Employee theft is a serious threat to every business. You need to stress to your staff that fraud is not tolerated and take steps to start protecting your company today. Here are some simple steps that can help you be on the lookout for fraud and weed out the criminals.
Proactive Theft Prevention |
When employees steal they are literally walking off with a portion of your company's profits. And all businesses can be susceptible to employee theft.
One survey revealed that a third of employees would steal from their employers if they thought they could get away with it. Another study showed that 38 per cent of those surveyed had already stolen something from their companies.
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How Bad is the Problem? |
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Between $60 and $120 billion is stolen every year, studies show. That comes to an average of $500 to $1,000 per employee! |
What can you do to help protect your business? Three steps:
1. Communicate company values to your employees. Publish a code of ethics and encourage your employees to subscribe to the values of fairness, honesty, and integrity. Let them know what constitutes theft and the consequences if they are caught.
2. Review your business's internal controls. You must have an adequate system, yet managers often neglect putting one in place until serious problems arise. One simple step is to segregate duties. If you have one employee opening the mail, making the bank deposit, and entering cash entries in the journal, you obviously have a weak system of internal controls. A better system would require one employee to open the mail, another employee to list the money coming in, a third employee to enter receipts in the cash journals, and still another employee to deposit the money in the bank.
Be on the lookout for suspicious behaviour among your employees. Here's one surprising clue: Workers who never take a day off might be involved in illegal activity because they're afraid they'll be discovered if someone fills in for them. If you have any doubts, your accountant can help identify and track fraud.
3. Bond all employees who handle inventory or money. And no matter what system you have in place, don't underestimate the possibility that your employees are more creative and devious than you think.
Take action today. Make sure that - in your office - crime doesn't pay.
