6 Ways To Protect Your Business From Employee Theft Or Fraud
- Ayo AL
- August 14, 2020
- Living, Money
- how to avoud your staff stealing from you, How To Prevent Employees From Stealing From Your Business, ways to prevent employee theft in a business, ways to prevent theft in a business
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Employee theft is a real and common occurrence in every type of business, especially in Nigeria.
It is a well-known fact that some employees are not trustworthy. Even the honest ones are tempted. So, how do you safeguard your money and assets from dishonest employees? How do you reduce the temptation and help the honest ones maintain their fidelity?
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Here are a few tips to help you:
1. Segregation of duties
Learn from the supermarket owner’s wisdom – a salesperson to sell and a cashier to process payments. No single employee should carry out a business process from start to finish.
To achieve this, you might need to give instructions on a need-to-know basis and also ensure that employees maintain the confidentiality of the instructions given.
2. Install security checks
This can be as simple as instruction on doors, or as complex as an electronic security clearance system, that can be used to grant authorisation only to qualified personnel. It helps to enforce duty segregation and also makes fraud traceable to perpetrators of the act.
3. Documentation
Document, keep duplicates, keep copies, but never let the important stuff get mixed in the junks. Ensure that every employee keeps a proper record of inputs passed on to them as well as their outputs to other employees.
Do not overlook this because an employee has been faithful for a while; you could just be building another possible theft.
4. Reshuffling and redeployment of employees
This helps to save eventual problems. It also does not afford the dubious employee sufficient time to steal from the business. A good approach is to work this into your staff promotion scheme, so as to prepare the staff for the process.
5. Know the details of your employees
One of the first things you can do is perform a background check on each of your potential employees before they are hired. This might sound like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be a complicated process.
Where do they live? What do they do after work? What are their domestic responsibilities? You need to know your employees, but be subtle in your approach. You should also keep your eyes open for red flags; employees who live beyond their means, employees who always go broke, employees who seldom go on leave, sudden, apparent devotion to work, and working late and many more are ways to know that something might be wrong.
6. Provide a way for employees to report theft or fraud by co-workers.
This needs to be done carefully to avoid signaling you don’t trust employees. But it can be highly effective.
