Employee theft is not a topic that managers want to discuss, though it happens a lot in the workplace.  What constitutes employee theft?   Anywhere from stealing time, supplies or an outright theft where a trusted employee embezzles thousands of dollars.    Small companies are vulnerable because they don’t usually have in place financial control systems that insure employees are honest.

Studies show that people will rationalize taking something that doesn’t belong to them if the environment is ripe for the taking.    That’s why it’s important that managers/owners help employees stay honest by setting up clear guidelines and systems that protect the assets of the company.

Terminating an employee is stressful for managers.  It impacts you, the employee and the rest of the team.   Yet, not handling this challenging issue also impacts the productivity of the team.

Most states are ”at will” which means an employer and employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time without cause.    Obviously, if you have an employment contract you need to make sure those rights haven’t changed.

There are two different types of employee issues:  performance and/or behavior based.    Both need to be address as soon as you notice the issues.

Managers can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work and skills required under their umbrella.   Sometimes, rather than coach an employee, a manager will elect to just hope their performance gets better.  Other times, the thought of having to hire a replacement and train them, it seems better to keep the known one and accept mediocre performance.  Or maybe just uncomfortable confronting an employee and wait until the performance or behavior becomes a major problem?

Many years ago a CEO of a company I worked at received the following advice from Harvard training:  “Your job is to create the structure that keeps an employee honest.”  He came back and insured all financials functions had several people touching the data with him opening the bank statements.   You can be the CEO of your department.

What this implies if given the chance, a percentage of your employees may either steal money, products or time if the setting is right for this behavior.   Your role in the company is to insure that employees are honest with their performance and all of the company’s assets.  You set the structure and culture of your team.

Stress is a word that surfaces up on a regular basis when managing employees.   How much is too much?    As a manager, if an employee says “they are stressed,” you need to step up immediately and dig deeper to understand what is happening to this employee.  I found this short article that clearly states how to handle an encounter with a stressed employee.

“Employee Management:  Stress in the Workplace,” by Bryan Nelson (www.bryansbizblog.com):

Stress does exist and a certain amount of stress can help productivity and performance. Too much, and things deteriorate rapidly for them and for the employer (see complete article).