Four in 10 Managers Have Fired Employees for Theft
Office supplies, money, and merchandise are the most frequently stolen items, according to a new survey.
From Inc.com By: Leslie Taylor
While only one in 10 workers admit stealing from their employers, close to 40% of hiring managers say they have fired an employee for theft at the office, according to a recent survey.The survey, conducted by CareerBuilder.com, found that the most commonly purloined items were office supplies (15%), money (14%), and merchandise (11%).Employers and those in the human-resources industry say employee theft represents a significant challenge for business owners, who often do not have the resources to devote to oversight.
“I spend much of my time interacting with small-business owners,” said Michael Alter, president of SurePayroll, a Glenview, Ill.-based firm that manages payroll services for small businesses. “I’ve heard more than a few stories about employees walking off with inventory, tools, petty cash, stamps, etc.”
Kevin Marasco, vice president of marketing for Vurv Technology, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based company that provides Web-based tools for workforce management, suspects the estimate of workplace theft may be slightly inflated. But he noted that theft is not an uncommon problem for Vurv’s small-business clients.
“We find shrinkage to be a top business challenge with our smaller clients, especially for [businesses] with a large percentage of hourly workers,” Marasco said.
More employees in the health-care, IT, and manufacturing industries admitted to stealing at the office than employees in retail, sales, and hospitality, according to the CareerBuilder survey.
Consequences to employees caught stealing vary depending upon the company. According to the survey, 45% of hiring managers would automatically fire someone discovered stealing, while 7% would not fire the thief. Some 48% of hiring managers said they did not have a clear-cut policy regarding employee theft and would decide whether or not to fire an employee caught stealing based on the object stolen and the situation.
For the entire article go to Inc.com
Corra finds this number somewhat surprising. Theft is a big issue in the work place, but four out of ten stealing? This turns the cubicle environment into a den of thieves.
Well there is stealing and then there is stealing. Stealing the little stuff, office supplies, etc., will cost you money. An employee who steals intellectual property or sensitive data can cost you your business. In any case loss of goods, loss of data results in a loss.
What makes this kind of theft even more debilitating is the effect it has on your honest workers. They lose morale and resent the fact that the thieves aren’t being punished. There are few secrets in offices and who the thieves are is pretty not one of them.
Corra realizes that there are no guarantees against theft in the workplace. However, a decent pre-employment screening program can help ascertain who the likely thieves will be. You need to run a criminal check, and the credit check combined with the MVR report, the driving report, will often describe a pattern of behavior that can prove most revealing.
It’s your business. Guard against theft from the inside out. Running a profitable business is hard enough. don’t allow those four in ten make it harder than it already is.
Check them out before you hire.
