DISHONESTY IN THE WORKPLACE
Theft or fraud by employees is a big problem and strikes most businesses at one time or another.
Crimes may involve a light-fingered employee or perhaps even a highly trusted office worker funnelling funds out of the company accounts.
If you suspect you have a problem or know that you do, chat to us first. We have vast exerience in auditing systems, discovery of dishonesty, tracking losses and of course taking the appropriate action.
Systems
The best thing a company can do to protect itself from theft by employees is to have robust systems in place.
There is no single solution for every business but a thorough review of where weaknesses are will certainly stop-up the gaps and make traceability more likely. Chat with us about our experience in this area.
Tracking the losses
Often what starts-off as small offending can quickly turn into something worth a lot of money. Finding the culprit/s quickly is very important and determining the scope of the losses is just as crucial.
From sneaky cameras to financial analysis we have many tools to both stop the losses and identify the damage.
Confrontation
Case Study
A reasonable-sized retail food business had noticed a drop in profitability over a period of about 6 months. Some staff were reporting that others were helping themselves to stock items from time to time.
Our team firstly looked at the levels of supervision and systems involved. We identified where the major weaknesses were and began to draw up a long-list of suspects. We monitored and gathered information over several days. We reported to the owners that 2 staff members were stealing goods to the value of hundreds of dollars each day. We were able to extrapolate-out theft for many thousands of dollars’ worth of goods.
The next step was to confront the staff members involved. We followed proper employment law processes and obtained confessions. The business owners chose to seek reparations directly with the staff members involved so we negotiated a settlement to that effect.