Workers carry pens, disinfectant, and even toilet paper from work – why do people steal?



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An administration expert’s record of what and how much company employees steal on the social network made other employers think. According to them, in general, in this way, the losses suffered by the employees for the company can sometimes reach a significant part of the turnover – profit.

Paranoia or reality?

Retail expert Justas Gavėnas first shared a post on this topic on his personal Facebook account on the social network. He said that the topic had recently come to light in several companies that he had to interact with, so he decided to share it publicly.

“Let’s start simple. Stolen everywhere. Where it is misplaced, where it is not maintained, where it seems irrelevant, insignificant. Everything that can be stolen is stolen. What can employees steal?

Money, office supplies, toilet paper, equipment or parts thereof, consumables, raw materials, products, contacts, intellectual property. It is still possible to steal by filling out spreadsheets (overtime), trying to obtain anti-spending for expenses that did not exist, illegal use of credit cards, taxis and transportation services, or even the complete accounting.

This is only a small part of what can be stolen. The question is do we think about it?

Maybe you are different, but I really know n + k cases where office paper is brought home, disinfectants are stolen, and even toilet paper is turned off. rolls. Sometimes thefts are less obvious: large books and files are unknowingly copied, coffee or sugar is removed from ofisiuko.

I even know of one case where it seemed to the manager that employees were stealing and making personal copies. printing machine. A procedure was introduced: XXX sheets copied per employee per month. Paradoxically, with the introduction of this rule, the number of print jobs has multiplied by X.

(…) I once saw a situation where an employer did not pay the bonuses promised to the employees. I don’t know for what reasons. A month later, he himself admitted – there was a clear increase in “cancellations” and a shortage of stock in the warehouse – apparently the employees recovered “in kind”, – a retail expert shared the experience of the company.

He adds that between 25 and 40 percent of companies steal. employees, and their theft can amount to 5% of the total. Rotation.

“30 percent. Business failures are caused by employee theft; In retail, most customers steal, employees second and suppliers third,” says J. Gavėnas.

“You will do nothing here”

Dan Arlauskas, president of the Confederation of Entrepreneurs, admits that the problem of theft in companies is known and heard, but these issues are not raised or the search for solutions in the confederation.

“We just realized that we did nothing to calculate the losses or do any research in the confederation. These are isolated instances of warehouse break-ins, and not a single story has been with accountants. Well, I have given myself all rights to manage company accounts electronically, but I have full confidence in my financier.

But there are cases where they are the financiers withers certainly not in euros or euros, but in hundreds of thousands. However, thefts can be very diverse. They also occur at a higher level, where not only is the disinfectant drained.

It happens that people who work, especially in sales, can reach an agreement with a buyer, facilitate it and sell cheaper, returning part of the money to the seller. There are many things like that ”, says D. Arlauskas.

Danukas Arlauskas

According to him, to prevent employees from stealing, the company needs a system that verifies that such dishonest people are not produced.

“And when it comes to toilet paper, liquids, that’s definitely those things. Traders even say he steals up to 5 percent. Rotation. But you can only prevent such dishonesty up to a point, because if you want to avoid it completely, it will cost you more than the loss itself.

The problem is, you won’t do anything here. This is a matter for all companies. It all depends on how you are able to create a control mechanism and how you select the employees, how loyal they are to the company and how much they are involved in social responsibility and represent the cultural values ​​of the company.

There are very complicated things here, but it depends on the company: how much the employees trust in it, how much they trust the managers and, by forming good relationships, it is sometimes possible to avoid these big losses ”, says D. Arlauskas.

Theft is a sign of seriousness

When asked by Vilnius University professor Romo Lazutka why, in his opinion, employees keep stealing from their workplaces, he rejects the Soviet habit of taking “government” items home.

“Yes, it was customary to take a lot home from work, but we’ve had to get used to it for 30 years. Also, those who wear probably did not live in the Soviet era, because even those who are now 50 years old left the Soviet era for 19 years.

So if those things were used by a person of retirement age, maybe it can be explained in the Soviet era, but now, 25-30 year old workers, they were already mainly born in the non-Soviet era.

But what I have noticed the most is that after the Soviet era there were also dark, gloomy years, in which everything was really lacking, that is, after the secession of the Soviet Union. So it was really notorious that people, be it from workplaces or schools, other public institutions, bathrooms, unscrewed the light bulbs, the paper toilet was not there, they did not load it ”, says R. Lazutka.

R. Lazutka

The economist says he believes the situation has changed now and people are stealing less from the workplace than they used to, and companies that experience employee theft should think more about the well-being of employees.

“I understand these thefts unless it is like this: If people are forced to catch such trifles, then their financial situation is obviously very difficult.” Because, let’s imagine a high-ranking manager with a salary of $ 5,000. euros, it will definitely not bring any details of the workplace, the bulbs will not unscrew.

And a person who wins € 500 can be overwhelmed by the hassle of trying to escape and steal in various ways. Of course, that doesn’t mean that all the lowest earners steal, no. But this may indicate that the financial situation of those workers is difficult if they need to get those details out of the workplace. And when a person’s situation improves, it doesn’t really do any of that.

Employers with whom this happens must think about the situation of their employees, if those details are important to them, ”says R. Lazutka.



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