Stop Employee Theft At The POS Terminal

No employer wants to think of its employees as being dishonest, but industry research shows there’s good reason for concern. According to the “25^th Annual Retail Theft Survey,” conducted by Jack L. Hayes International, one-third of all business failures each year are attributed to employee theft. Another alarming finding was that 34 percent of 18- to 29-year-old employees believe it’s justifiable to steal from their employer. The report also showed that dishonest employees steal approximately 5.5 times as much as shoplifters.

Sadly, too, is the fact that employee theft is growing each year by 5.5 percent. To put the problem in perspective, a retailer that earns a profit margin of 5 percent would have to sell $2,000 in merchandise to make up for every $100 stolen by an employee.

Point of Sale (POS) terminals are frequently the target of theft and fraud, according to loss prevention experts. That is because both labor hours and financial transactions flow through the POS terminal but are usually only protected with easily thwarted authentication methods. These outdated methods (e.g., swipe cards, keys, passwords and PINS) are at the heart of the problem.