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August 21, 2007
Sticky Fingers at Work
A new report says that $94 million worth of NASA office equipment has gone "missing" over the past 10 years. Whether due to worker dissatisfaction, a sense of entitlement, the thrill of the steal or plain old absentmindedness, the five-finger discount is all too common in almost every workplace.
NASA has lost $94 million in office equipment over the past decade, looking the other way as employees give computers to spouses or claim missing laptops are lost in space, according to a new report by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO). Some sample explanations for "lost" items, which include televisions, printers and other items, are highlighted in the report.
One employee explains the loss of a laptop computer this way:
My wife needed a computer at home to perform her work as a real estate broker so I checked one out from the surplus stock available. I turned the computer back in when she was done using it but never received a receipt.Last year, NASA investigated only a quarter of the 1,136 loss reports submitted and disciplined employees in two cases.
The five-finger discount is all too common in most workplaces, where break rooms (Missing coffee creamer, anyone?), coworkers' cubicles ("better stapler than mine") and even the first aid kit (free Band-Aids!) are designated targets.
Spherion Staffing Service, a Florida-based recruiting and staffing company, recently announced survey results showing that nearly one in five workers (19 percent) has stolen supplies such as pens, paper, paper clips, Post-it notes and file folders, during the past year.
A survey by Harris Interactive and LexisNexis last year was more extreme, finding the majority of workers (58 percent) have taken office supplies for their personal use.
Even the plants aren't safe from office sticky fingers: Harris Interactive found that 2 percent of the employees surveyed admitted to taking decorations such as the leafy corner dweller, as well as paintings and office furniture. (How do you suppose someone sneaks out of the building with, say, a rolling chair that doesn't belong to him or her? Tucked under a blazer?)
It isn't easy to uncover the "opportunistic, cagey" employee who has taken them, and because supplies are singularly of little monetary value, workers may not view taking them as theft. Taking a company pen home could be done completely absentmindedly, of course.
Workers surveyed by Spherion Staffing said the primary reason office supplies were taken for personal use was because they needed them (41 percent). Nearly one-third (32 percent) said it was because their boss/office manager said it was OK to do so, and 15 percent claimed the company will never miss them.
Only 21 percent of workers expressed guilt.
Although the financial value of purloined office supplies tends not to exceed $10 to $15 per episode, most companies likely don't suffer a significant hit. Yet supplies that seem small can add up to have a costly cumulative impact to a retailer or other low profit-margin business' bottom line if enough people take desk items here and there.
It's kind of like "nickel-and-diming" a business to bottom-line losses. For small businesses, in particular, employee theft can cause a huge dent each year.
In addition to pens and paper, employees are also stealing resources directly related to the productivity of business — classified information, patents, corporate contracts, case studies, periodicals and so on.
So American employees, at least, "should be aware that they are putting themselves at potential risk of termination and could possibly face legal consequences," a legal editor at Lawyers.com told SmartPros.com.
"In most cases, an employer wouldn't fire a worker for taking a notepad, but if they decide for whatever reason that was a problem, they could," an employment partner with a Los Angeles-based law firm told MarketWatch (via The Wall Street Journal's Career Journal). "At-will employees can be fired for good reason, bad reason or no reason at all."
A CareerBuilder.com survey last year indicated that nearly 40 percent of managers had fired an employee for theft. Although 45 percent of hiring managers said they would automatically terminate someone for stealing from the company, 48 percent said it would depend on the object and situation. Seven percent said they would not fire the culprit.
Comparing various industries, the CareerBuilder.com survey found health care, IT and manufacturing had the highest amount of workers own up to engaging in office theft while retail, sales and hospitality had the lowest.
Resources
Lack of Accountability and Weak Internal Controls Leave NASA Equipment Vulnerable to Loss, Theft, and Misuse
GAO, June 2007
WANTED: One-in-Five U.S. Workers for Taking Office Supplies for Personal Use
Spherion, June 18, 2007
Plants, Decor and Furniture Among the Items Office Workers Admit to Stealing
Harris Interactive/LexisNexis, May 1, 2006
Stealing Office Suppliers, What's Up?
Office1000.com, Jan. 4, 2007
Workers Admit to Stealing Supplies ... and Plants
SmartPros.com, May 4, 2006
Who's Making Off with Office Supplies?
by Kristen Gerencher
MarketWatch (via WSJ Career Journal), June 9, 2006
Thirty-Eight Percent of Managers Say They Have Fired Someone for Stealing at the Office
CareerBuilder.com, Aug. 22, 2006
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Comment
3 CommentsWe have observed that there is stealing happening all over malls, offices, shops etc by customers and staff.
Debatable point is the cost involved in placing cameras, security, additional staff, inventory control, regular audits of stock checking to the value of goods stolen.
My experience states in our small boutique it is not worth it, the cost involved in checking stocks etc is much more than the value of goods stolen, what is required is personnal supervision .
We learnt the hard way as by leaving the business in the hands of staff; more than the customers, the staff was stealing. Sacking all of them, recruiting and training new staff is all cumbersome, expensive.
Conclusion: percentage of theft should be added in the cost while evaluating profit margins.
Thanks
Regards
H.S.Bhatia
In owning and/or managing retail businesses in malls, free stands and strip centers prior to moving into mnufacturing, the hardest problem to get my mind around in the early days was that on average 60 to 70% of the shrinkage was contributable to employees. Careful and frequent inventory of desirable items gave a feel for the size of the problem and that dollar amount was a factor in determining a percent of total sales attributable to theft and it became a part of the cost of doing business just as rent, utilities, insurance and etc. were. As with any for-profit endevour, that cost was included in selling price and the consumer supported the dishonesty of his peers. The problem I find is not purely one in retail, theft is common and costly in manufacturing and there is real denial in small to mid-size manufacturing where shrinkage is nearly 100% an internal problem. I find that there a few if any procedures in place and the theft is long past by the time it is discovered. Manufacturers tend to want to place blame with suppliers, delivery persons, poor receiving procedures and a whole host of situations other than face up to the fact that highly skilled workers with a long history in the company are likely as anyone to be a source of loss.
The owner’s mindset in dealing with employee theft of inventory, supplies, etc hasn’t changed much over the years. My experience as a manager at a young age was that retailers took the attitude that shrinkage was a cost of doing business and factored a percentage of their losses into the selling price of their inventory. Rarely were thieves prosecuted.
While I’m sure shrinkage is still a factor in pricing, there is more money invested today in deterrence with the use of state-of-art cameras, heightened security, inventory control, outside auditing, etc, and little budget, or time, left to criminally pursue shoplifters and internal thieves.
Or is it because of the visibility these events seem to bring? Seems to me that given the mass exposure from TV and print media, and worst of all, the Internet, companies would rather keep any kind of loss, whether it be theft of merchandise, embezzlement, or out and out fraud, under the radar than risk the embarrassment and humiliation of their security shortcomings. Too bad, because unless there is serious consequence to their actions, white-collar crime and employee theft will only continue to flourish and the everyday man will be the one who pays for it.
October 14, 2009 4:25 PM
