Zero Tolerance For Employee Theft!

Small business owners often find themselves on the receiving end of problems such as theft. Dealing with theft can be frustrating because it is so costly to your business. The problem that you may end up facing is that the theft is coming from your own staff members! Employee theft is a common occurrence and it is something that you need to combat quickly or you will end up losing a lot of money and struggling to keep your business.Employee theft can happen in a number of different ways. Here are some of the ways that employee theft can occur within your company:

- Employees working less hours than they are clocking
- Employees that are stealing company property

No matter what type of stealing you have going on with your company, you need to find a way to combat it! Stealing is stealing and it is costing you money. A good small business will be able to take some necessary steps to protect the company against employees that steal and customers that steal. While you may feel you can trust the people that work for you, it is important to always be on guard as you can never be too careful about trusting all of the people that are employed. Here are some of the ways in which you can work on combating employee theft!

Create a policy
When it comes to theft, people need to know that you will not tolerate it. Do not even give a warning, theft warrants immediate termination. When the policies are clear and you actually do enact them if you catch a person stealing, it will show others that you are serious. People that may contemplate stealing will likely think twice about it and this can hopefully keep theft at bay.

Use security cameras
A lot of companies will install the security cameras to help in catching common thieves that come in but they are also great at monitoring your staff. You will be able to see if the employees are lying about the time and you will also be able to have hard evidence to use against them if they are caught stealing company property.

Keep good records
Not only do you want to keep an eye on your staff, you also need to watch the books. You should have control over the cash flow along with the inventory. Managing them in the right way can help you to see if people are shaving extra cash off the end or if you have inventory that is being written off for some strange reason. Fraudulent spending is hard for some people to notice so you really need to consider having a bookkeeper come in to manage the fraudulent spending.

Consider doing background checks
Before you hire people you might want to consider doing a background check on them. The background checks can cost you about $30 or so, but they are a good investment. Some companies make the potential candidates pay for the background check if they are going to be hired. This is a great policy to have in order to make sure you are getting people that are of higher caliber to work for your organization.

Remind your staff
It helps when you let your staff know that you are keeping a close eye on the books and that you do watch their work and the hours they clock. If people know that they are actually being watched, it can really help to prevent theft from happening. People that are tempted may think twice about it, which is what you really need in order to protect your small business from theft.