Employee theft is nothing to sneeze at in a restaurant. People steal an amazing amount of money, but they also steal food and alcohol. Restaurant supplies, even restaurant smallwares, cost money. Here are some ways to curb employee theft.
Hire Mystery Diners and Employees
By hiring mystery diners and employees, you are getting people who are objective and are willing to report on the goings on within the company – something that you could not get from customer comment cards or other arenas. If you suspect employees are stealing from you, putting new employees in place might be just the way to catch them – as they might be recruited to help in the scheme.
Surveillance Systems
By installing a surveillance system, you can find out who’s cheating the system and who’s making your restaurant their own personal playground. That’s one of the first things that the Mystery Diners team does on getting to a place.
Give Employee Perks
Employees are less likely to steal when they feel like they’re being treated right. Let the employees eat for free when they’re working at the restaurant. This generates a good sense of well-being.
Key Codes
Knowing the people who have codes to the locks, safes, and cash drawers can narrow down who is taking advantage of your restaurant. By detecting certain patterns with your employees, you might realize that you have potential security issues.
Accurate Inventory Controls
You have to know what’s in the restaurant before you can accurately know if anything has been taken. This is where there’s a huge difference between thinking someone is stealing from you and actually knowing it.
These aren’t the only ways to catch internal thieves. Soon enough, they will mess up and you will catch them with their hand in the till or on the neck of the bottle, but do you want to take the losses?
