It is always a sad possibility in any workplace that your staff could be ripping you off.

Bars, restraints, cafes and shops are particular targets for staff theft from the tills or goods from the shelves or offering ‘special deals’ to family and friends.

There has been plenty of money thrown into the problem of customer theft in terms of CCTV, store detectives and tagging but staff theft is more subtle and therefore harder to track down. Employees are in the perfect position to steal from your company – they know the weaknesses of your systems and know who the supervisors and security are.

The British Retail Consortium last year revealed that stores lost £426 million because of staff theft. Figures produced by the Centre for Retail Research in 1999 also estimated that staff related crime was the reason behind 50.8% of total store theft. This may seem like a high figure, but stealing from within a business is often covered up and blame is placed on customers.

Staff More Likely To Get Away With Theft

Typically, staff steal more than customers and are less likely to recoup the stolen goods or money. The 1999 figures showed that when a shoplifter is stopped they have an average of £45 on them, but the average amount for a member of staff to have is £498.

Professor Joshua Barnfield of the CRR says: “The big difference with shoplifters is that 95% of the time you actually get the goods or the property back. With staff theft you only get an average of £35 back.”

If someone takes approximately £10 a day on a turnover of £1,000 a day, that’s only 1%, but if you’re pulling in a 6% profit (£60), then thieves are taking a sixth of your profits.

But it’s not just retail at risk, any business that deals largely with cash transactions could fall victim to staff theft.

The question is what you do about it. Professor Barnfield advises you to be realistic: “You’re never going to get rid of the problem, all you can do is weigh the scales a bit more in your favour.”

What Do You Think?
 
What would you do in the situation of staff theft? How do you prevent it?  What are the repercussions? We would love to know your thoughts and opinions. Leave your comments here.

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