Employee theft is a major problem in retail. In fact, employee theft accounted for $37 billion dollars in lost sales last year! This blog post will provide you with nine ways to reduce employee theft and keep your business safe.
– Make it tough to get away with stealing: having clear security policies that are communicated effectively can lead to employee theft being minimized.
– Provide employee training: employees that are trained properly on company policies will not only feel more aware of their responsibilities, but also less inclined to steal from the store.
– Make it easy for employees to do the right thing: this means providing an environment where your staff feels valued and appreciated so they don’t feel the need to steal.
– Offer employee incentives: offering rewards and recognition for employees that are performing well can promote a culture of trust, which will discourage theft.
– Make sure your retail store is secure: making sure all doors and windows in your store have proper locks keeps thieves out as well as encourages honest behavior from your staff.
– Keep employee theft a priority: setting policies to prevent employee theft, such as requiring receipts for all cash register transactions and tracking employee purchases can help reduce the number of employees stealing from your business.
– Check employee bags: checking employee bags when they leave work can be a major deterrent for employee theft.
– Conduct random audits: conducting regular spot checks of your employees and store inventory will help you catch dishonest behaviour before it becomes too big of an issue. This should also include random roster changes as a change in regular process can be revealing.
– Perform background research on potential new hires: doing thorough reference, criminal, driving, and credit checks can help you find employee theft from a previous job. This could range from social media stalking to thorough police provided checks.
To reduce employee theft in retail, it’s important that owners have a structured process in place, to ensure everyone working in the business understands and respects this.
* This blog post was brought to you by the team at www.towersystems.com.au where retailers can find POS software that helps them reduce the impact of employee theft.