4 Strategies for Reducing Employee Theft

Many companies face a great challenge of employee theft these days. The more employees you have working for you, the more difficult it becomes to manage everyone, as well as keep an eye on what everyone’s doing at all times.

Threats to company security aren’t always external. The fact of the matter is that there are numerous people who believe they can help themselves to some of the company’s inventory or maybe a secret or two while getting away with it.

To make things even worse, such thefts are oftentimes successful mainly because companies lack proper internal security measures and ways to reduce employee theft. Such thefts can cost a company around 7% of its annual revenue.

One of the reasons why employees steal in the first place is because they were poorly treated at the company or they simply believe an opportunity is too good to pass on. In any event, companies need to look at both internal and external threats if they want to protect their assets. That being said, here are a few strategies to reduce employee theft.

Surveillance

The most common type of employee theft is company inventory. Items ranging from office supplies to essential documents can easily get stolen. That’s why proper video surveillance and ongoing CCTV coverage may be required to prevent such thefts.

This may seem like you’re playing the role of the “Big Brother” or that you may even invade employee privacy. However, CCTV coverage placed in key areas will discourage anyone from attempting a theft in the first place.

Just make sure your video surveillance is, in fact, high-quality equipment. Of course, you may have to invest a bit more in such equipment, but it’s better to be able to identify the culprit if there’s a theft, rather than having a blurred video or image you can’t do anything with.

Background checks

Screening employees is something many employers do during the recruitment process. When hiring new employees, it’s very important to ensure that candidates have proper credentials and requirements for the job position.

However, if you wish to prevent potential employee thefts, you should conduct a background check for each candidate you wish to hire after you review their resume. Still, background checks can be viewed as an invasion of privacy. If you don’t do this properly, you can end up buried in litigation. That’s why it’s important to follow specific procedures when conducting background checks and ensure you do it by the book, as well as that you have a good reason for conducting such a background check, to begin with.

This will help you gain information that isn’t on the candidate’s resume, such as whether or not they have a criminal history. The more you know about your potential employees, the easier it becomes to know what to look out for.

Monitoring company assets

Not every asset a company possesses is located in the office where you can constantly monitor it. In addition, not every employee is on company premises at all times. This is especially true for businesses that leverage logistics and supply chains, such as retailers and eCommerce businesses, for instance.

Company assets are, therefore, scattered across the supply chain and are increasingly difficult to monitor, as well as keep safe from employee thefts. However, modern technology can provide assistance on the matter and allow you to secure your assets more efficiently.

As an example, you can implement reliable vehicle tracking devices, in order to monitor your entire fleet and prevent potential thefts, such as stealing fuel or stealing an entire vehicle for that matter. The more you invest in such technology, the easier it becomes to protect your equipment. 

Implement employee policies

One of the main reasons why employee thefts are made possible is that many companies don’t properly restrict access to sensitive data. Whether it’s physical or digital access, many companies aren’t even aware of who has access to which files and why.

This is a particularly dangerous problem when cybersecurity is regarded. The fact of the matter is that 60% of cyber attacks were made possible due to an internal leak within a company. Therefore, if you want to prevent thefts such as data breaches and employee thefts, you must keep an eye on your office.

One of the things you can do is implement employee policies that will restrict access to sensitive information to anyone who shouldn’t be in contact with such information, both digital and otherwise. You must also monitor what type of company information your employees share online and prevent them from disclosing any information that may compromise your security.

Employee thefts aren’t that uncommon, as many business owners tend to believe. Such things happen and they happen very often if you’re not careful enough. That’s why it’s important to implement proper strategies that will prevent employee thefts and secure your company’s assets.