Employee Fraud Protection – Are You Helping Your Employees Steal?

Employee fraud protection is a vital step you should consider taking if you wish to keep your company and your finance safe. Unfortunately most business owners take great precautions to protect their business from outsiders, without being aware that the biggest threat comes from within.

Employee Fraud Protection – Know the Facts

Are you worried your employees are engaging in fraudulent activities in your company? You are definitely not alone: employee theft costs US businesses 5% of their annual revenue which translates to $50 billion dollars being stolen a year.

Here’s another fact that’s even more mind-blowing – most of the perpetrators are senior level employees working for those companies.

The thing is, if you’re worried about employee theft happening in your company, you can’t really go around and use lie detectors on them. But what you CAN do is become a human lie detector yourself.

This is where the mastery of body language comes in handy. As a body language expert I have taught hundreds of clients how to detect suspicious behavior and how to prevent theft.

Employee Fraud Protection – Are You Motivating Your Employees to Steal?

Before we dig into the different types of lies you could face, let’s discover what could motivate your employees to consider stealing, and how to prevent that from happening.

Lack of education – If you truly wish to prevent fraud from happening in your company you will want to invest in education of your employees. Preparing your employees how to spot fraudulent behavior and teaching them how to deal with it will raise the safety of your company on a new level.

If you invest in employee fraud education you won’t have to invite a certified fraud examiner each time you run into a problem.

How to fix it – You can either invest in online training for you and your employees, or you can invite a guest speaker. Laugh while you learn how to detect lies, fraud and identity theft or use body language strategically to persuade and influence.

Book Denver Keynote Speaker and body language expert Traci Brown for your next event

Low probabilities of theft detection – If your employees know there is no computer system in place to guard the finance they will most probably take the chance. This is the reason why a staggering 86% of bank shrinkage is employee theft with the average take $4,000.

How to Fix It – Make sure you communicate clearly your stance on theft with your employees. Make sure your policies and procedures manual is updated and people are trained on it.—You’ll need this for audits, anyway.

Remember that a policy is only valuable if it’s implemented in the daily work routine of your company. (Just be careful not to start acting as a law enforcement officer in your company.)

Handing a code of conduct at the time of hiring is also incredibly helpful, but your main focus should be on the verbal and non-verbal tells that your new employees will show. If you know where to look, you will always be certain if you’re being lied to. You can discover the world of body language and its power in my book “How to Detect Lies, Fraud and Identity Theft, Field Guide.”

Letting Automation Get in the Way – Most theft goes undetected simply because business owners have no idea who they’re working with. Knowing what is going on with your employees requires a personal touch, something that automation has prevented.

Do you know the person handling the checks and balances in your company? What about the bank statements or new vendor account creation?

How to Fix It – Make sure you find the time for face-to-face communication with your employees. Get to know people’s financial condition, hobbies, and family. For example, if their kids have a sudden severe illness or they go to Vegas regularly, watch them more closely. Ask more questions or even double check their work when you learn someone’s husband is out of work, but they’re buying a new car or building a new home. And why won’t your key people take a vacation? It’s because they may be covering up fraud! Having a 2^nd set of eyes on their accounts may be the key to uncovering their embezzlement.

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool. – STEPHEN KING, Needful Things

Being Unaware of Problems in Your Company – The daily grind can take our focus from what’s truly important – the safety of your company. You need to stay vigilant and informed on what is going on in your company. Regardless if we’re talking about small businesses or large chains of restaurants, the same truth applies.

How to Fix It – If you wish to stay informed and keep everyone on their toes, I’ve got 2 words for you: Unannounced Audits. If you truly wish to be efficient hire a third-party company to perform regular audits that should also be unannounced. You do not want to give the perpetrators a chance to cover things up!

Letting Problems Slide – Once you’re sure who’s been involved in fraud you will need to address it. This is the time to open your manual and stand by your policies!

The truth is you won’t have to deal with theft each time you come across a problem in your company. Sometimes you’ll simply need to address bad behavior. This is the part where some business owners make a huge mistake by letting things slide.

How to Fix It – When you find a problem, address it and have a consequence. If you let lies and fraud slide, you send the wrong message. Also, don’t reward bad behavior because you’ll get more of it.

Lack of a Reporting System – No matter how vigilant you are, you can’t be present in your company at all times and everywhere. It is simply impossible to know what is happening unless someone tells you.

How to Fix It – You would be surprised by the number of employees that witness fraud and theft committed by their co-workers. Most of them decide to shut up and look the other way simply because they have no means of reporting safely. If they speak up they risk being labelled a trouble maker. So give your employees a chance for anonymous tips.

Once you do get an anonymous tip, make sure you investigate before rushing into convicting anyone.

Employee Fraud Protection – 5 Types of Lies Shared by ALL Companies

Sometimes you can learn things from the way a person denies something. The choice of lies can be almost as helpful as the truth. —Laurell K. Hamilton, Guilty Pleasures

Now that you’ve discovered some effective ways of preventing employee fraud, it’s time to go deeper and find out the different types of lies we could be facing in our work environment.

Having in mind that different companies will have their own unique challenge, here’s a list of 5 types of lies that are applicable to any company with employees:

Exaggeration—an attempt to magnify or overstate attributes, accomplishments, or events beyond fact

Fabrication—an attempt to make up nonexistent facts or attributes;

Minimization—an attempt to under-report or reduce to the least possible degree any perceived negative fact, event or attribute. So next time you hear something “wasn’t a big deal” or “went smoothly” – there might be a reason for worry.

Omission—an attempt to leave out critical facts or information perceived as harmful (or irrelevant) to the individual’s position. This type of employee will shower you with facts and numbers that he wants you to see, and leave out the rest. You need to be really careful in analyzing what you’ve heard, and find what is missing in the story.

Deceptive Denial — an attempt to refute or maintain that a statement or fact is in error, or an event that did not occur.

Employee Fraud Protection – Fraud Spotting Course

Become a human lie detector, and teach your employees how to spot fraudulent behavior by enlisting in my Fraud Spotting Online Training. The classes last for 21 days, and they will take you and your employees only 5 minutes of their day.

Some benefits you’ll receive after finishing my Fraud Spotting Online Training:

How to detect the 5 basic types of lies
Discover how to baseline your employees and customers
Understanding different emotional states
Recognizing verbal hot-spots
Gaining the ability to protect your company and private life from deceptive behavior
Learning how to influence your partners and stakeholders

You can choose between the following options:

Individual Certification – Training focused on a single user. You gain a certificate at the end of the program. Go ahead and sign your employees for an individual certification. You will get a discount and each of them gets a certificate of completion.
Team Facilitated Delivery – Watch the videos in a group, together with your employees. Complete the training as a group. This option excludes individual certificates.
Just the Facts – Get the individual training wisdom without the certification option. This option comes with a friendly price and includes all the lessons you’ll need.

Begin the body language journey today!

Give us a call: 303-956-3639

or e-mail traci@tracibrown.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

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Corporate Fraud Prevention– Manual for Smart Leaders