Employee Theft Prevention

Feed Forward Strategies

Feed forward strategies involve identifying and preventing problems within an organization before they even occur. They are at most time proactive and preventative and help managers regulate resources including raw materials, employees and capital. In other words, future problems can be avoided through feed forward strategies (Child 150). In employee theft, some strategies that could be employed include a number of options.

Thorough Background Checks

The most common proactive approach to deal with employee theft is conducting a thorough background check on every potential employee before they are hired. This is something that most organizations do to ensure that their employees have clean records and are less likely to commit any form of fraud or thievery to compromise the organization. This includes but is not limited to criminal records, previous work history, and social background check among other things.

Developing a Policy or Terms of Agreement

Another strategy is developing a policy or terms of agreement which highlights the values, principles and code of conduct the company expects from its employees. This is an agreement between the employee and the company as well as an assurance from the employee that they agree to act per the expectations of the company and are liable to any penalties if they break this agreement.

Defining Theft

The company also needs to establish grounds for what theft is before it can pursue any employee on such grounds. As most employees know that taking money or products from the company is theft, there are still other grey areas which are of concern if the company does not adequately define theft. Some of this includes taking company information, using company resources for personal gains, stealing office supplies among other things. While the company is not able to prevent employees from taking home office supplies such as pens a clear line needs to be identified which leaves employees with no room for creative interpretation of whether it is stealing or not.

Work Cited

Child, John. Organization: Contemporary Principles and Practices, 2Nd Edition. 2nd ed. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2015. Print.

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