Now What Do We Do – Employee Theft?

Here is a story that I tell in my Loss Prevention Workshops that grabs the attention of everyone in the room, even though it has nothing to do with shoplifting. In Loss Prevention Seminars, shoplifting is a sure attention getter, but there is more to retail theft than that.

Once upon a time, there was a charming silver haired granny that worked in a clothing store. She was kind and pleasant and loved her grandchildren very much. Not a day went by that you didn’t hear her talking about those little children with a glimmer in her eye and her heart swelling with pride.

She loved her job in the children’s department and would frequently pick up little items of clothing to give to them. Most of the items came from the clearance racks.

Several months later, I started to notice that there were major discounts on her employee purchases. These were not percentage off discounts for clearance items. These were discounts for brand new items.

I started snooping around, and one day as I was going through things; I stumbled across two brand new Halloween costumes out of place in a stockroom. The employee came to tell me what a shame it was that the zippers were broken on them and that she had set them aside to buy them later.

Coincidentally, these costumes just happened to be in her grandchildren’s sizes. They also happened to be the only two costumes with zipper issues we had all season. Did I mention store policy was 40% off for a broken zipper?

Well, my loss prevention training covered most cases of employee theft. However, my loss prevention training did not cover employee theft concerning intentionally damaging product to garner discounts by a 70 year old woman who simply loved two little children so much that she would do anything for them.

My mentor walked me through that one. Sad as it was, granny was let go for employee theft via discount abuse and vandalism.

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Visit the Loss Prevention Systems website for more information on Retail Employee Theft and Retail Shoplifting problems and view the Retail Loss Prevention Seminars, Retail Loss Prevention Training and Retail Loss Prevention Workshop we offer to help with your Employee Theft and Shoplifting problems.