Habits are like a rope.
Every day we weave a new thread into it,
and very soon it will no longer be broken.
Horace Mann

Even in the biblical scripture it was said that a person is weak by nature, and therefore it is impossible to tempt him. For he will sin ... Therefore, I hasten to upset you: most of your employees are prone to theft. Yes, and employers are not without sin.

However, there is also good news. Statistics say that 10% of the total population are pathologically honest people and will not steal from anyone, under any circumstances. Another 10% are pathologically dishonest creatures and will steal always and under any circumstances, despite the severity of the punishments. Well, and finally, the remaining 80% will steal if such an opportunity presents itself, and will not if it does not present itself. That's what we'll talk about now.

With theft, as with any other human activity (and theft is an activity, for some people even a calling), everything is prosaically simple. It is enough to solve the school equation to understand whether people will steal from you or not:

If the right side of the equation is less than the left side, then they will, and if vice versa, they will not. Yes, everything is so simple: the strength of the human motive from the attainable and avoidant side. But more on that later, for now let's take a closer look at the causes of thefts. Most of the causes of theft can be put into the following scheme (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Theft in the company

We will immediately omit those who do not steal, since everything is clear with them: this is a diagnosis and there are not many of them. But with thieves, everything is much more interesting.

I’ll make a reservation right away that cases of unintentional theft are very rare, when someone forced people to do it, or deliberately set it up, or it came out completely by accident:

• forgot to hand over the money;
• while I was at work, kept it in my pocket, went home, forgot to put it out;
• I took it automatically, didn't even think about it, etc.

In my experience, this has never happened to me. Although my friends tell such cases, and even sincerely believe in them. No, I admit that such cases are possible, it's just that all of the remaining cohort put forward these arguments most often.

So "5th column". The first echelon are very positive people who sincerely believe that they will not be punished, since they do nothing particularly illegal. No, in fact, they all understand very clearly, but the motive is already very strong.

The first, and perhaps the main reason is that it lay badly. Dear comrade owners, please do not scatter your inventory items unattended. No, I'm serious, you yourself create crooks from quite respectable citizens. Well, imagine the picture: you put on the dashboard of your car, let's say, a million dollars in cash, and by the evening someone took your brains out of a shotgun to take this money from under the windshield. And what will people say? - I'm a half-wit. Do not tempt your employees with a lack of control - for you will spoil, and then we will all suffer with them later.

The second reason, but less common, was a draw. Works very well in public corporations. Stealing from a person is always dumb. There is a feeling that you are climbing into his pocket, and he is looking at you. Therefore, dear fellow owners: visit your company more often, and do not hesitate to communicate with your staff. Since the absence of an owner at work equates your company to the status of a state. corporations, i.e.: steal anyway draw.

Well, and finally, the last, even rarer, is kalym. People love to earn extra money, and if a company does not have a system of legalization or suppression of kalym, believe me, it will be everywhere. Here, of course, everything is on the conscience of the employee, but you must also create all the conditions for employees to run to you with their ideas about a new opportunity to increase the turnover of the company, and not to a neighbor for advice: how not to get caught. With the first echelon, everything is simple: if people steal, it means that the management doesn’t care about the company, and it pays little attention to it. But with the second tier, everything is more difficult. In this group, people are more destructive and therefore it is extremely difficult to deter them from stealing.
Most often, this is revenge: the company, someone from the top managers for:

• lack of career growth;
• personal verbal insult;
• cut in salary, etc.

This happens frequently, and there is nothing you can do about it, except for the dismissal of such employees.

The next reason is mine. Leaving the company along with the client base belongs here. The fact is that the company pays for the manager's time spent in the company and his work, which includes his client base. It has already been paid for and belongs not to the manager, but to the company. Proving this to a manager is sometimes difficult, and sometimes impossible. Yes, and nothing, fire him to hell. Let it work for competitors.

And, finally, a very rare case when a person steals in order to:

• pay off debts;
• pay for the child's school
• help a sick mother, etc.

These reasons are often voiced, but they are rarely true. So what to do with all this? Several recommendations:

1. Do not hire those who stole in the previous office (for this it is enough to call the previous place of work, and preferably two or three, and inquire about your new employee).
2. Try to hire those who will not steal under any circumstances (there are specially designed tests for this, but such people come across much less often than the size of your staffing table).
3. You appear more often at work yourself, and participate in the life of the company (of course, it’s nice to be in warm countries on vacation, being a member of the board of directors, but then measure yourself with the size of theft in your organization).
4. Develop and implement inventory controls (trust is great, but remember that humans are weak by nature: don't tempt them).
5. Fire those who were caught stealing, even if they brought good income to the company (leaving such people, you show others under what circumstances you can steal from your company and not be punished; at the same time, they will definitely steal, but bring income is not true.

Albert Volossky

Losses from fraud in the United States amount to $250-400 billion annually. The company "Mikhail Kesler and Partners" conducted a study among people who robbed the employer, and asked them the question "Why was this done?". 49% of respondents answered that they steal out of greed, 43% - out of revenge, and only 8% - out of necessity.

Theft is the misappropriation or transfer of someone else's property, as well as control over it, as a result of which persons who are not related to this property derive profit from it. In such a broad understanding, theft immediately finds a lot of targets for self-identification. The most direct interpretation is the taking of someone else's property.

But this is also the appropriation of working (paid) time - attribution, deliberate harm to someone else's property, misuse of business and commercial information, negligence, deliberate overestimation of the cost of services rendered or the cost of a product, absence from work during paid working hours, poor quality of work, etc. If you look at this list and ask yourself if you have ever been the subject of theft, it turns out that, in principle, each of us participated in this in one role or another.

The West has long understood that the organizational component in this matter is no less important than the internally human one. Internal factors are beliefs at the level of values, learned forms of deviant behavior. Their carriers are the very unreliable members of the organization who can be identified and put up barriers at the entrance. However, there is a whole list of latent internal motives that, under unfavorable conditions, lead to the launch of theft: unsatisfied (hygienic) needs push a person to willful “restoration of justice”; mastering money is often a substitute for the need for security, power and love (in fact, this has become the norm for those in power in our country).

They say: “How so! He has everything for three generations ahead, and he still takes and takes! But you need to look through “his eyes” within the framework of the reference group of this official, and not ordinary citizens of the country. If the target group for self-comparison consists of relatively equal large-scale bribe-takers, he has a different starting point for measurement. Money as a personification of power (this is a fairly simple way of substitution). The motive can also be awakened by envy, vindictiveness, and a reactive response to a sharp offense.
“Theft as a norm of behavior in an organization is always transmitted from top to bottom”

But the contribution of organizational factors to the production of theft cannot be underestimated. First of all, these are organizational patterns. They are usually more effective when broadcast from top to bottom. Very rarely in organizations, the infection of theft goes from the bottom up, it should be the complete absence of any control and accounting in the presence of at least a small degree of attractive product.

What to do with it? At the level of a simple declaration "the thief must be harassed" nothing will happen - it is necessary to introduce substitutive forms of behavior. If you don't steal, then what do you have to do to have an equivalent value? If you do not demand a kickback, then how can you achieve successful results in negotiations? You don't know how to work with a buyer without a bribe? Here is an algorithm for negotiating "in a different way", through a creative search for coinciding interests - learn it!

If your problem of theft has become systemic at all levels, then this is a focal signal that your organization is replacing theft with solving problems that owners and top managers do not solve. If we confine ourselves to the value horizon at the level of declarations and do not teach people what and how to do differently, it will remain declarations.

Theft is a flashing red light, a warning that your organization is sick. But not only because of the virus introduced from outside in the form of carriers of misbehavior. If your theft grows like mistletoe on trees, this indicates that the theft has found a beneficial environment in the organization, defense reactions are weakened, nourishing juices flow through the replaced arteries of the stranger.

Interview question: Why do some companies steal and others don't?

Colleagues, I'm sure that every recruiting manager "in the piggy bank" has favorite questions.
I bring to your attention such a question at the interview "why do some companies steal, while others do not?".
Of course, this issue can be attributed to many secondary ones, but I love it for the opportunity to evaluate a candidate in such an unusual way.
There are several variations of this question:
"why do people steal?"
Why do some employees steal and others don't?
"what makes employees steal?"

• Purpose of this question - evaluate the honesty and values ​​​​of the candidate (both at work and in everyday life). At the same time, please note that we do not ask a direct question "how do you feel about theft?". We evaluate not only the candidate's attitude to theft (as a criminal offense), but also to the ability to justify such theft, the ability to hide theft or, for example, to drain the client base "to the left", etc.

• Any restrictions I don't see any answers to this question. Just ask a question and analyze the candidate's answer.

• To whom, how and when we ask this question - since questions about theft are of a secondary nature, it is more expedient to ask them after questions on the experience, skills and competencies of the candidate. I think that this question can be asked to absolutely any specialist (both mid-level and top), because the answer to it makes it possible to assess the personal side of a specialist, which is an important component, especially in cases where this specialist will work in conditions of collective financial responsibility. Personally, I ask this question to "salespeople" and managers. I will tell you a secret that this question delights business owners when they are present at my interviews. After all, every owner or director of a company wants honest employees to work for him.

• Evaluation of the received answer: Everything is simple here - stealing is bad and you can’t do it. Variations in responses vary and are usually interpreted as justification or condemnation of theft in general. Let's look at examples:

justify theft such answers as:

• if they steal, then they pay little
• the salary is low, but the family needs to be fed
• pay enough
• if they do not steal, then there is nothing to steal
• if they do not steal, then they are afraid that they will be caught
• if they don't steal, then they don't know how to steal

condemn theft:

• immoral persons steal, theft is a crime
• if a person values ​​his work, he will never steal anything, etc.
• only honest employees should be hired
• this is the choice of people - someone is honest, and someone is not.

Additional questions on the topic of theft can serve as such variations:

• "Can you take someone else's?",
• "Are you prone to appropriation of other people's things?" ,
• "What will you do if you find out that your employee has committed theft."

These questions can take a candidate out of their comfort zone when the candidate was preparing for interview questions.

Questions about theft belong to the category of "strange", but are increasingly used in the practice of hr-managers.

According to our research, employees of every second Russian company steal confidential data and sell it to competitors. What is the reason for such massive theft, and how to recognize the thief? We will try to find answers to these and many other questions with you.

What is most often stolen, and who does it?

Most often, employees steal:

• information about investments;
• project documents;
• commercial offers;
• personal information and contact details of customers;
• reports on movements on client accounts;
• and much more.

The TOP-3 "thieves" were:

• Sales and Purchasing Managers;
• Heads of departments and top managers;
• System administrators and IT specialists.

Less likely to steal data are personal secretaries and executive assistants, as well as accountants and financiers, who are legally liable for disclosure of data.

At the same time, the fact of theft by the sales manager will not greatly affect the company, because. each manager has access only to that part of the data with which he works, but the theft of department heads can bring maximum damage to the company.

Is stealing revenge?

Indeed, one of the fundamental factors of theft is precisely the resentment of the employee and the desire to take revenge on the management. Studies have shown that more than 75% of "thieves" in this way wanted to teach a lesson to higher management for certain grievances: lack of career growth, non-payment of bonuses or bonuses, salary manipulation, moral pressure, inadequate workload, etc.

It is worth noting that in companies where the corporate culture is based on disregard for people and a certain class character, employees steal data more often than in companies where they adhere to democratic views on communication between subordinates and managers.

How to find a spy? 5 indirect signs

We note right away that it will be very difficult to calculate a professional, because. all his reports will converge perfectly, however, professionals are quite rare, most often they decide to steal in a state of passion, or they do it unprofessionally, so such employees can be identified at the interview stage and then in the course of work.

Of course, these signs are not a 100% guarantee that the employee is planning to steal data, but they should alert the manager.

Work experience. Even at the interview stage, you should be alerted by applicants who do not stay at their previous jobs for more than six months or a year. Most likely, they often change jobs, because. they do not want to be caught in industrial espionage. However, the situation can be banal - a frequent change of work is associated with the character of a person and his inability to "sit in one place."

Excessive boasting. If even at the interview the applicant mentions that he has a database from a previous job, then nothing will prevent him from copying your database as well. Of course, such characters are rare in interviews, but you should also pay attention to this factor.
Expensive shopping. If an employee suddenly has expensive accessories, gadgets or other "luxury items", but at the same time he did not have bonuses or a birthday, and before that he actively complained about the lack of funds - this is a reason to think that he could go to extreme measures, and “leak” important data to competitors for a good reward.

Changing habits and behavior. If an employee began to come to work earlier than everyone else more often and stay up for a long time, explaining this with a large amount of work, this is also a signal to take a closer look at him. Of course, maybe he is preparing a super project and will present it soon, but it is better to play it safe once again.

Frequent absence from work. Illnesses and emergencies happen to everyone, but if an employee has become too often asking for time off or sick leave during work hours, they may be using it to meet and chat with your competitors or just looking for a new job. Then it is better to restrict its access to the database.

Of course, if you want to protect yourself and not turn into Scrooge, who suspects absolutely everyone and is afraid to entrust access to the database, we advise you to choose more advanced methods.

To date, more than 78% of US companies have already switched to (Employee Monitoring Software). Although in Russia, many still consider this method "an invasion of the zone of personal space." But in vain! This is better than propagating a policy of “snitching” and denunciations in the company or groundlessly suspecting everyone.

How to make sure that employees do not steal?

It is impossible to completely eliminate information leakage, but if the team has a healthy atmosphere, management motivates employees and creates the most comfortable working conditions, then the risk of theft is halved. But it doesn't disappear. There are always people who invent grievances themselves, believe that they are not paid enough or are simply dishonest.

And that is why it is so important to install Kickidler, if only to control employees who have access to the most important information. The methodology for identifying potential and current information thieves is also described in our book .

Well, if your data is still stolen, then you can do

LOW PAY.

GREED.

A high salary does not yet guarantee that the employee who receives it will not look for an additional one - including at the expense of the employer. Man is weak, from time immemorial greed and envy have been inherent in him. Active advertising of "loans with zero down payment and no salary certificate" encourages people to buy and buy, regardless of his real financial capabilities. It is worth "hooking" one - others will be pulled. “Won Vasya took a new car on credit! But his salary is no more than yours!” - the wife whines, and the designer husband begins to make business cards “on the side”, and the cable TV installer husband begins to make unauthorized connections.

DEBTS.

An employee lost at the races (exchange, etc.) - this is rather a story from a foreign detective story. But what is not uncommon for us is a bankrupt entrepreneur who gets a job with a train of debts behind him. Such an employee just looks where you can snatch an extra piece, and there is some kind of entrepreneurial estimate.

One such unfortunate businessman got a job as a manager selling and maintaining an expensive CRM system, having debts of a couple of tens of thousands of dollars. In just a few months, he managed to significantly reduce the debt, and by no means at the expense of a salary.

BLACK CASH.

If it is organized in such a way that it is very easy to put money in your pocket (for example, when working with unaccounted for cash), they will definitely be put there. The Black Cashier can only be trusted to his wife. And even then not always.

HEIGHTENED SELF-ESTEEM.

UNDERSTANDING BY MANAGEMENT.

It happens that a company owes its success to a strong and skilled worker. If he does not receive an adequate assessment from the management in time, including all forms of material and moral encouragement, he will either quit completely or inevitably organize his own “internal” business. What is worse is unknown.

EXCESS ENERGY.

In any team there are restless people - emotional or expressive leaders, in the terminology of social psychology. One girl from the reference and legal information system began to sell instant diet meals to accountants - clients of the firm along the way. As a result, she was fired from her job, but she continued to sell food already as. Interestingly, she told her boss about her idea, but he simply ignored her words and ended up losing both a good manager and, perhaps, a good parallel business.

REVENGE.

One employee of a real estate agency was offended by her boss for something. From that moment on, if the client liked the displayed apartment, she would make a deal through a competing company, which, moreover, paid her a higher percentage. A kind of revenge, pleasantly aggravating one's own pocket.

"I'M NOT GUILTY - HE HAS CAME!".

Service workers (for example, hairdressers or car mechanics), as well as workers in whose power to issue documents confirming expenses (gas station receipts, sales receipts, hotel bills), may not have a need for additional “business”, and may not show independent initiative. But it will be difficult for them to resist the persistent harassment of clients - "You give me a receipt, I tell you - you yourself understand ...".

DEMON Tempter.

"Impulse from the outside" can be quite purposeful and be, in fact, the recruitment of your employees. A typical example is when a certain "entrepreneur" purchases products, and then seeks and persuades sellers of stores with identical goods to sell his product instead of the "master's". And no rent, no taxes, no license (if we are talking about alcohol). The profit of the participants in such a scheme is obvious, the losses of the owner of the outlet - too.

OPINION OF THE HEAD

Commercial structures are conducive to theft

An employee who uses office resources for personal purposes is not uncommon in our time. In Russia, most people have stolen and will continue to steal from their owners, and commercial structures are especially disposed to this. Not to notice - phone bills, the presence of "foreign" sites on the Internet that employees go to, is often simply impossible.

Victor DOLMATOV, CEO of VStoro, Volgograd

Double agent is given away by telephone conversations

First of all, a “double agent” can be given out by telephone conversations on topics not related to work or the appearance of strangers in the company’s office. Each leader knows in principle the specifics of the tasks assigned to his employees. If you hear unfamiliar names, surnames, company names, addresses, phone numbers, etc., you need to seriously think about whether you are dealing with a “mole”?

Vasily KULIKOV, President of LLC "Legal agency "CONSUL"

Regular missed deadlines make you think

The main indicator of this is the failure to fulfill their main duties, the regular failure to meet deadlines for tasks, despite the fact that this was not noticed by the employee before. Of course, the reason for this may be different, but quite often it lies precisely in the fact that the employee has “more important” things to do, which have nothing to do with the main employer. Additional indicators can be: unreasonably large Internet traffic and increased cases of absence from the workplace under various pretexts.

Vladimir VOISTINOV, Director of Human Resources at FELIX

Leakage of clients - a wake-up call

This is discovered either by accident (someone said), or by systematic monitoring of the employee's activities. There are many forms of control: accounting of working hours, a report on the work done during the day ... It's easy to check whether your specialist was at the negotiations or not. It is necessary to carefully monitor the client portfolio. If there is a leak of clients, this is a signal. First of all, that your employees are not doing their job properly. They did not deliver products on time, they did not offer a new assortment. And they simply did not have enough time for this, because they are busy not only at your enterprise.

Alexander BABUSHKIN, Director of LLC TK "Krasnoyarsky Khleb"

Employee uses rogue mail systems

Here are just a few of the possible signs: An employee is asking technical questions that are not related to the work currently in progress. He uses more external email systems that are out of the company's control. And customers want to communicate only with him, and he performs work for clients bypassing approval through managers, not observing the existing business process in the company.

Artem KUCHIN, gene. Director of IT Legion

Capture employee performance early

It can be very difficult to identify the facts of the use of service resources. And this is especially true for spending working time on your own goals: as a rule, it is really possible to expose an employee who does this - only when he has worked in your company for at least six months. Usually, at first, people don’t do such things: they “get used to it.” At a certain point, a good leader needs to monitor the performance of employees, “fix” it - the method depends on the area in which the company operates. It is no secret that people are able to perform the same amount of work in different terms: someone will need half an hour, someone needs a whole day. If suddenly the work takes the employee many times more time - this is an alarming symptom. Another symptom is the frequent exits of a person from the office: to talk on a cell phone. The pretext can be any, but it is worth looking closely at such trifles.

Sergei Evdokimov, director of a construction company, Volgograd

Decreased interest in work

Doing "business" in business is especially common among long-term employees or among newcomers with work experience who are used to working and earning this way. You can recognize such a situation as follows: employees noticeably decrease their interest in their main job, since all their thoughts are occupied with “their own business”. In the main documents, additional ones “slip” related to the field of activity of the company, but not registered according to the plan. Employees take early leave from work, citing personal problems.

Olga PILYUGINA, executive director of the travel company "Alliance Holiday"

Traces can not be hidden

It is impossible to hide the traces of such activities, sooner or later everything will come out. If an employee began to constantly linger at work or come to work too early, began to perform his main job worse, or his consumption of materials suddenly increased - these are the signs that should make you think, and is he “leftist”?

Evgeny Titkov, director of media agencies "Creative People", Sergiev Posad