How to Discover Signs of Staff Dishonesty

Running a business, doing proper pricing and giving fine service is not enough these days. To stay in business, the shop, store or company must cut losses through shoplifting and staff dishonesty. A store or company manager hires what he thinks are honest staff members and sadly, some of them do everything they know to do to steal from the same people who are paying their salaries. The management and other staff of the organization must do what they can to stop thievery and staff loafing. All of these cut into profits and must be stopped.

Instructions

1. Check any discrepancies in daily counts. Most retail operations check cash register register receipts against inventory at least every week, sometimes each day. If discrepancies are found, the employee responsible for the transaction can be located and disciplined or fired.

2. Watch for missing paperwork, such as receipts, return slips or voids. Of course, some errors are legitimate and can be found eventually, but if paperwork disappears consistently, their is some employee dishonesty to be found.

3. Notice any change in employee attitude or personality. Often when thievery is involved, the heretofore honest employee may be involved with drugs that are personality changing. Maybe the employee is having problems at home, is in trouble with the law or feels the employer has in some way cheated or disappointed him. If you notice a personality change, find out what has happened. Maybe an employee can be salvaged.

4. See if an employee is constantly borrowing money from you or co-workers. Find out what the problem is and see if it can be fixed.

5. Keep an eye on gift card use. If employees are using gift cards, where did they get them? Is there paperwork to back up the sale of the gift card? Is there a legitimate sale for the gift card?

6. Does the employee get frequent unexplained personal phone calls or visitors, during or after hours. Merchandise could be leaving through the back door with those visitors.

7. Watch who rings employee transactions. If employees ring their own transactions at the cash register, who checks to see if they are being rung properly?

8. Look for unexplained cash shortages or overages. An overage would signify a fraudulent refund, but the employee has not yet removed the money. All or any of the above can alert you to possible employee or staff dishonesty. Loss prevention is a major part of running a business. The more you can prevent, the more successful your company will be.