Holiday Help

The Help Wanted signs, advertisements, and postings are already popping up across the country. Retailers nationwide are starting the process of hiring their holiday help. By hiring them in October and Early November, retailers anticipate that these employees will be trained and ready for the big day after Thanksgiving sales, and throughout the holiday shopping season.

The plus side to hiring temporary help, whether it is during the winter holidays, or the summer garden season, is that the employees are there for the hours and days only when the store actually needs them. Hiring on a seasonal or temporary basis allows the retailers to terminate the employment at the end of the season with little future responsibility in the form of unemployment or severance benefits. This doesn’t mean that it is a one-sided employment relationship.

These temporary jobs are a great solution for people looking to make some extra money to pay for holiday gifts or toys. Teachers who have the summer off can pick up additional work that will not interfere when the school year starts back up. Many temporary workers are hard working, and enjoy the freedom that a temporary position gives them. Other temporary workers do so in the hopes of proving themselves worthy of a permanent position after the season is over.

The downside to hiring temporary help, regardless of time of year, is that many of these employees will not have a sense of ownership or loyalty for the company they are working for. In particular, near the end of their employment these disengaged employees who are about to be let go might try to take a little extra for themselves on their way out the door.

Just as with any other employee theft case where the employee steals because they feel they are owed additional compensation, temporary employees can fall into this same mentality. Perhaps it is because they were not offered a permanent position, or perhaps they feel like they gave up more of their holidays than what they realized they would working these seasonal hours, it is easy for a temporary employee to decide they want more.

With no ownership, a limited time frame of their employments, and a sense of entitlement, many seasonal employees historically end up in employee theft situations. These losses cut into very critical profits, as seasonal/ holiday sales often make or break a store’s financial success for the year. It is also problematic due to the short time frame that these crimes are executed within.

Typically, employees who steal do not want to leave their jobs. They might stay at a particular employer for years, building their safety net and refining their methods. They will usually escalate over a period of time, starting with very small thefts to see what they can get away with. This gives anyone investigating a pattern of shortages discovered over a period of time to look for and follow.

When a seasonal hire decides to steal, they know that they might only have a matter of a few months, or only a few weeks to take all that they can. They might decide to only make one large theft, or multiple small thefts that might not pop up on anyone’s radar. From an investigative standpoint, it is often too late to determine who is causing these shortages. By the time the losses are discovered, or a pattern of theft appears, the employee could have already left their employment.

One of the best ways to prevent these losses is to execute all policies and procedures at 100%, especially during these overly busy times. Any breech of policy is more likely to quickly red flag. Seasonal hires should not be given access to keys, codes, alarms, etc. Leave those to a permanent employee. Finally, conducting mini investigations during the season will help uncover any potential theft risks while they are happening, instead of waiting to find evidence after the fact.