Workplace employee sickness and theft

No company, large or small, is immune from false workplace sickness and workplace theft.

Fantasy sickness is on the rise. Employers face a challenging time to make a profit in an ever demanding world. Unfortunately business priorities are not always viewed in the same way by employees, who will stop at nothing to gain an advantage over their employer.

Some employee’s will take a period of ‘sick leave’ and are genuine cases. However, others have moved into an environment where they will prey on their employers lack of understanding within this area, thinking that they can take weeks, even months off on full pay at their employer’s expense. Whether they have been genuinely injured and amplify their injury, or just completely invent an injury, this behaviour can cost employers thousands of pounds, and in some cases cause permanent harm to the company.

NTF Investigations are well versed in dealing with workplace sickness and our private investigators can discuss your concerns.

Theft from the workplace

The number of High Court cases relating to the theft of confidential company information more than doubled from 2010 to 2012.

Research shows that data theft is costing small UK companies millions of pounds, with the average legal costs alone at around £30,000.

Very few will actually employ a private investigator, because investigating theft is complex. Faced with challenging economical times, however, businesses are less able to sustain losses and maintain business as usual, making workplace investigations increasingly more important.

The UK recession has had a real bearing on the increase in negative occurrences in consumer, private and commercial matters. It is with sadness that this economic climate seems to be getting deeper and there is no real genuine light at the end of the tunnel. One major result of the financial crisis is that employee theft in the workplace and ‘fantasy sickness’ has increased.

It has been reported over the past 2 years in printed and broadcasting media that the retail and engineering sector is one of the worst affected industries suffering from a rise in employee theft in the workplace. Obviously with customer sales decreasing, any instances of internal theft will further damage any business no matter what their trading size.

Only this week figures revealed that employee theft accounted for over 2 Billion Pounds of lost revenue in the UK alone. This figure is staggering and also shows that it is not just a lack of money being spent to blame for the decline of retail turnover and profits, but also internal theft.

Interestingly the percentage that retail employee theft rose by is approximately 7%, whilst on the flip side retail sector spend on security is down by 5%. This reported decrease in security spend could be a factor in some employees deciding to help themselves to goods or money from their employer. It seems that companies, certainly in the retail market, need to get tougher on security and look at ways to reduce internal theft for long-term survival in difficult times.

If you suspect a member of your team or an employee may be committing theft in the workplace please do not hesitate to contact us

Workplace employee sickness and theft

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