In all my years, no employee walked out the door with an item of merchandise that had an RF tag on it. They stuck to the items that did not have any sort of tag or label. In fact, they went out of their way to find the items without them. Checkpoint tags and labels are a proactive solution to preventing employee theft from happening in your store.

One of the hardest parts of working is retail management, is dealing with internal theft- alternately referred to as employee theft. It’s a personal blow to think that someone you know, someone you trust, is stealing from you and your company.

During many employee theft investigation interviews, most employees said that they stole because they couldn’t afford the items. In my experiences dealing with these cases, it is often an unforeseen circumstance that makes these associates change their honest ways. It could be that a spouse lost their job, or medical bills came sneaking up on them.

While you can’t control the outside circumstances of every employee’s life, there are some steps you can take in preventing employee theft. By using anti theft devices like pedestals, hard tags and labels you can often keep your employees honest by making them realize how hard it will be to discreetly steal from your store. Providing visual cues like these retail anti theft devices, goes a long way to preventing internal theft.

For more information on employee theft, employee theft investigation or internal theft contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that can help you stop Employee Theft and Internal Theft problems and help with your Employee Theft Investigation.

The most recent consultation I did was for a little convenience market. There were very few policies in place, which made it just that much easier for employee theft to take place. I sometimes do loss prevention consultations for small business owners; however, I usually don’t go in as loss prevention.

Generally I go in as an overall operational consultant. It is easier to offer my services that way rather than saying I am here to see who is stealing from you. No owner wants to hear they have internal theft.

This particular owner was too insecure about being a tough boss. He wanted to be easy going, and easy to work with. I think he was afraid that if he acted too much like a boss, his employees would leave, or he would not find anyone who wanted to be hired for his shop.

Unfortunately, because of his lack of policies, his employees took advantage of him. They arrived late for work and frequently called in unable to work. This caused animosity to the other employees who were held up waiting for replacements to show up and relieve them of their shifts.

The employees were also allowed to ring themselves up. Several employees again took advantage of the situation. Knowing no one would check their purchases; they started adding extra, unpaid items to their bags.

As a result of the employee theft investigation, half of the staff was terminated for employee theft. It also opened his eyes to the importance of having policies in place.

For more information on employee theft, employee theft investigation or internal theft contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that can help you stop Employee Theft and Internal Theft problems and help with your Employee Theft Investigation.

When you are wondering if you have an internal theft situation, you can turn to exception based reporting to help guide you.

The exception based reporting is just that- exceptions to typical conduct, generally found on the POS system.

For example, if a cashier conducts a “NO Sale” They are generally opening the cash register drawer without conducting a sale. A legitimate reason for doing this would be because they incorrectly gave back a customer change, and need to fix it.

In exception based reporting, a second criteria is added- no sale following a voided transaction. That could mean that the employee rang up a customer who was going to pay in cash. Instead of hitting total at the end of the transaction, they voided the transaction out completely.

To make sure the customer still thinks they are buying your product, the cashier hits NO SALE and takes the customer’s money and gives them back their proper change.

Since the transaction was never completely processed, there is now additional cash in the drawer. At some point, the cashier will take this extra cash and pocket it, creating an employee theft situation. You would not see a cash shortage, but an inventory shortage.

In order to investigate this employee theft situation, you would either need to take a physical inventory of every single item in your store on a daily basis (not very realistic) or you could implement exception based reporting.

For more information on employee theft, employee theft investigation or internal theft contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that can help you stop Employee Theft and Internal Theft problems and help with your Employee Theft Investigation.