Hi-Tech-Consulting

If you suspect your employees steal, then don’t give them free range.

When fast-food restaurant employees give a two-week notice, supervisors might be better off to pay them for the two weeks and allow them to leave at the end of that work day, say researchers. Penn State

Erie, Pa. — When fast-food restaurant employees give a two-week notice, supervisors might be better off to pay them for the two weeks and allow them to leave at the end of that work day, say researchers.

“A somber fact of the workplace is that employees who have given their two-weeks’ notice may be more prone to theft than employers who plan to stay on the payroll,” said Dr. Peg Thoms, assistant professor of management at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.

Thoms presented her research findings in a paper, “The Relationship Between Imminent Turnover and Employee Theft,” at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management in San Diego. Co-authors were Paula Wolper, assistant professor at Mercyhurt College, Erie; Kimberly S. Scott with Hewitt Associates LLC; and Dave Jones, doctoral candidate at Benedictine University in Hanover Park, Ill.

“The first part of our two-pronged study revealed a significant correlation between turnover and theft in one of the largest fast-food restaurant chains in the country,” Thoms noted.

The average annual turnover for the 88 stores studied was 204 percent, with turnover ranging from 31 percent in one store to 390 in another. During the same year, reported employee theft for the 88 stories totalled $60,984, ranging from nothing in one store to $12,496 in another. Theft took place despite extremely tight controls including twice-per-day inventories.

“The second part of our study involved a survey of 152 undergraduate college students, of whom 104 were employed, over one-third in a restaurant,” Thoms said. “They were given four theft scenarios developed by a restaurant management expert.

“Research participants in our study indicated that they would be most likely to steal in situations where they had given a two-week notice of leaving and in situations where there were loose controls,” she added.

Previous research has indicated that restaurant theft can take many forms including giving free food to friends, taking home restaurant items and swiping other servers’ tips. In general, restaurant employees do not try to justify their theft, perhaps because stealing, especially pilferage, has become so common.

Employees most likely to steal are those in financial straits, those with the greatest access to things of value and those who do not expect to continue working for their present employer, according to the researchers.

“If a restaurant has tight management controls against theft, the average amount of theft may be so low that it may not be worth losing two weeks of productive labor when an employee gives his or her notice,” Thoms said.

However, when store managers or employees with access to valuable equipment and supplies resign, it may be in the organization’s best interests to allow them to leave immediately when they give their two-week notice.

“These findings demonstrate the need to attract, train and retain high quality restaurant managers who understand the causes of employee theft and turnover and are skilled at reducing both,” said Thoms

“Security Issues for Every Company”
Connecticut Business News Journal (01/22/07) ; Singer, Karen

http://www.lulu.com/content/610143

Identify theft? Fraud? Embezzlement? Every business is a target for a new breed of hackers who can access to sensitive information by direct physical assault on your server and computer rooms by posing as official inspectors.

So how do you keep criminals out of the customer data? If your company handles any sensitive information whatsoever–including something as simple as an e-mail address or a phone number–remember the following: 

IF IT’S PAPER, SHRED IT Thieves regularly dives into business Dumpsters; even a Post-it note with a customer’s name and phone number gives them enough to begin a scam. Employee names, positions and work schedules are invaluable to con artists. 

ALWAYS ESCORT STRANGERS Never let pairs split up, and never, ever leave them alone–no matter what the reason. Thieves have stooped to faking illness, and then spending as long as it takes in a bathroom until the most vigilant escort gives up. 

VERIFY IDS Take the time to ensure that a stranger is whom he claims to be, even at the risk of giving insult. Check the name on a badge against a driver’s license, then call the purported employer–fire department, pest control–to make sure the person is legit. 

DOUBLE-CHECK E-MAIL REQUESTS Hackers have been known to set up fake e-mail address and credit-union website, then sends out e-mails claiming to be from the credit union’s IT manager, asking employees to “test” the new website by entering their own account and password information. They often give thieves all they need to empty out those accounts

 

An illustrated handbook about electronic security, fire alarms, card access, CCTV & digital video. How they work, what & how to buy. Everything you need to know about loss prevention and electronic security systems. Fore buiness owners, property managers, architects and engineers or just the curious.

http://www.lulu.com/content/610143

“The Surprising Security Threat: Your Printers”
Computerworld (01/15/07) ; Radcliff, Deb

Network printers are proving to be a commonly overlooked security threat. Many believe that printers are only vulnerable from inside the LAN or through a remote log-in, but that is not the case. Any type of outside link, like a buffer overflow or cross-site scripting, can act as an access point for hackers to use a printer to insert a virus. Once inside, the virus can spread to disable a system, or remain hidden in the printer to steal documents, steal or change passwords, or shut down functions. Printers are vulnerable because people think that a printer does not need to have its software updated or have security patches installed, but Michael Rossman, global director of IT services and information at McCormick and Co., says that a printer needs to be protected just like a server or any other Windows-based system on a network.

Security Management (12/06) Vol. 50, No. 12, P. 58 ; Longmore-Etheridge, Ann

By CAROLYN SHAPIRO, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 1, 2006   Employees are responsible for the largest amount of money that retailers lose every year to “shrinkage,” or inventory shortfalls, the industry’s most oft-cited statistics show. In the end, retail experts said, consumers pay the cost in the form of higher-priced goods to make up for stores’ losses. 

Nationwide, employee theft accounted for $17.6 billion in retail inventory in 2005, according to the National Retail Security Survey released annually by the University of Florida. The 156 retailers that participated in the survey, considered the industry’s standard for data on the subject, attributed 47 percent of their lost merchandise last year to employees. That’s far more than the 33 percent of total shrinkage attributed to shoplifting. The proportion of losses from employee theft has stayed close to 50 percent in the survey for the past several years. The figures reflect only the theft of products - not cash, which would add an additional $234 million to retailers’ losses reported to the survey in 2005. 

“In fact, there is no other form of larceny that annually costs American citizens more money than employee theft,” Richard C. Hollinger, director of the university’s Security Research Project, wrote in the survey.  Yet retailers tend to raise more public concern about shoplifters and lobby for more legislation to address shoplifting than they do employee theft. They simply don’t like to talk about that. 

“Malls Use Many Security Methods”
Palm Beach Post (FL) (12/26/06) ; Samples, Eve

U.S. shopping malls annually spend $1.30 per square foot of space on security, according to research from the International Council of Shopping Centers. Security was recently on the minds of shoppers at the Boynton Beach Mall after a Christmas Eve shootout at the Florida mall left one person dead. The shooting occurred near a JCPenney store; police believe the violence was gang-related. The owner of the mall, Simon Property Group, would not say whether additional security measures would be implemented at the mall but did say that metal detectors and patting down shoppers had been ruled out. Simon owns 170 enclosed malls across the country, and all of the malls are protected by private security guards. The number of guards patrolling the malls at any given time varies depending on factors like the season and the local crime rate. Some malls in Israel and South America have metal detectors, but security experts say that these devices are too intrusive to be practical in the United States. Some U.S. malls feature police substations to help deter violence.
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