Cat and mouse game with your employees

Ateneo Professor on Entrepreneurship

Repost from Open Forum by Barry Moltz | November 12, 2013

It is a sad thing that we entrepreneurs do our best to give the best to our employees.  By default, we entrepreneurs uplift the living standards, lessen poverty by providing jobs.  But many people, some of them our employees, persist in making life difficult for them by petty thefts and stealing.  It happens to even religious (some pastors in their own churches)   Self interest is the culprit.  Extreme ambition of material things.  So we had to remove them because we have strict standards for violation of standards in performance of duty, and care of company property.

Some wacky things our staff do are:

1.  Setting up fake vendor accounts as payee.  Always pre qualify vendor documents and meet the vendor/vendor reps.

2.  False receipts or expense accounts.   (Stamp paid to the expense all ready paid and punch perforate the same)

3.  Steal money from the register.   They will not be willing to go for qualified theft... outright theft is quicker.

Read more, the rest of the article:
"4. Falsify expense accounts. This is probably the most common form of theft in any business. Employees submit either phony expenses or the same expense receipt multiple times.
Solution: Insist upon a receipt for each expense and ensure it has not been submitted before.
5. "Buddy punching." Time theft is very popular as a result of one employee punching in or out for the other. Employees also fill out time cards for days they were not present.
Solution: Biometric time keeping solutions (fingerprints) should be used so buddy punching isn't possible.
6. Steal or falsify inventory. Look for complaints about missing items. An alternate scam is that the employee sets up a fake supplier who never delivers the product, but is paid.
Solution: Take physical inventory often or practice cycle counting. Note missing inventory and use RFID tags to track expensive items.
7. Steal data. This can take the form of customer records or any other digital assists.
Solution: Track all access to any computer program and force users to change passwords frequently. Discontinue accounts of former employees. Restrict access by job function. Cloud-based solutions in general will have much better security in these areas.
Have you had employees steal? How did you find out and what did you do about it?
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