It is every small business nightmare: your clients are happy, customers are flowing in but your cash flow always seems to be at a trickle. What could ever be going on? It may be difficult to face, but it’s possible that the very employees you’ve trusted, hired and are paying are the ones behind the financial foolery. There are some key steps that you can take to prevent such avoidable problems however. Here are six ways to prevent in house theft from your place of business.
Six) Check into new employees before hiring them
Sometimes it’s better to just trust your gut. Even if that’s not your usual strategy, there is one thing to do with all of your employees: Check into all of your new employees before hiring the. Are there references real? Is there CV a matter of fact or a spun work of fiction? If they were fired from their last gig, why and how did that go down? A lot of times you can save yourself a myriad of headaches just from a couple of phone calls, and your quarterly profits will thank you.
Five) Train your employees
Accidents happen. Preventable accidents shouldn’t. One thing you simply must do is look into thoroughly training up your employees. Think of it this way; what if you haven’t trained your cashier right and on certain expensive items they’re punching in the wrong code. This is an easy way to detect theft and the more your employees can look out for it, the better for the entire business. Invest the time, pay employees for their training time and bite the bullet, your wallet will thank you later.
Four) Count your cash every single day
It seems like something too simple to overlook, that’s because it is. Any small business owner should check their money against the sales records every single day. Just hired someone and the cash register seems light? If you’re not checking into how cash is coming in, from where, from what, and how much then that’s an issue you have to fix immediately.
Three) Use a buddy system for the trash
This seems like strange paranoia, but trust us, this is crucial. Think to yourself: does your business deal with valuable assets (be it material, financial or information)? Of course it does. What better way to make off with some of that value than by stuffing it in the trash and going back for it after work? Sometimes it’s better to avoid that kind of problem all together; simply institute that employees need to take out garbage in pairs, and rotate who goes together.
Two) Implement surveillance software
This is an easy one, and in the long run can really save you headaches. Sometimes you just have to check into what people are really doing. Making the investment into some cameras can help you keep track of anything going wrong at your place of business.
One) Be good to your employees
This is number one on the list for a reason. There is nothing more thieving and vengeful than an employee you’ve been bullying for three years who’s about to quit. That’s when things start going missing and cash starts to leak. Curious if you’ve been good to your employees? Ask them, get feedback and if you need to change your behavior do so. This is such an easy (and decent) fix to avoid possible theft.
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