I thought would potentially become violent and they were the one to be subdued and give an easy admission of guilt. People are all different and react to stressful situations in a multitude of ways and a store owner or manager must always use care when having to confront someone. This is one of the reasons it is so important to use employee background checks when hiring staff. You want to try to find the most suitable person to work for you and that includes the ability to do the work and the ability to get along with others in a safe environment. While a background check company may not weed out ALL of the worst candidates, pre-employment screening can be effective in eliminating many questionable applicants before you make a job offer.
When an applicant completes your job application, the answers they write down or input in the computer are the responses you have to go by. On your own, you don’t know whether this person has given you the correct Social Security Number or the real address where they lived for the past ten years. They may respond that they have no prior criminal record but, is that true? The person you are considering for the job may not even be telling you the truth about their employment history. A background check company can verify all of these things for you and help you to know if you are hiring who you think you are hiring. If there is information that cannot be verified you will be told about that too, further assisting you in your final hiring decision.
While you may not have to concern yourself with conducting investigations and interviewing dishonest employees it is highly likely that you will have to have job performance discussions with employees from time to time. I believe if you are leading your staff you will be having coaching sessions or performance discussions, it will simply be a matter of when or how frequently. You may possibly have to fire an employee at some point and these discussions can be just as contentious as an employee theft interview. You don’t know how that person is going to react during the discussion. If you had a pre-employment screening completed before hiring you may at least be sure that the person you are going to fire does not have a criminal history of violence.
Employee background checks can also provide insight into a candidate’s background and verify education, driving records, credit card and payment histories, even check sex offender registries. While not all of this information would necessarily determine if an employee would steal from your company or be a danger to others, it can be a strong indicator when making hiring choices. Pre-employment screening gives you a better picture of the candidate and if something concerns you on a report you can discuss it with the candidate on a follow up interview. If you have multiple applicants for a position it can help weed out the candidate field.
By using the background check company to conduct employee background checks you save yourself time and energy because the information you need is gathered by professionals who know how the resources needed to gather the information. If you bring on the right people or minimize the risk of bringing on those who may have violent backgrounds you can feel more confident about your safety when you have to conduct those tough discussions or reprimands.
Need information on pre-employment screening? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
As a Loss Prevention Manager I had to conduct investigative interviews with dishonest employees on quite a few occasions over a 15 year period. It is never an easy thing to do since you don’t know what to expect from the person you are interviewing. In some cases you may anticipate the employee will be quiet or meek and during the interview process they become verbally aggressive or threatening. I have dealt with the employee I thought would potentially become violent and they were the one to be subdued and give an easy admission of guilt. People are all different and react to stressful situations in a multitude of ways and a store owner or manager must always use care when having to confront someone. This is one of the reasons it is so important to use employee background checks when hiring staff. You want to try to find the most suitable person to work for you and that includes the ability to do the work and the ability to get along with others in a safe environment. While a background check company may not weed out ALL of the worst candidates, pre-employment screening can be effective in eliminating many questionable applicants before you make a job offer.
When an applicant completes your job application, the answers they write down or input in the computer are the responses you have to go by. On your own, you don’t know whether this person has given you the correct Social Security Number or the real address where they lived for the past ten years. They may respond that they have no prior criminal record but, is that true? The person you are considering for the job may not even be telling you the truth about their employment history. A background check company can verify all of these things for you and help you to know if you are hiring who you think you are hiring. If there is information that cannot be verified you will be told about that too, further assisting you in your final hiring decision.
While you may not have to concern yourself with conducting investigations and interviewing dishonest employees it is highly likely that you will have to have job performance discussions with employees from time to time. I believe if you are leading your staff you will be having coaching sessions or performance discussions, it will simply be a matter of when or how frequently. You may possibly have to fire an employee at some point and these discussions can be just as contentious as an employee theft interview. You don’t know how that person is going to react during the discussion. If you had a pre-employment screening completed before hiring you may at least be sure that the person you are going to fire does not have a criminal history of violence.
Employee background checks can also provide insight into a candidate’s background and verify education, driving records, credit card and payment histories, even check sex offender registries. While not all of this information would necessarily determine if an employee would steal from your company or be a danger to others, it can be a strong indicator when making hiring choices. Pre-employment screening gives you a better picture of the candidate and if something concerns you on a report you can discuss it with the candidate on a follow up interview. If you have multiple applicants for a position it can help weed out the candidate field.
By using the background check company to conduct employee background checks you save yourself time and energy because the information you need is gathered by professionals who know how the resources needed to gather the information. If you bring on the right people or minimize the risk of bringing on those who may have violent backgrounds you can feel more confident about your safety when you have to conduct those tough discussions or reprimands.
Need information on pre-employment screening? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Employee Background Checks-4 WC blog 251
Pre-employment Screening-4
Great Staffs Will Come And Go; When They Go Make Sure Their Replacement Goes Through A Pre-employment Screening And Protect Your Company
I used to work in retail exclusively. I was a Loss Prevention Manager for nearly 14 years and a Logistics Manager for a year and a half. This does not include my prior experience as a Loss Prevention Associate for another five years. Now my retail work is on a part-time basis and I am a supervisor in a college library. While at first glance it may seem to be an odd transition, it really isn’t since a large part of my time in my former retail jobs and my library job involves supervision and hiring of staff. One of the things I have found to be consistent in almost any job is that when you think you have a full staff hired and trained, regardless of the job, you are bound to lose people and have to go through the hiring and training process again. People move on for various reasons, personal growth, pay, promotional opportunities, firings and a myriad of other possibilities. It is rare that a business or agency has little turnover in the ranks. In my current role, I help in hiring other staff but I have the primary responsibility of hiring student workers for my shift. I may hire a great group of workers, get them trained for a new year and inevitably during the course of the semester some will quit or leave. This means I have to do a search and hire replacements. I faced similar challenges in retail. You get a great team and then you lose people. That’s life. For retailers, the additional challenge when hiring is the risk that a new worker may pose. Will they work with a cash register? They certainly will be around merchandise no matter what job they are hired for. How do you make sure you are hiring someone you can trust? Do you use any type of pre-employment screening or employee background checks? If not, you could be subjecting your business to unnecessary risk.
Employee background checks provide an employer the information they need to be confident they are hiring the right person for a job. You may have a job application that asks applicants about prior employment history, references, whether they have been terminated from a position or have a criminal history but if you aren’t doing pre-employment screening you are taking the applicant’s word for the validity of the information they are providing you. I have first- hand experience seeing a job application and interviewing a candidate and then finding the results from employee background checks showing the applicant had neglected to include some information on the application. I have also seen where an applicant had been caught lying about not having a criminal record other than a misdemeanor offense. Screening applicants helps a manager filter out people that might be hired and do harm to the business.
In my job at the library, the college doesn’t do pre-employment screening on student workers but they do run checks for regular staff. Our staff are cleared to be able to work here because they are around young adults and at times they may be around children on tour groups or with families visiting the school. Our staff also work with money and personal information, again validating the need for knowing who it is that will be working on campus. A thorough background check may keep a business from putting other employees or even patrons at risk for harm.
Hopefully you have a great team of people surrounding you and taking pride in their jobs. Eventually someone on that team will move on and need replaced or better yet, your company expands and you need more assistance. When that time comes, make sure you hire the right person to fill that role make sure you get a company to do your pre-employment screening for you.
Get more information on pre-employment screening, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
I used to work in retail exclusively. I was a Loss Prevention Manager for nearly 14 years and a Logistics Manager for a year and a half. This does not include my prior experience as a Loss Prevention Associate for another five years. Now my retail work is on a part-time basis and I am a supervisor in a college library. While at first glance it may seem to be an odd transition, it really isn’t since a large part of my time in my former retail jobs and my library job involves supervision and hiring of staff. One of the things I have found to be consistent in almost any job is that when you think you have a full staff hired and trained, regardless of the job, you are bound to lose people and have to go through the hiring and training process again. People move on for various reasons, personal growth, pay, promotional opportunities, firings and a myriad of other possibilities. It is rare that a business or agency has little turnover in the ranks. In my current role, I help in hiring other staff but I have the primary responsibility of hiring student workers for my shift. I may hire a great group of workers, get them trained for a new year and inevitably during the course of the semester some will quit or leave. This means I have to do a search and hire replacements. I faced similar challenges in retail. You get a great team and then you lose people. That’s life. For retailers, the additional challenge when hiring is the risk that a new worker may pose. Will they work with a cash register? They certainly will be around merchandise no matter what job they are hired for. How do you make sure you are hiring someone you can trust? Do you use any type of pre-employment screening or employee background checks? If not, you could be subjecting your business to unnecessary risk.
Employee background checks provide an employer the information they need to be confident they are hiring the right person for a job. You may have a job application that asks applicants about prior employment history, references, whether they have been terminated from a position or have a criminal history but if you aren’t doing pre-employment screening you are taking the applicant’s word for the validity of the information they are providing you. I have first- hand experience seeing a job application and interviewing a candidate and then finding the results from employee background checks showing the applicant had neglected to include some information on the application. I have also seen where an applicant had been caught lying about not having a criminal record other than a misdemeanor offense. Screening applicants helps a manager filter out people that might be hired and do harm to the business.
In my job at the library, the college doesn’t do pre-employment screening on student workers but they do run checks for regular staff. Our staff are cleared to be able to work here because they are around young adults and at times they may be around children on tour groups or with families visiting the school. Our staff also work with money and personal information, again validating the need for knowing who it is that will be working on campus. A thorough background check may keep a business from putting other employees or even patrons at risk for harm.
Hopefully you have a great team of people surrounding you and taking pride in their jobs. Eventually someone on that team will move on and need replaced or better yet, your company expands and you need more assistance. When that time comes, make sure you hire the right person to fill that role make sure you get a company to do your pre-employment screening for you.
Get more information on pre-employment screening, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Training to reduce employee theft-3 WC Blog 304
Stop shoplifting-4
Employee Theft-3
Can Your Employees Be Stealing? Professional Manager Training To Reduce Employee Theft Is Now Available For Everyone
I can remember when I started working in the Loss Prevention field over 26 years ago and I had no idea what it would entail. I assumed I was going to catch shoplifters stealing clothes, how hard could that be? There were about two days of training from the human resources department on company procedures. I then was required to spend time on the salesfloor and operating a cash register but I knew that wasn’t what I would be happy doing, I wanted to start catching bad guys. Finally I was released to go to the Loss Prevention department! I learned about closed circuit television (and yes, VCR’s), and I began learning how to identify signs of shoplifting. I eventually helped stop shoplifting by assisting in catching thieves, then catching them on my own. As I learned to do my job and became better at it, I began to learn about employee theft. I can’t say I didn’t know it existed, but I had no idea there were so many methods that employees will use to steal. When I eventually took a promotional opportunity to move to a Loss Prevention Manager for another company, I took with me the knowledge I had gained. In my new role I learned even more and had additional training to reduce employee theft. If it was important for me to receive ongoing training, how important is it for a retail owner and managers of stores with no security resources to receive training to reduce employee theft?
Employee theft can include more than simply cash theft from a register or stealing a pack of gum from a checklane. Return fraud, gift card fraud, merchandise theft, and even time card manipulation all impact store profits and can be detrimental to customer service as well. Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. offers training programs that can help owners and managers learn how to identify and address issues, reducing the impact they can have on a business. Additional training programs are offered to help stop shoplifting in stores. There is no better resource for training than by an expert who has been in the field and has experience investigating and prosecuting internal theft cases. This experience is available to help retail managers learn what they can do to deter associate theft and stop shoplifting.
I recognize that many small stores do not have a Loss Prevention department. Even national chain stores do not all have in-store security but rather someone at a district or regional level responsible for employee theft investigations. These Loss Prevention managers often visit stores and conduct safety and security audits and spend time training and educating store managers. So what is a small, independently owned store manager to do when he or she can’t afford their own Loss Prevention personnel? Store managers must become educated on the impact of theft on their store and how to identify signs of dishonest activity. An employee who is going to steal isn’t going to advertise their intentions. There are some thieves who are good at what they do and they can make it difficult even for a trained security professional to catch them. There are steps a management team can take to help preclude employees from stealing first place. From pre-employment screening to holding new employee orientations that include the topics of internal theft and how to stop shoplifting, Loss Prevention Systems, inc. wants to help you with training to reduce employee theft.
You may not have a Loss Prevention department but with the proper training you can learn how to protect your business from unnecessary losses. Let us help you keep shortage low and profits high.
Get more information on training to reduce employee theft, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
I can remember when I started working in the Loss Prevention field over 26 years ago and I had no idea what it would entail. I assumed I was going to catch shoplifters stealing clothes, how hard could that be? There were about two days of training from the human resources department on company procedures. I then was required to spend time on the salesfloor and operating a cash register but I knew that wasn’t what I would be happy doing, I wanted to start catching bad guys. Finally I was released to go to the Loss Prevention department! I learned about closed circuit television (and yes, VCR’s), and I began learning how to identify signs of shoplifting. I eventually helped stop shoplifting by assisting in catching thieves, then catching them on my own. As I learned to do my job and became better at it, I began to learn about employee theft. I can’t say I didn’t know it existed, but I had no idea there were so many methods that employees will use to steal. When I eventually took a promotional opportunity to move to a Loss Prevention Manager for another company, I took with me the knowledge I had gained. In my new role I learned even more and had additional training to reduce employee theft. If it was important for me to receive ongoing training, how important is it for a retail owner and managers of stores with no security resources to receive training to reduce employee theft?
Employee theft can include more than simply cash theft from a register or stealing a pack of gum from a checklane. Return fraud, gift card fraud, merchandise theft, and even time card manipulation all impact store profits and can be detrimental to customer service as well. Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. offers training programs that can help owners and managers learn how to identify and address issues, reducing the impact they can have on a business. Additional training programs are offered to help stop shoplifting in stores. There is no better resource for training than by an expert who has been in the field and has experience investigating and prosecuting internal theft cases. This experience is available to help retail managers learn what they can do to deter associate theft and stop shoplifting.
I recognize that many small stores do not have a Loss Prevention department. Even national chain stores do not all have in-store security but rather someone at a district or regional level responsible for employee theft investigations. These Loss Prevention managers often visit stores and conduct safety and security audits and spend time training and educating store managers. So what is a small, independently owned store manager to do when he or she can’t afford their own Loss Prevention personnel? Store managers must become educated on the impact of theft on their store and how to identify signs of dishonest activity. An employee who is going to steal isn’t going to advertise their intentions. There are some thieves who are good at what they do and they can make it difficult even for a trained security professional to catch them. There are steps a management team can take to help preclude employees from stealing first place. From pre-employment screening to holding new employee orientations that include the topics of internal theft and how to stop shoplifting, Loss Prevention Systems, inc. wants to help you with training to reduce employee theft.
You may not have a Loss Prevention department but with the proper training you can learn how to protect your business from unnecessary losses. Let us help you keep shortage low and profits high.
Get more information on training to reduce employee theft, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
