home · Control · What makes employees steal? Theft at work: causes and ways to combat it

What makes employees steal? Theft at work: causes and ways to combat it

Paul Cherniak is a licensed psychotherapist based in Chicago. Graduated from the American School of Professional Psychology in 2011.

Number of sources used in this article: . You will find a list of them at the bottom of the page.

Most people know that stealing is bad, but thefts happen every day. If something was stolen from you recently, it is not surprising to ask the question “Why did this happen?” There are different types and levels of theft. Someone can pocket the money left on the table, and someone can steal a person’s personal data or squander millions that belong to gullible clients. First of all, you need to understand the motives that guide a person at the time of theft.

Steps

Pathological causes

    Thefts occur under the influence of peers. Bad company can also make a person a thief. In such cases, the value of the stolen item may not matter as much as the excitement of taking something that belongs to someone else and avoiding punishment. Similar situations occur among teenagers who are influenced by peers. Thefts may be dictated by the desire to stand out or get into a certain company.

    Lack of empathy. Teenagers and others who are unable to see the “big picture” may commit theft without thinking that such impulsive actions will affect the life of their victim. A person may not have pathologies and be capable of empathy, but at the moment he commits an act without thinking about the consequences of such theft for other individuals or the enterprise. After talking about what happened, such a person usually stops stealing.

    Emotional emptiness. In some cases, people commit theft to compensate for emotional trauma. Such individuals do not have their basic emotional needs met. A child may steal to fill an emotional void left behind by parents or caregivers. He feels deprived of care and suppresses this feeling. Unfortunately, theft cannot solve the problem, so thefts are repeated again and again.

    Some steal simply when the opportunity arises. Unfortunately, some thefts occur only because a person is given the opportunity. Perhaps he is excited by the idea of ​​appropriating someone else's thing. Perhaps he sees this as a challenge. Sometimes people are driven by a feeling of greed despite financial success.

LOW SALARY.

GREED.

A high salary does not guarantee that the employee receiving it will not look for additional ones – including at the expense of the employer. Man is weak; from time immemorial, greed and envy have been inherent in him. Active advertising of “loans with zero down payment and no salary certificate” encourages people to buy and buy, regardless of their real financial capabilities. Once you “hook” one, others will follow. “Vasya took out a new car on credit! But his salary is no more than yours!” - the wife whines, and the designer husband begins to make business cards on the side, and the cable TV installer husband begins to make unauthorized connections.

DEBT.

An employee lost at the races (stock exchange, etc.) - this is rather a plot from a foreign detective story. But what is not uncommon here is a bankrupt entrepreneur who gets a job with a trail of debt behind him. Such an employee is just looking to see where he can grab an extra piece, and he has some kind of entrepreneurial savvy.

One such unfortunate businessman got a job as a sales and support manager for an expensive CRM system, having debts of a couple of tens of thousands of dollars. In just a few months, he managed to significantly reduce his debt, and not at the expense of his salary.

BLACK CASH.

If it is organized in such a way that it is very easy to put money in your pocket (for example, when working with unaccounted cash), they will definitely put it there. The “black cash register” can only be trusted to the wife. And even then not always.

HEIGHTENED SELF-ESTEEM.

UNDERESTIMATION BY MANAGEMENT.

It happens that a company owes its success to a strong and qualified employee. If he does not receive an adequate assessment from management on time, including all forms of material and moral encouragement, he will either quit completely or inevitably organize his own “internal” business. What is worse is unknown.

EXCESSIVE ENERGY.

In any team there are restless people - emotional or expressive leaders, in the terminology of social psychology. One girl from a reference and legal information system started selling instant diet food to accountants—clients of the company—on the side. As a result, she was fired from her job, but she continued to sell food as a . Interestingly, she told her boss about her idea, but he simply ignored her words and ended up losing both a good manager and, perhaps, a good parallel business.

REVENGE.

One employee of a real estate agency was offended by her boss for something. From that moment on, if the client liked the apartment being shown, she completed the deal through a competing company, which, moreover, paid her a higher percentage. A kind of revenge that pleasantly aggravates one’s own pocket.

“I’M NOT GUILTY – HE CAME HIMSELF!”

Service industry workers (for example, hairdressers or auto mechanics), as well as workers who have the power to issue documents confirming expenses (gas station receipts, sales receipts, hotel bills) may not have a need for additional “business”, and do not show independent initiative. But it will be difficult for them to resist the persistent harassment of clients - “You give me a receipt, I’ll give you a receipt...”.

DEMON-TEMPTER.

An “impulse from the outside” can be quite purposeful in nature and, in fact, be a recruitment of your employees. A typical example is when a certain “entrepreneur” purchases products, and then searches for and persuades store sellers with identical goods to sell his product instead of the “owner’s”. And no rent, no taxes, no license (if we are talking about alcohol). The profit of the participants in such a scheme is obvious, as are the losses of the owner of the outlet.

OPINION OF THE MANAGER

Commercial structures are prone to theft

An employee who uses official resources for personal gain is not uncommon these days. In Russia, most people have stolen and will steal from their owners, and commercial structures are especially prone to this. It is often simply impossible not to notice - telephone bills, the presence of “extraneous” sites on the Internet that employees go to.

Viktor DOLMATOV, General Director of the company “VSToro”, Volgograd

A double agent is given away by telephone conversations

First of all, a “double agent” can be revealed by telephone conversations on topics unrelated to work or by the appearance of strangers in the company’s office. Every manager knows, in principle, the specifics of the tasks assigned to his employees. If you hear names, surnames, company names, addresses, telephone numbers, etc. that are unfamiliar to you, you need to seriously think about whether you are dealing with a “mole”?

Vasily KULIKOV, President of LLC “Legal Agency “CONSUL”

Regularly missing deadlines makes you think

The main indicator of this is the failure to fulfill one’s main responsibilities, regular failure to meet deadlines for tasks, despite the fact that this has not been observed in the employee before. Of course, the reason for this may be different, but quite often it is precisely that the employee has “more important” things to do that have nothing to do with the main employer. Additional indicators can be: unreasonably large Internet traffic and increased cases of absence from work under various pretexts.

Vladimir VOISTINOV, HR Director at FELIX

Customer leakage is a warning sign

This is discovered either by accident (someone said) or through systematic monitoring of the employee’s activities. There are many forms of control: time tracking, a report on the work done during the day... It’s easy to check whether your specialist was at the negotiations or not. It is necessary to carefully monitor the client portfolio. If there is a leakage of clients, this is a signal. First of all, that your employees are not doing their jobs properly. The products were not delivered on time and a new range was not offered. But they simply didn’t have enough time for this, because they are busy not only at your enterprise.

Alexander BABUSHKIN, Director of LLC TC "Krasnoyarsk Bread"

Employee uses uncontrolled email systems

Here are just a few of the possible signs: An employee asks technical questions that are not related to the work currently being performed. He uses more external mail systems that are outside the company's control. And customers want to communicate only with him, and he performs work for clients, bypassing approval through managers, without complying with the existing business process in the company.

Artem KUCHIN, gene. Director of the company "IT Legion"

Capture employee performance at an early stage

It can be very difficult to identify facts about the use of office resources. And this is especially true for wasting working time for one’s own purposes: as a rule, it is really possible to expose an employee who is engaged in this activity only when he has worked in your company for at least six months. Usually, at first, people don’t do such things: they “get used to it.” At a certain point, a good manager must monitor the performance of employees, “fix” it - the method depends on the area in which the company operates. It is no secret that people are able to complete the same amount of work in different periods of time: some will need half an hour, others will need the whole day. If suddenly an employee’s work takes many times longer, this is an alarming symptom. Another symptom is a person’s frequent exits from the office premises to talk on a cell phone. There can be any pretext, but it’s worth taking a closer look at such little things.

Sergey EVDOKIMOV, director of a construction company, Volgograd

Interest in work noticeably decreases

Doing “business” in business is especially common among long-time employees or among newcomers with work experience who are used to working and earning money this way. This situation can be recognized as follows: employees’ interest in their main work noticeably decreases, since all their thoughts are occupied with “their own business.” Additional documents that are related to the company’s field of activity, but not registered according to the plan, “slip through” into the main documents. Employees ask to leave work early, citing personal problems.

Olga PILYUGINA, Executive Director of the travel company "Alliance Holiday"

Traces cannot be hidden

It is impossible to hide traces of such activity; sooner or later everything will come out. If an employee begins to constantly stay late at work or come to work too early, begins to perform his main job worse, or his consumption of materials suddenly increases - these are the signs that should make you wonder if he is “leftist”?

Evgeniy TITKOV, Director of media agencies "Creative People", Sergiev Posad

They're stealing! Nesuny, vesuny and "candy wrappers"

Types of theft and their reasons.
In Russia, 80% of all company losses are due to thefts committed by staff and clients. However, 97% of such thefts remain unsolved.

To understand how to deal with theft in the workplace, you need to decide what exactly needs to be dealt with. For theft, if we ignore its moral essence, is a heterogeneous process, generated by different motives and receiving the opportunity to be committed under different conditions.

Shrinkage and shaking
So, the types of theft at work in alphabetical order:

· Banal theft - appropriation of someone else's property without the knowledge of the owner: for example, stealing money from co-workers, mobile phones, etc.

· Breakage, shrinkage, shattering of goods - when transporting and storing goods and raw materials, there are often certain norms for losses in the process. For example, when forwarding drinks and food products in glass containers, a certain percentage of losses associated with breaking is allowed. If there was less broken goods, or none at all, the responsible persons may appropriate the unbroken goods in an acceptable amount.

· Food theft is a big problem in public catering establishments (restaurants, cafes, canteens of schools, kindergartens, enterprises, etc.)

· Theft of goods by staff is typical for retailing and accompanies it at all stages of working with goods (reception, packaging, display, release, cash register, etc.).

· Abuse of official position by managers - theft of the customer base; non-refundable “receivable” - shipment of goods to “your” client, who will never pay for it; providing unreasonable discounts.

· “Left” - fulfilling orders privately during working hours and from company materials (often in services), using a company car for private transportation.

· Accountant's machinations - double payments, scrolling of money taken under the report, misappropriation of unaccounted funds.

· Nesuny, vezuny - direct theft of goods, raw materials, means of production, associated with the secret transfer or export of them outside the enterprise. A rogue/lucky person is also a bad worker, because before lunch he thinks about how to steal, and after that he thinks about how to take it out/take it out unnoticed. Consequently, he also steals working time.

· “Kickbacks” - the purchase of goods, raw materials on behalf of the enterprise at obviously inflated prices, accompanied by the return of the difference to the personal pocket of the person who made the decision to purchase.

· Redistribution of general plant costs - typical for technical services of enterprises in the absence of the ability to calculate (when renting out premises and utilities, the technical service overestimates the costs of its own organization, but takes bribes from tenants for refusing to increase the rent).

· Re-grading - a decrease in the value of a product, the replacement of one product with another, of poorer quality and lower price, while passing it off as what it should be.

· Consumption of goods at the workplace during its production - typical for food production and packaging departments.

· Industrial espionage - secret activities to steal information that constitutes a competitive advantage.

· Sabotage of work, inaction, idleness - loss of profit or expenses associated with improper use of working time.

· Write-off of usable inventory - in the hotel business, in restaurants, in recreational areas, in rental shops and in other places where write-off is possible.

· “Wrappers” - minor losses due to misuse of resources.

Indirect types of theft
The following methods of combating personnel theft are called: building a clear system for monitoring the movement of material assets, technical means of detecting theft, building a corporate culture (including collective responsibility), working with motivation, developing an optimal system of material incentives for personnel, carefully checking information when hiring about persons, allowed to work with inventory items.

Among the types of theft listed above, I would like to focus on indirect theft, since direct theft is more or less understood, studied, and there is an idea of ​​​​how to fight it; certain mechanisms and techniques of this fight are constantly being improved. Indirect theft is usually implicit, often not considered theft, and it is not clear what exactly, why and how to deal with it. For example, remember the truth-loving parrot, the hero of the miniature by Gennady Khazanov: “They don’t give meat to the tiger in the zoo!” This begs the question: who is being stolen from: the zoo or the tiger? This dilemma can be solved from the point of view of the client approach. The client is always the one who pays. The one who consumes what the client purchased is the user. So in this case the theft is committed against the zoo, because The tiger only eats, but does not pay for the meat.

To indirect types of theft we include the above-mentioned “candy wrappers”, sabotage and idleness, scrolling of money taken on account, mis-grading and industrial espionage.

"Wrappers"
The most harmless version of indirect theft. “Wrappers” are small losses of the owner associated with the use of company resources by employees for their own purposes. This could be surfing the Internet from a company computer, printing out materials on company paper, making long-distance calls from a company phone, traveling on personal business on corporate transport, etc. As a rule, these losses are so small that they are not given much importance. For example, an employee searches the Internet for materials for a report on physics for his schoolchild and prints them out to take them home. Who is seriously concerned about the consumption of 15 MB of traffic (about $0.9), when the company as a whole spends gigabytes, and 5-10 sheets of paper, with a total consumption of 1-2 packs per day? Little things? Now count how many employees there are in the company and multiply...

The problem of “candy wrappers” arises when a company offers low wages, constantly delays wages, or often fines a lot. Employees begin to use the company’s resources, which are not prohibited, for their own needs (“if there is no money, we’ll take it in candy wrappers”). This allows them to justify their presence at work in their own eyes. Also, this problem also arises when workers are insufficiently busy: they begin to monitor changes in the dollar exchange rate on specialized websites, the increase in the cost of a barrel of oil, political events in the country and in the world, reading horoscopes, etc.

Sabotage and idleness
Although they are different phenomena, we classify them into the same category, since the result of both is the lack of results. It happens that everything at work looks quite “work-like”, the process is ongoing, everyone is busy with work, but there is no result. Check to see if your employees have committed sabotage. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia interprets sabotage as the deliberate disruption of an event, evasion of work, or deliberate dishonest performance of work.

One of our clients, the executive director of a meat processing company, told us why he wanted to change the HR manager, and which candidate he would not like to see in this position. The company submits vacancies in huge modules to all newspapers operating on the labor market, and this costs a tidy sum each week. The layoff candidate is responsible for communicating with applicants by telephone and conducting interviews with them. But when those who want to get a job on offer call the advertisement, this lady asks: “Where do you live? Near Prospekt Prosveshcheniya metro station? Oh, no, you will be far away,” and hangs up. In other words, the HR employee does her job so that there is no work. How much money did the company waste? And add to this the salary of the worker herself. Not to mention how much the unproduced products cost due to empty workplaces in the workshops, and what else the company’s image, spoiled among potential personnel, will result in in the future.

Idleness is a state of inaction, idleness. Sometimes downtime in work occurs due to the fault of the enterprise itself, sometimes people themselves look for “non-dusty” employment. Regardless of the reasons for idleness, it results in losses for the employer, because idle staff not only receive a salary for doing nothing, but also, bored, strive to keep themselves busy. Part of the losses in this case come from “candy wrappers”, part from endless smoke breaks, reading newspapers, telling jokes, etc., since idle personnel distract their surroundings from work.

Scrolling of money taken on account.
Plays into the hands of an accountant who has decided to improve his financial situation. It would seem that this is not theft, because... Only money that is not currently used by the company can be taken into account. However, if there are gaps in the accounting system, then the accountant has a chance to appropriate this money. In addition, the organization could receive dividends from investing funds at interest. It turns out that another lost profit is born. This problem arises when 1) there is a possibility (“black cash”, uncontrollability of the accountant’s work), 2) the “moral law within” the accountant allows such fraud due to his upbringing and personality traits.

Re-grading
Usually characteristic of very experienced thieves, the technology for profiting from it has been perfected for years. Although this type of theft at first glance appears to be theft from the end consumer, such theft affects the image of the product and the manufacturer/trader as a whole, which reduces sales and ultimately also leads to losses for the company. For example, in a self-service store, chicken breasts with skin and bones are packaged, but on the price tag there is chicken fillet, and it is the fillet that goes through the checkout. After discovering such a deception, will the buyer often visit this store? Will the company place orders with the same suppliers?

In production, re-grading can be expressed in changes in recipes and technologies (toilet paper in sausage, remember? - nonsense, of course, but it’s quite possible to put sinews instead of fillets). “The hit of the season” is a tin can: instead of the meat promised on the label, the can of stew contains only “three F” (sinews, fat and jelly).

The reason for theft in re-grading is a special kind of motivation - the motivation of personnel interested in precisely the kind of work that would allow them to “do their own small business” with virtually no risk. Since qualifications are acquired over years, seasoned thieves engage in this type of personal gain.

Industrial espionage
Type of unfair competition; activities aimed at illegally obtaining information of commercial value, and often a trade secret. The purpose of industrial espionage is, as a rule, the customer base, technologies and recipes, know-how, prices and marketing strategies, especially valuable specialists and key employees, the financial condition of a competitor, and its plans for the future. An information leak of this kind not only reduces a company's profits or its competitiveness - it can even lead to the collapse of the entire business.

In the process of espionage, secret activities to obtain the required information are carried out with the help of special agents. Sometimes “sent Cossacks” are sent to work for a competitor, who gain trust and “pump” all the information obtained to their true employer. Sometimes such agents are recruited from previously loyal personnel. Why do employees agree to spy? The reasons lie on the surface - low wages, feelings of revenge, resentment, career ambitions.

Methods to combat indirect theft
Methods of combating these types of theft are dictated by the reasons for their occurrence. Eliminating the causes will most likely lead to the desired result. Thus, payment of wages on time, the absence of exorbitant and unjustified fines, compliance of the amount of remuneration with both market realities and the employee’s labor costs, the value of the results of his work, his work load and clear control of implementation will eliminate the problem of “candy wrappers”; official accounting and the presence of control will eliminate the possibility of accounting manipulations with unaccounted cash; development of a code of corporate conduct, tracking changes in staff motivation, sensitive attitude towards employees, as well as strict selection during hiring will help to avoid sabotage and espionage in the interests of competitors, while standardized smoking breaks and regular reporting with “debriefing” are idleness.

The indicated scheme (methods of combating based on eliminating the causes of theft) does not fit only the fight against mismatched theft. As noted above, it is caused by a special kind of motivation, so working with motivation will not help, just as raising your salary will not help. Monitoring the activities of such an employee is complicated by the level of his skill, and it is difficult to determine such motivation when hiring. As more or less effective measures, we can propose an in-depth check by the enterprise security service of hired employees, as well as “cultivating” personnel at the enterprise by attracting young people - trainees to vacant jobs, while they are still studying in specialized educational institutions.

Alla Dmitrieva, Director of the Recruitment Department of the consulting company Prime Personnel, St. Petersburg;

Dmitry Solodky, General Director of the consulting company Prime Personnel, St. Petersburg

The article was accepted for publication in No. 4 of the magazine “Business and Personnel” for 2005

If you think you're being deceived, you don't think so. Especially if suspicious slippery movements occur right in your company and clearly indicate the unclean thoughts of colleagues and subordinates. The impressive scale of theft in Russian organizations is evidenced by double and triple digit figures. They have been stealing for many centuries and almost everywhere: employees and management steal office supplies and office equipment, write off equipment and materials, sell client databases, classified information and trade secrets, hold fake tenders, embezzle income and assets, take bribes, conduct double-entry bookkeeping and defraud clients “ to black." As a rule, shady deeds are carried out in the accounting department, purchasing and finance departments, as well as the sales service. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the company suffers losses due to laxity in internal control, indifference of management and owners, and reluctance to make a scandal out of precedent. However, the underlying reasons for widespread unpunished theft are much more complex. Thus, according to an expert on effective management and crisis management, who has experience as a general and financial director of large industrial and trading companies Sergei Eliseev, 99% of domestic companies are susceptible to some form of fraud, theft and abuse. The only difference is the scale of theft.

“Firstly, they steal according to Soviet tradition. In those days, it was considered normal to take something from a state-owned enterprise,” says Sergei Eliseev. – Nowadays, no one sees anything wrong with this either. Theft is equated with the ability to survive and blooms wildly for two reasons. First, companies rarely have a reliable and efficient accounting system in place to control all of their inventory. Owners are generally not inclined to invest in controllability and transparency of processes in the company. Often they simply turn a blind eye - if they steal no more than “allowed”, then it’s okay. The second reason is that some companies, in order to minimize a number of payments, including wages, work in the “gray zone”, and stealing from someone who has already stolen is much easier and the risk of consequences is lower.”

In Western companies the situation is better, but also far from ideal. Higher transparency of business processes, well-established internal controls and active litigation practice make many people think before taking someone else's. However, a number of people are prone to theft, and place of residence is not important here. Only 10% of them will never take someone else’s property under any circumstances. The other 10% will steal no matter what, and 80% are generally decent, but dependent on the surrounding moral climate, the ratio of opportunities and restrictions for abuse.

How to recognize a wolf in sheep's clothing? What makes a decent person a thief? We offer the most eloquent signs that an employee is secretly enriching himself at the expense of the company.

1. Expensive purchases and acquisitions

Each of these signs separately will not indicate a double play by the employee. However, several such touches together add up to a clear picture and make it clear that something is clearly fishy with the employee. For example, the manager began to notice new expensive accessories and acquisitions - a telephone, jewelry, frequent expensive trips and other attributes of a “beautiful” life. Of course, cars and real estate. Why would they suddenly appear if their owner was not raised in salary or paid bonuses and bonuses, and he himself, being a rather mediocre worker, constantly complains that he is sitting without money? Something is wrong here. Of course, a person could fall into an inheritance or win a lottery, but it’s better to keep your eyes open. It is worth taking a closer look at other oddities in the behavior of this lucky guy.

2. The desire to work separately

Avoidance of teamwork, closedness and inaccessibility of information, desire for privacy, a constantly closed office door and the desire to take as much work home as possible may indicate the employee’s desire to get out of the sight of management and provide a calm environment for fraud. A sharp change in the work format looks especially suspicious - just yesterday a person worked together with everyone and did not look for a reason for privacy, but today he is looking for a fifth corner in the office and does not want to communicate. Maybe he has something to hide?

3. Changing employee habits and behavior

Did your employee start coming to work earlier and staying after everyone had gone home? Have you become withdrawn, nervous, or, conversely, too active? It looks strange, especially considering that the volume and complexity of his work has remained the same. In this situation, CCTV cameras installed inside the company are useful, as well as special programs that allow you to monitor the actions of an employee on a work computer. The manner of turning off the computer monitor when approaching a colleague’s workplace, as well as working without days off and holidays, is also suspicious. What is hidden by a person who does not want to expose his work computer and leave his workplace, and does not allow anyone to see “his” documentation? Something is clearly wrong here.

4. Periodic absence from work for unknown reasons

In reality, many people who are sick for a long time and rest at their own expense may indeed have an urgent need for rest and a good reason for treatment. Or maybe not. It is likely that long absences for vague reasons are needed in order to do one’s own business and clearly not in favor of the company, but at its expense. “I had an employee who took our clients to him and took care of them during working hours,” says Anatoly, the owner of a small private computer repair company. - This is definitely theft. For each new client who asked for help for the first time, this guy left his personal number and asked, if necessary, to call him directly without contacting the company. He worked with these “black” clients on an equal basis with “white” ones. We found this out by accident - one of these clients once turned out to be an acquaintance of mine. Clearly, the time spent working on “me” was stolen from the company.”

5. Problems with reporting

A good thief will have perfect records. All data will match up to the last digit. A bad or novice thief will mess up the report, will not be able to explain the shortage of some items, and will accidentally “lose” expense receipts. In addition, he will delay the deadline for submitting control documents. This is where he can be caught red-handed. The manager of a branch of a private bank, Ekaterina, says: “There was a case when an employee was caught stealing. He worked directly with cash and had direct access to it. According to the documents, they discovered a lack of funds in the amount of almost seven hundred thousand rubles. They began to investigate the circumstances, contacted this employee and discovered that he was embezzling funds, periodically transferring funds to several of his accounts in small amounts. There was a trial, an internal investigation. He returned most of the stolen goods, after which he was fired under the relevant article.”

6. Increasing the number of consumables for the same amount of work

Taking away every little thing from work that is easily accessible is pleasant and attractive for many employees. They see nothing wrong with gradually carrying home stationery, food, dishes, and consumables for equipment, because “no one counts them.” However, if the consumption of materials for the previous volume of operations increases, it is obvious that a stream has separated from this river and is directed into someone’s pocket. “One employee sold spare parts for computers outright, putting the money in his pocket. We discovered it based on a tip from other employees, and carried out an unscheduled audit. Under threat of going to the police, he returned the damage. Well, they fired me, of course,” says computer scientist Anatoly. “There are times when fitness club employees can take home some “trifle” from the gym - expanders, small dumbbells and the like,” adds fitness trainer Alina. “This is especially facilitated by the confusion when re-equipping the hall, receiving a large amount of new equipment or writing off equipment that has expired.”

7. Increase in the number of damaged or written-off goods

Any company takes into account losses in the form of damaged or defective goods. However, there are employees during whose shift the quantity of such substandard goods increases sharply. The shift is over, and the statistics have returned to their usual levels? Something is wrong here. The situation becomes especially suspicious if these same defective parts and expired products are suddenly neatly folded and hidden in hard-to-reach places - it is obvious that they were useful to someone after all. Thus, according to Elena, an employee of a fast food restaurant, one of her colleagues constantly took home a semi-finished dry mixture for cooking deep-fried chicken. In the reporting, she designated it as unfit for consumption due to violation of storage conditions. “I don’t know why she needed this mixture - it is intended for cooking on professional equipment. However, this fact was never revealed. Over time, this employee left for another company,” says Elena.

8. Regular visits from friends, relatives and acquaintances

It's so nice when friends or spouses stop by at each other's work to say hello or buy them lunch. However, it is often those closest to them who help employees carry out various shady deeds. They, as a rule, have the opportunity to freely use the service entrance and exit, use the passes of a relative working in the company, and also enter premises into which unauthorized people are prohibited. And if visitors’ cars are still periodically stationed at the back entrance, the visits become doubly suspicious. The administrator of the trading floor of a well-known retail chain, Peter, confirms the possibility of theft with the involvement of relatives: “In the supermarket where I work, there were two cases when the theft of products occurred through the conspiracy of cashiers and their relatives and friends. In one of them, the cashier's wife bought some of the products, and hid some in a baby stroller and carried them through the checkout line where her husband worked without any problems. They noticed thanks to the vigilance of security and put an end to it.”

9. Fall in revenue with the same number of clients

An unpleasant situation occurred in one private medical clinic, clearly demonstrating a fraudulent scheme in action that allowed one of the doctors to receive additional income right at their workplace. The cunning doctor identified a weak point in the clinic’s financial chain - it was that clients were asked to pay for consultations and manipulations that had already been provided. The doctor offered patients a small discount on his services, provided that the patient paid for the assistance provided directly to the doctor in an envelope. Caution, prudence and accuracy provided the employee with a good monthly increase in salary. However, one of the patients brought the situation to the attention of the clinic’s management, and they decisively took action to prevent illegal earnings, including introducing a prepaid payment system, strengthening control over the consumption of materials and maintaining medical records. The cunning medical worker, because of whom a showdown began in the clinic, received a severe reprimand, but retained his job, as he had extensive experience and was a highly qualified specialist in his field.

10. Suspicious friendship between employees

Human friendliness in itself does not arouse suspicion - what could be mysterious about sociability and a positive attitude towards colleagues? However, in a number of cases, such sudden platonic sympathy is supported by more than mercantile interests. The striking effect is especially great from the friendship of employees who have direct access to the company’s finances and keep records of them. This situation happened in one Moscow company - at one point the management found out that two female accounting employees had been abusing their position for personal enrichment for two years. In fact, they were the only ones who worked in detail with the organization’s financial statements, which allowed them to calmly carry out prohibited matters, covering for each other if necessary. However, management turned a blind eye to their machinations and allowed them to continue working, because they believed that these employees as a whole brought more benefit than harm to the company.

How to stop employees from stealing?

How to educate employees into intolerance and unacceptability of theft and abuse of power? Strengthening internal control and legal and financial liability for theft are the minimum necessary measures, but solving the problem will solve it on a more global level. The antidote to the tendency to steal is a healthy corporate culture that rejects fraud in any form, says Sergei Eliseev. This “pill” is not suitable for all companies - in a number of organizations, theft is built into the very skeleton of the company and, in fact, is a type of activity. They work in an environment where it is simply impossible to survive otherwise. But for companies that can play fair and transparently, such as those in the IT sector, morale is a panacea. “Building a corporate culture that denies theft is not a quick process, it requires a lot of patience, and this must be understood,” says Sergey Eliseev. – It starts from the highest level – top management and the board of directors. Like any company value model, such an ideology is projected from top to bottom and must extend to all departments without exception. In this case, it will really become a powerful obstacle in the way of scammers. Believe me, most people want and will work conscientiously.” According to the expert, a person who is determined to “get something to profit from” will immediately understand that he does not fit into the general situation and will be quickly identified. Unscrupulous old-timers will also become exposed over time and are unlikely to remain in a company where everyone associates theft with inferiority and shame, and is not a reason for pride.

At the end of May, an employee of the DNS store chain was caught stealing 95 million rubles from a retailer. Let's look at how often workers in the retail industry are involved in theft, and how companies can prevent it.

Former employee of the DNS store chain Alexander Panov was put on trial by his employer. Panov, as a head of the marketing department, was involved in assessing the effectiveness of marketing budgets. Using his official position, he convinced suppliers to indicate inflated prices for services in invoices and transfer this money to intermediary companies through which he cashed out the money.

The situation received wide resonance due to the significant amount of stolen funds. However, theft by employees of retail companies is not uncommon. According to unofficial data, which are voiced at specialized conferences, in self-service stores, only 20% of cases of theft occur among customers, and 80% among staff,” notes Alexander Kuzmin, CEO of Retail&HoReCa RusHOLTS (the company deals with trade at gas stations). A similar point of view is shared by Andrey Volkov, head of the detective agency “Volkov and Partners”: from 80 to 90% of employees of retail companies have committed theft at least once.

“If you believe official statistics, the damage to Russian retail from theft is about a billion rubles a year,” comments Ivan Birulya, security director of SearchInform. – Unofficial statistics are many times higher, it’s just that companies prefer not to wash dirty linen in public, since they lose more from the actions of their employees than from the hands of customers. Researchers say employee theft accounts for between 34% (Axis data) and 47% (Checkpoint Systems) of all theft cases. The staff knows where the gaps in the company’s security are: where there are no cameras, with whom they can reach an agreement “as friends,” and what is “bad.”

How they steal in offices

The consulting company KPMG annually studies economic crimes within companies. According to the report “Portrait of a Corporate Fraud – 2016”, most often men between 36 and 45 years old who have worked for more than 6 years in a management position are involved in thefts. Industrial and consumer goods companies suffer the most from employee actions.

The TOP office scammers are headed by executive bodies (24%), purchasing specialists (22%), financiers and accounting (20%).

The most popular methods of fraud are misappropriation or embezzlement of company assets (36%), as well as purchases at inflated prices (31%). Direct theft of goods and other material assets accounts for 10% of fraudulent activities.

The likelihood of theft increases if a company employee has access to finance or material goods, comments Andrey Volkov, detective agency Volkov and Partners. The methods and volumes of theft depend on what the organization does and the position of the employee. Theft does not begin immediately after a candidate is hired, but after a period of time.

Some employees steal thinking that this is compensation for the work they have done or a mini bonus to their small salary. Also, colleagues enter into a criminal conspiracy, then larger sums are leaked to the side, which can seriously harm the enterprise.

As an example, Andrey Volkov tells a story from personal experience: “In one financial holding company in St. Petersburg, after conducting an inventory in a subsidiary microfinance company, the theft of 25 million rubles was revealed. The investigation found that the director (also an accountant) of the company entered into a conspiracy with the head of the holding’s security service. The director spent the amounts from repaying the debt several times lower than the actual amount received. After this, the debt was considered fully repaid due to the client’s insolvency, and the contract with the debtor was closed. The head of the security service confirmed this information as verified. After some time, these employees began to purchase apartments and cars, which did not correspond to the level of their salaries.”

How they steal from stores

Thefts directly at retail outlets are committed by loaders, merchandisers, salespeople, cashiers and other line personnel. A common method is theft from the sales floor: a dishonest employee hides goods under clothes or in a bag, and takes them out at the end of the day. An equally popular method is when the goods are taken out during working hours through the office premises or unloading areas, and taken away in the evening. In grocery stores, food can be eaten or drunk.

“Several years ago, I suggested moving the coffee machine to a free access zone at gas stations,” says Alexander Kuzmin, RusHOLTS. – According to the experience of foreign retailers, such a step increases sales by 30%. At the same time, we connected the equipment monitoring system. It generated reports on all actions of the coffee machine: maintenance, downtime, spills, availability of coffee, milk, etc. One of the most popular reports is the ratio of the number of prepared drinks and punched cash receipts. If the difference is up to 5%, the retail outlet is in the green zone, up to 10% - in the yellow zone, more than 10% - in the red zone, requiring urgent intervention. Pilot projects showed that half of the connected coffee makers consistently ended up in the red zone. Only after management paid attention to the problem did most stations comply with the standards.”

Cashiers can imitate selling a product to a client, and as a result, take it out unpaid - for this, the employee’s friends are involved. Another popular method of fraud at the checkout is to not check out a certain product, but to pocket the money for yourself. However, according to many experts, the most serious thefts occur when the goods have not yet reached the sales floor, and they are stolen directly from the landing stage.

“There was a case in my practice - a major theft of equipment from a hypermarket warehouse worth 1 million rubles,” says Ivan Birulya, SearchInform. “During the investigation, it turned out that not only the security guard was involved, but also the warehouse manager and one of the head office managers. They discussed the details in the mail, the contents of the correspondence became known to the information security service, and the perpetrators had to compensate for the damage.”

You should not assume that employees in some positions are more prone to theft than others, continues Ivan Birulya. Although traditionally those who are closest to material values ​​are considered the most dishonest: sellers, suppliers, security guards, warehouse workers: “The very proximity of material wealth for them is often a motive to steal - they commit theft because they have such an opportunity. But from the cases of our clients, we see that any employees, up to the heads of the company’s central offices, become participants in the schemes.”

Find and neutralize

Can crime be prevented by screening employees more thoroughly at the interview stage? Detective Andrei Volkov recommends investigating whether the potential employee has been involved in any fraud. To do this, you need to collect as much information as possible about the candidate. It is advisable that the applicant undergo a polygraph test before being hired. However, even these checks, according to Andrei Volkov, reveal only a small part of unscrupulous people.

Ivan Birulya advises that applicants be screened by security specialists. The purpose of screening is to identify details that are dangerous for the company in the candidate’s experience, character and habits, as well as potential propensities for theft and other crimes. Screening is carried out using several sources: social networks and open databases, oral conversations, polygraph data, and based on the results a risk map is drawn up.

According to a KPMG study, 71% of thefts occur due to weak internal controls: people steal because they have the opportunity. Therefore, the control system of retailers should be built in such a way that line specialists, management, and the controllers themselves fall under it, the representative of SearchInform is convinced.

“Every employee must understand that the company is not ready to allow theft. This should be clear both from the rules of corporate culture and from the papers that employees sign when hiring. The documents must clearly explain how the employee faces the risk of misconduct. Whether you give a streamlined formulation about liability under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation or talk about 7 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to 1.5 million rubles will be of great importance,” says Ivan Birulya.

Technical means significantly reduce risks. Access control and maximum coverage of work premises with video cameras significantly reduce the number of thefts, and the use of modern DLP systems (Data Leak Prevention) provides global control over more sophisticated theft schemes. DLP systems help reveal the plans of fraudsters at the planning stage: from their correspondence in the workplace, from accessing confidential data, and in other ways.

Theft by cashiers and fraud by accountants with reporting can be prevented with the help of online cash registers, says Alexey Barov, CEO of the OFD Platform company. Cash registers connected to the Internet allow you to control the entire range of products in real time. All financial transactions passing through them - electronic checks with a detailed description of the quantity of goods purchased - are sent to the fiscal data operator (FDO), an intermediary company between the entrepreneur and the tax office. An entrepreneur can control the entire assortment stored in a retail store through his personal account on the OFD website.

The tricks of higher-level personnel are more difficult to detect and cause more damage. “Therefore, I advocate automated solutions that make the entire business chain transparent - from the creation of goods, their storage and transportation to sales, and if necessary, then further support,” comments Alexander Kuzmin, RusHOLTS.

Employees must understand that punishment in case of an offense is inevitable, experts emphasize. Otherwise, all efforts to maintain security will turn out to be an empty formality.

Alena Yarkova | website

Subscribe to our channels on Telegram and "Yandex.Zen" to be the first to know about the main retail news.