Corporate Security Strategies and Programs in the United States.

Corporate security strategies and programs in the USA.

Corporate security strategies and programs in the USA

The cost of employee-caused shrinkage is about 2 percent of total sales revenue. In 1992, retail sales losses at 155 companies with annual revenues of $100 million to $1 billion or more averaged $20 million, with employee theft accounting for a significant portion of those losses. According to the same study, 436,000 people were arrested for theft, of whom only 7 percent were employees. These 7 percent accounted for 38 percent of the damages recovered by all those arrested. $241,000 in employee thefts were never recovered.

A survey of 9,000 employees at 45 companies found that more than a third had burglarized company property; two-thirds admitted to other misconduct (some of which could be criminally charged).

According to researchers, the real number of thefts committed by their own employees is 10-15 times higher: not all thefts are solved.

In an organization where theft is practiced, its own «code of conduct» is developed, regulating not only the rules of work (efficiency and pace of work), but also where, when and how much can be stolen. Thus, theft is introduced into a normative framework and becomes an activity sanctioned by the group; co-workers turn a blind eye to the illegal actions of a colleague. If theft is tacitly approved in the group, then preventive measures taken by the administration will not achieve their goal.

The focus of these programs is on eliminating the conditions that facilitate the commission of crimes. The goal of a preventive program is to limit the opportunities for criminal activity and increase the risk of exposure of individuals involved in illegal activity.

American corporate programs and strategies for preventing and reducing workplace crime can be divided into three groups, each with a distinct focus:
— measures to ensure safety;
— screening and training of employees;
— exposure of workplace crime by employees themselves, i.e. whistleblowing.

The most common measure to get rid of the desire to steal is to hire security guards. The system of non-governmental security at the corporate level has undergone significant changes in recent years, due to the nature of the tasks being solved.

Along with the functions of security and patrolling, non-governmental security employees are increasingly involved in supervision, investigation, covert operations to expose criminal activity and other forms of reprehensible behavior of personnel. The effectiveness of security in preventing crimes in the workplace depends on their ability to find criminals.

An effective way to deal with «thieves» is to initiate a criminal case. However, this measure requires a lot of time and money. Therefore, many entrepreneurs simply fire employees caught stealing, as a result of which the thieves remain unpunished. An alternative to criminal prosecution is civil damages. This measure is becoming increasingly popular due to its cheapness and effectiveness. In states where such a measure is permissible, a police officer who grabs a thief red-handed can, instead of arresting him, simply demand the return of the stolen goods. The benefit for the entrepreneur is also that the thief not only returns the stolen goods, but also pays «for the inconvenience caused and the settlement of the case on the spot».

According to professional security managers, civil damages are an effective way to prevent thefts committed by both staff and customers. As a practical alternative to criminal prosecution, this method also brings in considerable income that can be used to pay for security services.

Another strategy for reducing opportunities for petty theft is to restrict access to the work area or to impose physical controls in a variety of ways. These may include badges, passes, key cards, identification systems, etc. These may also include alarms on external doors, mirrors for hard-to-see places, additional observation booths, and prohibiting employees from parking their cars near the building entrance. Periodic personal searches are an effective deterrent.

Modern technical means are increasingly used to prevent theft by customers and staff — hidden video surveillance systems, electronic control, new sales registration systems that help prevent various fraudulent practices with revenue.

Many companies today make extensive use of pre-employment screening (to weed out unsuitable candidates) and educational programs for existing employees to ensure internal security and prevent workplace crimes and offenses.

Along with the usual pre-employment screening procedures, software packages are used to conduct more in-depth interviews with job candidates. Among the most popular is Greentree Job Interview. This program can be «tailored» to perform a specific job task, while the candidate answers questions that appear on the computer screen. This allows the interviewer to gain a more complete picture of the candidate's background.

Such programs can also include integrity tests. Many companies began using such tests after a law was passed in 1988 prohibiting the use of polygraphs in hiring. Together with personal interviews and financial verification, integrity tests allow us to weed out potentially unreliable employees «at the entrance.» According to security managers, pre-hiring screening is quite effective in preventing theft in the workplace.

Pre-employment screening, integrity testing, and in many cases drug testing, which are the basis of preventive programs, are usually linked to educational and informational programs. The goal of such programs is to show employees what losses the company suffers from the crimes of its own employees and how the employees themselves can help reduce these losses. The program should show that the company's management is interested in the help of its employees and hopes for this help.

A survey conducted in the retail industry showed that 83% of companies use educational and informational programs and consider them very effective in preventing theft by employees. Management uses every opportunity to convince employees that everyone should think about ensuring safety at work.

As practice shows, most crimes and offenses committed at work remain unsolved; those who underestimate the role of their own employees in exposing such crimes remain losers.

Many companies try to involve their employees in prevention programs by creating «hotlines» and corporate «reward/incentive» programs, which play an important role in controlling «crime in the workplace.»

Using a hotline, an employee has the opportunity to voice their complaints or claims against the company, but such lines were created to obtain information about irregularities and violations. In order to fulfill their primary purpose, employees must be guaranteed anonymity. As a rule, «home hotlines» are serviced by their own security services, which, upon receiving an anonymous signal, conduct an investigation, checking its authenticity.

One of the main problems this raises is that the employee may be identified by the employer based on the nature of the information communicated. The second problem is that «home hotlines» do not operate 24 hours a day, so some of the information recorded on the answering machine may be lost or misinterpreted.

A solution to these problems may be to contract with «third-party firms» that receive and aggregate the information coming into the hotline. Large security consulting firms such as Wackenhut.The Network, WeTip, and Pinkerton's provide this type of service. These firms act as «conduit» between the hotline caller and the company's security team. One benefit of this type of contract is that the consulting firm provides an operator who is «trained» to elicit forensically valuable information from anyone calling the hotline.

While telephone hotlines may operate in isolation and are not linked to other theft prevention programs, other companies use hotlines as part of a corporate program to encourage and reward employees to take personal action to prevent theft. Surveys have shown that such programs help combat workplace crime and reduce the cost of theft.

The fact is that co-workers often know which of their colleagues is dishonest, but they turn a blind eye to it and do not report it to the administration. The goal of such programs is to create «motivation to inform» through monetary rewards and guarantees of anonymity. Informing is evaluated positively, encouraged, and in addition to the performance of regular job functions, supervision of colleagues is also added.

For an incentive program to be effective, the bonus must be large enough to discourage employees from keeping an eye on a dishonest colleague. Although whistleblowing costs are expensive for the company, they are still more effective than other incentives (bonuses, valuable gifts, discounts on purchased goods, excursions, etc.).

For example, every dollar paid as a whistleblowing bonus allows the company to save $4, and in some of the most successful programs, $7.

At the project stage, the company must decide who will develop the program and who will implement it. So-called home-grown or in-house programs have the advantage that from the very beginning the company has the opportunity to control the development and implementation of the program, as well as all related costs, correlating them with other security costs and redistributing funds if necessary.

The advantage of third-party software over home-grown software is that the purchased software is implemented by a third party and is available 24 hours a day. Along with the software, the services of highly qualified personnel are also purchased, who are able to extract the maximum amount of valuable information for the purchasing company. Secondly, purchased software will cost less than home-grown software, because the price is distributed proportionally among all buyers using the services of the software vendor. Thirdly, software development and service sales companies have more experience and can adapt the software to the specific needs of the buyer, as well as provide the necessary equipment and materials. And finally, when the software is implemented by another party, anonymity is more reliably ensured, especially when it comes to monetary payments: the reward for informants is paid by the service company in agreement with the company — the buyer of the software.

The main goal of non-governmental programs and strategies for preventing crimes committed «in the workplace» is to protect the interests and profits of the business. As recent experience has shown, prevention-oriented programs are the best way to achieve this goal.

It is more cost-effective to prevent theft than to uncover it later and prosecute it. For example, the effectiveness of telephone «hotlines» is explained by the fact that an employee, knowing about the existence of such a line and that reporting illegal behavior is part of their job responsibilities, will refrain from reprehensible actions. In companies where pre-employment screening of personnel is carried out and telephone «hotlines» are used, losses from theft are significantly lower.