How to prevent employee theft in your pub?
by Arnab Dey Business Security Systems 12 January 2022
The last thing you expect when you hire someone is that they will steal from your business. However, in 2020/21, there were over 5,000 reported cases of employee theft in England and Wales, which is concerning, to say the least. Pub owners want to trust their staff but sometimes that can be a difficult task.
Fortunately, with the right pub insurance, you can cover your back easily, but to be extra safe it’s best to try to prevent the theft from occurring in the first place.
Types of pub theft
- Food and inventory theft – This comes in several forms such as snacking on supplies, giving away free meals, taking food home, or stealing goods off of the delivery truck.
- Cash theft – This includes taking cash from the register, inflating tips, and dropping prices.
- Accounting theft – This fraudulent activity can be done in several ways, including manipulating voids, skimming cash, or underreporting earnings.
- Intellectual property theft – Theft of your secrets can result in a loss of earnings should the employee take them elsewhere. This can include recipe and cooking processes theft; other people can copy what you are good at and profit off it.
- Time theft – A common one in every industry, unsolicited breaks, false timesheets, lateness, and phone breaks are all forms of theft.
Pub theft prevention
- Pay staff well and provide benefits – If staff is paid well then there will be less reason for them to steal from you.
- Offer onboarding and training – This will help your staff to know what is right and wrong and the consequences of theft in your pub.
- Cash handling procedures –Place drop boxes near your tills to ensure the cash register isn’t filled with cash that can be easily skimmed. When counting the cash at the end of the day ensure more than one person is involved so no single staff member can pocket the profits.
- Adjust POS system settings – Decide what certain employees can and can’t do when using the till to prevent the wrong staff members from having greater access to the cash.
- Improve security – Install security cameras so you can monitor employees if you believe something is wrong with the way they are working. This will give you evidence if any theft does occur.
While implementing these measures is a great way to attempt to prevent theft before it occurs, it can still unfortunately happen. It is important that you report the crime to the police immediately to ensure that justice is served and your profits are not harmed by one bad employee.
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