Questions on Employee Theft

In today’s society with the slack in rules and non aggressive management it is very easy for a company to produce an environment where theft seems acceptable. Employees steal and find that there aren’t any repercussions for their crime so they continue the behavior. It’s all positive for them because they get something out of it and there is no punishment. It was reported by the security Group of Cahner’s Business that, if they saw others getting away with theft, 66% of employees would steal. This is not including the 13% who already steal or would steal anyway (Guerin 2004).

I believe that employee theft is stealing or misusing a company’s assets without their prior permission. It is not just stealing money, inventory, or office supplies; employee theft also includes taking customers and information. Employees may think that taking small things, or not very much won’t affect the company but it is estimated that it takes twenty dollars to compensate for every dollar stolen from a company (Case 2000). Employee theft also includes stealing from coworkers. Although this is rarer, it still happens a lot. This happens less often because the thief is taking a much larger risk stealing from an individual who is much more likely to report the crime and/or prosecute. A fellow employee rarely turns in a coworker that he/she knows is stealing from the company, and the thieves know that. That makes it much more logical for them to steal from the company as opposed to fellow workers.

It may seem that employee theft is pretty rare, but it is much more commonplace that it may seem. The amount of employee theft has dramatically increased in the last decade. In the year 1991 38.4% of retail theft was accounted towards employee theft and in the year 2000 that had increased to 46%. Employee theft costs businesses in the United States more than fifty billion dollars a year. Most companies actually experience more loss from employee theft than shoplifting. (The Company You Keep 2006).

Employee Theft is generally split into four categories: False Disbursements, schemes for stealing money, conflicts of interest and schemes for stealing property. False disbursements are when an employee tricks the company into paying them more money than they deserve. This can be done by filling out fake invoices or requests for funds. Generally based in nonexistent companies, the employees reroute the money to their own accounts. Conflicts of interest are when an employee takes advantage of his or her position in the company to reap the benefits. The employee creates situations for making extra money that he can’t legally create. An example is if an employee makes a deal with a provider of goods for the company that he/she works for and gets a kickback from the provider for getting them the business. (Guerin 2004).

Employees have many reasons for stealing from a company, but most of the time it is just that the opportunity came up. Some of the employees believe that other employees and/or their management are stealing, so they think it’s okay if they do it too. Employees have many other reasons for theft as well, some including: anger towards the company, believing they are underpaid or that the company makes huge profits and they think they deserve some too (Case 2000). The rate of theft in a company is dependent

on the company’s attitude towards it. Most employees won’t steal if they know they will be punished, and probably fired, for it.

Employee theft affects all kinds of companies, large, small, grocery stores, corporate businesses, video stores, etc. The smaller businesses have a harder time with theft because they are probably not making millions from their business. Where larger