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Taking precautions to prevent staff theft
While it's impossible to completely protect your business
from staff theft, there are a number of precautions that you
can take to reduce the chances of it happening.
Check references
The best place to start is with recruitment. Even if you're
only employing Saturday staff or part-timers, check their
references. It's the casual staff that you need to pay the
most attention to. The most likely thieves are part timers
and those who've been employed for less than a year.
You should advise managers to actually go and see previous
employers to get the low-down on new members of staff.
"You want to know if a person left in the middle of
the week, or if they left without giving notice. If somebody
claims they were made redundant it's always worth checking
that out too to see if they're telling the truth."
The next step is to explain to all members of staff the security
controls operating in your business. Make sure everybody knows
what will happen to them if they're caught stealing, then
at the very least they can evaluate the risks involved before
they pilfer.
You should also ensure the lines of authority and responsibility
are clearly defined - staff need to know who they're responsible
to and for. That way you stand a much better chance of a member
of your team confiding in you if somebody is stealing.
Get organised
It may be a tedious task but you have to put in place systems
that will alert you to possible staff theft problems. For
example, you should be able to average out cash flow and sales
over a week and over a month. This allows you to build up
a picture of how much you should be taking on a Monday in
September, say.
Once you've got that information you can then spot any anomalies,
you can see if takings or stock levels are abnormally down.
It's also worth doing a few sums to work out the average sale
per bar person, which makes it easier to work out if a particular
person is not ringing goods through the till.
Not only does this allow you to spot any changes but it also
sends a message to your staff that you're keeping a close
eye on your business. "It's not a question of spying
on people - if you've got procedures and practices and you
exercise them you're saying to your staff 'I'm aware of what's
going on in my business'. Staff won't think they're being
accused of being dishonest, they'll just see it as part of
the normal process of supervision,"
Till discipline
Till discipline is vital. One of the easiest ways for staff
to pocket cash is to simply not ring items through the till.
A sneaky tip here is to price goods at R0.50, that way pretty
much everything will have to go through the till because the
customer will want their change.
It's also a good idea not to hold too much cash in tills
as it can be a temptation. You only really need to carry enough
cash to give change from a R100.00 note, all the surplus notes
should be removed regularly.
You should also set up a system whereby a note has to be
made every time the till is opened without a sale going through.
If one person makes more 'no sales' than your other staff
members, either there's a training issue (they don't know
how to use the till) or there's something more sinister going
on that you need to investigate fully.
You should always advise your bar and pub managers to carry
out regular spot cash checks on tills to make sure there are
no discrepancies.
Stock control
The theft of stock is another temptation in pubs and you
should get to know some of the tricks members of staff play:
"Bottles of mineral water are often sold with meals and
we have known staff to fill these bottles up with vodka or
any other spirits and to put them on the tables of friends.
Their mates then leave with the bottle. We don't stop them
because we think they're just taking the mineral water home
with them."
Stock control is a thorny issue in many small businesses.
Unless you have some kind of computerised system all you can
really do is carry out regular stock takes and check your
sales carefully against orders from suppliers. |