I have a friend who spent nearly 30 years in the food business, with almost half of it as a restaurant owner. He told me some pretty wild tales about his experiences in what many call the riskiest of all businesses. One thing he said was that everybody was honest except for employees, customers and suppliers. And he wasn’t really joking-it just sounded funny.
His personal philosophy was that everybody would steal from him given the opportunity. So his job as he saw it was to put up as many barriers as he could to keep employees honest. That sounds kind of fatalistic, but just ask any business owner how big of a problem employee theft is. He’ll tell you that it is probably one of his top problems.
So aside from the obvious of taking accounting steps to deal with money theft and physical security steps such as locks to prevent products from walking out the back door, here are two ways that you can catch employees stealing from you.
The first is to install some security Surveillance Cameras around the building-the front door, back door and any other doors that you may have at your facility. Security cameras send a strong signal to anybody who would think about robbing your business. It would give them reason to think again. Many restaurants, for example, have standalone walk-in refrigerators or freezers outside the main building. That would be another location to put a surveillance camera.
The other way that you might be able to catch restaurant employees stealing from you is to install a hidden camera by a walk-in refrigerator or freezer and one by your liquor storage area-that’s where all the good stuff is. And you want to protect your cash so install an overhead Hidden Spy Camera over or near the cash register that would provide coverage of anybody with sticky fingers.
We would always recommend that whatever kind of camera you get that it have the capability to view the footage from wherever you are so you don’t have to go into the store to see what’s going on. This remote viewing capability is nearly standard on most security cameras and even on hidden cameras.
We have run into a lot of people who feel that most employees are honest and to some extent I would agree. But given the opportunity with cash, food or liquor available many people will steal. As a business owner, you have an obligation to put up as many walls as you can to prevent that from happening. Security cameras and hidden cameras can help do the trick and provide video evidence in the case of a theft.