Of all the problems that we encounter in business, internal theft is one of the most irritating and costly. In a retail environment, internal theft is often rampant and unchecked. Many managers are not even aware of the damage being done to their profits by internal theft. This is a problem that is very much fixable, and must be dealt with for any business to maximize their profits. Fortunately, there are some basic things any manager can do to prevent internal theft in their business, and they are fairly easy to do. Here are some tips to help decrease the amount of internal theft in your business right away:
1. Install cameras in very obvious places so that your employees know that you are watching. Once you have these in place, install a number of hidden cameras in key areas such as the cash register, and the back room areas. The cameras they can see will force the thief to move right into the line of sight of the cameras they can not see. You will quickly weed out the ones that are taking your profits away.
2. Train and inform your employees in internal theft policies. Every employee should know how serious the offense is, and what will happen to them if they are caught doing it. When you do catch someone, make sure you press charges and enforce the rules to the max so that your other employees know that it is no joke.
3. Perform a criminal background check on every single employee before hiring them. You would be surprised how many people have convictions and yet leave that off their application. Check every employee out as thoroughly as the law allows in your state.
4. Hold weekly meetings to handle things such as inventory problems, and policy violations. These meetings should be broad in nature and not aimed at any specific employee. If you have a specific employee that you suspect of internal theft, you should deal with them one on one.
5. Put all expensive inventory under lock and key, and give the keys and responsibility to only one or two people. Explain to them that they are responsible for the inventory, and not to share the access to these areas with anybody. If they are not up to that, then find someone else that is ready to take on the management responsibility.
6. Create the correct atmosphere in your store. Always keep an eye open and your mouth running about theft. Do not accuse, and never aim your words at anybody in particular, but let them know you are paying attention. If you are laid back about internal theft, your chances of getting stolen from double at a minimum.
Internal theft is certainly a common problem, but it can be controlled by paying close attention to your employees and your accounting, and making sure they understand the rules. Once you have these rules about internal theft in place, enforce them without exception.
It is very important to consider how one should manage to control the internal theft happening within the vicinity of the business. Also, one of the basic steps in preventing employee is not to hire who has a stolen history, for short, select a right employee for the business. Before hiring anyone, you should conduct a background check to find out as much as you can about the employee’s previous experience with employers.It is always a good practice that you should check the background of any employee who will have constant access to cash, checks, credit card numbers, or any other items that are easily stolen.
Second, I agree that the manager should develop more programs that could focus on such important things, that prevention is a good one than recovering your business losses.
Comment by surveillance camera systems — April 16, 2009 @ 11:15 am