Is That Yours: The Rise of Employee Theft

• Three out of four employees admit to stealing from their employer at least once.

• Employee fraud occurs for two years, on average, prior to being discovered.

• 95% of all businesses have experienced employee theft.

If theft is so commonplace, what, if anything, can you do to prevent employees from stealing on your worksite and what type of theft is most likely to occur? According to Kessler International and CompareCamp.com,  52% of theft is stolen office supplies, 30% is theft of time, 18% is intellectual property, and 32% is theft of products or services. It’s staggering to think that so many employees are willing to steal, but you are not without options.

Workplace Safety Screenings can help you prescreen employees to determine if they have a history of dishonesty and theft. Our background services will uncover criminal records, as well as reasons for previous terminations, the use of aliases, civil court cases relating to a candidate's ethics, and confirmation of work history, work eligibility and education credentials.

US businesses lose up to $110 million a day due to employee-related crimes.

Know before you hire with a comprehensive and customizable pre-employment screening. Only 50% of US employers require pre-employment screenings for new hires. That leaves the other half of all US employers taking risks with their profits and their business.

One-third of US business bankruptcies are caused by employee theft. Annual financial losses to business from bankruptcies total $50 billion.

You might think that it’s the big businesses that take the biggest hits, after all they have more employees and more resources from which to steal, but small businesses actually account for higher losses from employee theft.

“Two-thirds of all US-based small businesses fall victim to employee theft, according to employee fraud stats.” -smallbizgenius

According to Sadler Insurance, “Companies with less than 500 employees experienced a median loss of $280,000 from employee theft across a wide spectrum of industries. Approximately 80 percent of those organizations had fewer than 100 workers with losses and averaged losses of $842,403.”

“Background checks on prospective employees is the first step toward preventing insider theft.” John M. Sadler

Workplace Safety Screenings recommends a thorough background check in combination with drug and alcohol testing to cover every base and find the best, most honest job candidates. Don’t put our business at risk with a bad hire.

80% of drug and alcohol abusers steal from their employees to support their habit.

In addition to theft, drug abuse leads to more frequent accidents and injuries, absenteeism and worker’s compensation claims. At Workplace Safety Screenings, we make it our business to help employers find the most reliable employees before an offer is even made, saving you time, money, headaches and the financial strain that comes from a bad hire.