Gaining profits through controlling Internal Theft

Controlling internal theft is a daunting task at times.  Retailers and businesses alike are not immune to this “disease”, however there are solutions.

Take a former sporting goods company I worked for. A remote location offered the perfect setting for internal theft. The infrequent district, regional and corporate visits gave the dishonest employees the feeling of being at home with “mom and dad”. The new store manager was in over his head. A high sales volume store, he just couldn’t keep up with the demands of his customers and the company alike. As a result, his store suffered high shrink numbers and deep cuts into the store’s profits.

I took the district over and immediately looked into the root cause of shrink in the store. I talked with associates, reviewed the receiving practices, and conducted external store surveillance and random audits via CCTV of employee only areas. What was the biggest common denominator?  Internal theft!
That’s right, dishonest employees. The manager, who was new to the position, had actually been with the company for a few years. When I approached him to discuss the issues, and what I needed to do, he just could not believe that a couple of his trusted employees, including a supervisor could be contributing to the losses in his store. None-the-less, I scheduled interviews with 5 suspected employees. The first two interviews I considered to be easy. I had video of each of them on 5 separate occasions, taking merchandise from the stockroom and out of the store, passing merchandise off at the point of sale to friends and family and under ringing. The other 3 were a little more challenging. They were well educated, had been with the company for awhile and somewhat aware of what I was doing in the store.

Upon successfully completing the interviews, each admitted to thousands of dollars in merchandise theft and two (including the supervisor) admitted to a couple of thousands of dollars in cash theft. Internal theft can be controlled by ensuring we have the best leadership in place, proper execution of the company programs and a solid loss prevention program.

For more information, contact us at internal theft or call 1.770.426.0547