Employee Theft Confidentiality

When it comes to detecting theft, some of your best leads can come from your employee base. You can only do so much to detect employee theft on your own. With your employees being on the front lines, they are one of your best ways of detecting theft. You can encourage associates to provide tips by providing anonymous ways of reporting internal theft. Anonymous drop boxes, hotlines, websites and mailables are great resources you can utilize. Another great way to encourage your employees to call out suspicious behaviors in their fellow associates is to provide them with a reward if their tip should lead to the identification of employee theft. The best way to encourage an open and honest environment is to maintain an atmosphere of confidentiality. When your employees know that they can come to you and what they share is strictly between you and them, they will be much more likely to inform you of employee theft they observe.

Recently my atmosphere of confidentiality was compromised by a member of my team. One of the store employees informed us of internal theft activity where another employee was ticket switching to purchase clothing at a cheaper price. Through our employee theft investigation we identified that the dishonest employee was switching tickets on merchandise and even stealing merchandise. After closing our employee theft investigation we rewarded the informant and promised them confidentiality. When the confidentiality agreement was broken we jeopardized the employee’s reputation with the other employees. Not only that, but we potentially compromised our ability to receive information about employee theft activity from that employee and other employees in the future. Now we will need to regain the trust of our employees and work even harder to ensure they feel that they can come to us and their information will remain classified.

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