Employee theft, prevent and avoid!

Theft by your employees is real major source of frustration and profit loss for business owners. Nearly close to two thirds of businesses experience employee theft at various times, but only half ever report it to the authorities.  Wholesalers, retailers and warehouse operators are particularly vulnerable.

Usually individual acts of theft are modest in scale; targeting easily concealable items or small amounts of money that aren’t easily detectable. However if repeated often enough it won’t take too long for a small loss to turn into a big issue. Operating a large site like a commercial warehouse will only exacerbate your risk and susceptibility.

Here are some tips:

Employ the latest CCTV technology…

CCTV camera surveillance systems provide two key benefits to businesses vulnerable to employee theft: they enable you to track the comings and goings of staff members at particular times as well as quickly identify those who may be acting suspiciously. They also act as a deterrent to theft in the first place.

To achieve this you will need to ensure the cameras are visible and that there is a general awareness of the CCTV camera systems across the workplace. This can be a fine balancing act for smaller businesses; awareness deters but too great a sense of being under surveillance may make employees feel uneasy and distrusted, especially if they have a personal relationship with the business owners.

But for larger operations with hundreds of staff members, there is unlikely to be any practical alternative to impersonal, company-wide security systems when it comes to stock protection and loss prevention.

Expand your systems…

There may be areas within your business that are more sensitive than others; cash transactions areas where you stock valuable items or merchandise for example. So it makes sense to limit who has access to these areas.  In most cases these will be employees with specified levels of responsibility. Access control systems provide a practical means to secure such areas – via, for example, access control cards and alarm codes.

Alternatively why not employ the latest innovations and integrate facial recognition into your CCTV security cameras? Limiting access to sensitive areas via such cutting edge technology is a secure option and one that is increasingly favoured by smartphone manufacturers.

Another security technology which can be closely integrated into modern CCTV systems is RFID. Radio-frequency identification tags are widely deployed in the retail and warehousing sectors as an inventory tracking system, allowing companies to continuously monitor the movement of goods through their systems. Integration with CCTV systems takes this one step further, offering the ability to view the location of particular stock items in real time on your security cameras: an option with clear security benefits.

Be vigilant…

Keep your ear to the ground. Conduct appropriate background checks during the recruitment process. Make sure you and your recruitment personnel are aware of any developing situations as soon as they become apparent. Don’t let mounting losses catch you unaware.

Involve a selection of your employees in your stock protection concerns. Explain the problems with shrinkage and stock loss and make helping to reduce these part of their role. They may have more awareness than you of events behind the scenes – you are, after all, the employer– and so prove valuable allies in the battle against employee theft.