Businesses are constantly evolving at a rapid rate, and part of that evolution is minding how your employees conduct themselves. When you own a business, you are naturally protective of your interests and assets and have placed the highest insurance protections in place. Unfortunately, employee fraud is still a significant problem faced by businesses of all types, both large and small. We never hire employees believing that they will do anything but be an asset to the business itself, but we must be prepared for this not to be the case.
Prevention is always the best option when it comes to employee activity and it is absolutely crucial to reducing the losses faced by fraud. There has to be fraud prevention in place, even if your business has minimal staff and assets. You still have a business and you need to protect it as much as possible. Ideally, you want to have a secure legal team to go against an affordable criminal defense attorney, because that would mean they need to defend themselves. In an ideal world, you never have to come across any type of fraud in your business. There are plenty of ways you can minimize fraud as much as possible and we’ve put together some of the ways you can help yourself and your business to avoid it as much as possible:
- Know Your Staff. Some behavioral traits are common among those who commit or intend to commit fraud. Knowing your staff, listening to them and their concerns, and getting to know them on a personal level can help you to weed out anyone you feel may be unsuitable for a place in your organization. Pouncing on internal business issues early can help you to avoid retaliation and ‘revenge’ from employees.
- Train Well. You should always have transparency with your staff, and full training is an absolute must. If there are measures in place to let staff know that you fully intend to clamp down and act harshly toward those with questionable business practices, you have likely set up a really good deterrent.
- Internal Controls. One of the best ways to minimize workplace fraud is to limit access to sensitive information. By limiting access to certain systems such as financial information and banking, you can prevent anyone from accessing personal and private information that could be manipulated.
- Monitor Time Off. Generally, if someone is committing fraud at work they are very careful not to spend an extended period of time away from the office just in case someone discovers their activities. Keep employees on their toes by rotating computer stations and such regularly!
Not every employee goes to work with the idea of how to take advantage of your business, it would be a sad state of affairs if that was the case. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be vigilant at all times about those you hire and protect your business at all costs.
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