Employee Stealing Money. How would you fire?

If one person can do it, then more than one person can do it. Close the loop so that this does not happen again. Depending on your size of business and figures it might be worth putting them on suspension pending investigation. Force their hand whilst sending a message to other employees that may or may not be doing similar.

As Vroom says don't focus too much on the money unless we are talking serious sums.

 

 

My first advice: ASK MOD TO DELETE THIS THREAD! You don't know if he is surfing this site. It's much easier and effective to take actions by surprise. Make sure you are not mistaken, and yes, make sure you have solid proof.

I know it's been said already and I agree! Delegate his "number crunching" responsibilities to another auditor and find the discrepancies. Once found, question him with a witness and whatever he says doesnt really matter it's the fact that he knows that you know the gig is up. Fire him and tell him he's getting off easy since it's a possible fraud issue that could resut in jailtime.

Employee Stealing Money. How would you fire?

 

With maniacal glee and delight...

 

 

 

 

 

Is this a trick question?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(oh..... Yeah.... And pack a heater)

With maniacal glee and delight...

 

 

 

 

 

Is this a trick question?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(oh..... Yeah.... And pack a heater)

 

Haha, Welcome back Rd!.

 

To the OP, do you have some type of contract with this employee or is the employment "at-will"? You may not need give any reason for firing if that's the case. I'm no employment lawyer, so I'm not 100% sure on that, but that's my recollection of that shit.

 

More importantly though, If this person is bold enough to fudge numbers to increase their bonus, chances are he/she is bold enough to fudge other numbers that may reflect on their performance within the office...a little extra billing here and there, some federal insurance forms getting tinkered with to increase some billing...that sort of fun stuff that may get your office in a whole shit load of trouble, especially if they say you knew about it and didn't act. That in and of itself can open a completely different can of worms especially if you dig around too much. But like Roman said, fire that person with glee and delight and get yourself a good employee!

If it is a lot of money, I would contact an attorney who handles labor issues in the workplace.

 

 

If not, simply dismiss the employee who took the funds. I would also have another employee, witness your firing the other employee - from a distance.

why is there any question what to do.

 

do not keep him around because its an inconvenience to you not to have a replacement.

At the very least you should be able to avoid being liable for unemployment insurance.

 

Nah, it will be a case of your word against his unless there is an arrest report and conviction. Been there, done that. They will not deny him/her unemployment based on a claim of theft, because they know many employers will say anything to avoid their rating getting hit.

 

My two pennies.

 

- Robert

 

 

Hire an attorney.

 

My friend just had his building burn to the ground in Phoenix when he confronted an employee of theft. The employee had a friend help him burn the building to the ground to hide any evidence on the computers, etc. and ended up killing his friend in the process (friend burned alive or died falling from the second floor).

A nightmare for my friend...again, hire an attorney and for sure do not confront him alone or at anytime be in the office alone with the employee.

Im not in the lawsuit happy USA but is wrongful dismissal really a problem? Found this online..

 

Wrongful Dismissal

A dismissal is wrongful when an employer dismisses or terminates an employee without giving the employee notice of that termination. A dismissal is also wrongful where an employer dismisses or terminates an employee without giving notice of termination because the employer wrongfully feels that there is cause for termination.

 

wouldn't it be safe to say if your not sure your proof of theft will hold up then pay him out his notice and be done with him.

 

 

 

Seriously. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING....

 

 

And THEN fire 'em with maniacal glee and delight while packing a heater.

Hire an attorney.

 

My friend just had his building burn to the ground in Phoenix when he confronted an employee of theft. The employee had a friend help him burn the building to the ground to hide any evidence on the computers, etc. and ended up killing his friend in the process (friend burned alive or died falling from the second floor).

A nightmare for my friend...again, hire an attorney and for sure do not confront him alone or at anytime be in the office alone with the employee.

I saw that on the news. Terrible story.

Nah, it will be a case of your word against his unless there is an arrest report and conviction. Been there, done that. They will not deny him/her unemployment based on a claim of theft, because they know many employers will say anything to avoid their rating getting hit.

 

My two pennies.

 

- Robert

 

I didn't advise him to make an issue of the theft, rather defend on the unemployment claim for incompetence, which should be easy due to the employee's preparation of inacurate reports and sloppy accounting.

 

Speaking of documentation every employer should have a Employment at Will clause in the company employee manual, gives the employer the right to terminate employment for any reason, or no reason at, with the exception of equal rights, discrimination etc.

 

http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/ObjectID/A...04/150/269/ART/

Take him off of a bonus structure and site the inaccuracies in his reports. He can choose to keep his job and earn his regular pay check or he can leave. "you only have yourself to blame"

Hire an attorney.

 

My friend just had his building burn to the ground in Phoenix when he confronted an employee of theft. The employee had a friend help him burn the building to the ground to hide any evidence on the computers, etc. and ended up killing his friend in the process (friend burned alive or died falling from the second floor).

A nightmare for my friend...again, hire an attorney and for sure do not confront him alone or at anytime be in the office alone with the employee.

 

Oh man, Sorry to hear that!

I had a similar thing happen, but I was not the employer in this case (I just worked there and discovered the theft).

 

They called the police who sent a detective in, and the employee was sat down with his manager and the CEO, then told that they had evidence of him stealing, and that he was terminated as of right then. The employee denied everything and said he wanted a lawyer. He got one. The lawyer negotiated a deal with the company whereby the employee avoided being charged with a crime provided he entered into a binding agreement to pay the money back in full. In his case, it was over $100k of theft.

 

If it is for a small amount of money, I would probably fire the person and tell them why, as long as I was SURE I had concrete proof.

 

Also, going forward, it is a terrible idea to have any employee be in a position where they, personally, can affect their income. Whether it's letting them write checks and sign them, or ordering stuff without a sign-off, or submitting their own sales reports that affect commission. There should *always* be checks and balances in place. An owner should never be too busy to sign every single check or at least get a report with all the checks listed. Always have bank statements sent to your home, never the office. Always have at least two people involved in anything that affects money going out. Almost all stories I have seen of employees stealing, it is a single person who was able to game the system to their benefit.

Don't accuse him of anything. Just tell him things are slowing down, and you have to let him go. It's not worth the arguments that will ensue if you accuse him of stealing.

 

Maybe in a few months, he'll figure out what happened, but by then he'll be stealing from someone else..

 

 

I would go this route too. It will avoid any conflict and drama and threats and all that goes with it. I would just tell them business is bad and you have to let them go. If you confront them about the theft they will obviously deny it, theaten to sue you, blah blah blah..

Hire an attorney.

 

My friend just had his building burn to the ground in Phoenix when he confronted an employee of theft. The employee had a friend help him burn the building to the ground to hide any evidence on the computers, etc. and ended up killing his friend in the process (friend burned alive or died falling from the second floor).

A nightmare for my friend...again, hire an attorney and for sure do not confront him alone or at anytime be in the office alone with the employee.

 

 

so wouldn't the moral of this story be hire a security guard rather then hire an attorney?

 

 

just saying

You have to get rid of them in the correct way.

As said before document everything and make sure you have proof. Do not do it alone and talk to an HR attorney.

Having someone around that you do not trust is not a good thing in business and will probably lead to further problems down the road.

You should try to recoup the money but assume it is gone and don't spend much time on it.

Also as said prior, close the loop hole that alowed this to happen and go on with your life.

 

Russell

with the bad economy another option is a forced furlough.....a longer one

You have not specified what are the glitches to your business if you were to remove them. But, since they are in sales, I presume it would involve affecting customer relations and maybe sales volume and receivables collection. If this is the case, then you have a flaw in your system which they have showed up. Address this 1st.

 

I would suggest you 1st do an audit of all their sales and receivables dating back to when they joined the company.

Press them for collection of all invoices outstanding, especially the overdue ones. For all overdue customers, make it policy that no new shipment will be allowed without your explicit sign off. Visit the debtors with these guys personally and see if you can secure the relationship with the real customers and discover bogus ones. You can also employ new staff to "assist" them in improving customer relations and reduce your debt aging cycle. This is to maintain a point man with the customers for when you decide to fire these staff.

 

During all this, you can introduce stop gap measures to mitigate the fraud; such as paying commissions and bonus after money is in the bank and make sales staff responsible for collection. Use company cash flow issues as your excuse. If you have special bonuses tied to meeting and/or exceeding sales targets, move the payout date to when all monies are in the bank; making sure that overdue invoices are removed from these targets.

 

I would not advocate immediate removal of the staff involved because you need time to gather proof and secure your prized customers. You also need to investigate how far such malpractices have pervaded your organisation.

 

That said, if you do have special bonus for meeting and/or exceeding sales targets, it is common for sales staff to bump up their sales figures for the closing period by booking next period's sales forward. This is not technically a fraud, if they get all the paper work correct and you do get paid in full, albeit later. It is a loop hole in your own system. So tightening your own credit controls will mitigate future misuse and abuse. You may end up saying thank you to these staff.

 

Good Luck