Caught my staff stealing again.

[Venomous]

Ouch!

But yeah do the right thing.

Start by contacting a labour consultant & take it from there...

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Theft = immediate dismissal. I would press charges regardless. If they aren't found guilty, you have no case for dismissal.

Sadly not. Twice in the last two years my wife had to deal with theft in the workplace and we have learnt a lot. The most recent incident was a few weeks back and we followed the law to the letter on firing the guilty party.

Immediate dismissal for theft will not be hold up in the CCMA hearing.

But if a staff member is immediately suspended for suspicion of theft, the hearing is held a week later and enough evidence is available to prove that the staff member is guilty of the transgression then immediate dismissal is accepted. The staff member is only entitled to their salary up to the day they where suspended - they loose any leave pay.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

I think everyone is going, they're all involved. Its not possible for one person to steal without the others knowing.

Actually everyone with knowledge of the theft, even if not directly involved, and they did not inform you is guilty of theft. A hearing needs to be done for each person. Also should you make an exception for anybody involved, then the CCMA could overrule the other dismissals.

The important thing in this case is to be consistent with your hearing rulings. There are cases where staff with decades experience have been fired for stealing R5 items as the employer had a history of zero tolerance. Then the reverse is true where new employees have stolen thousands yet they where reinstated as the employer had a history of being inconsistent.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

offer immunity to the others for their testimonies against the one that was caught-

That will most likely not hold up in a CCMA hearing as the guy(s) fired can claim that the others ganged up against him/them.

its going to be difficult to convict the others without solid evidence anyway, so at least use it to your advantage.

You will be surprised how easy it is to fire somebody if you can supply any credible evidence. My wife fired her staff member based on a single SMS the guilty party sent and that the guilty party offered to replace the stolen money - oh, and it was theft from another staff member during office hours, not even from the business.

You also dont want to go after them and fail because that sends a message that they can get away with it.

Zero tolerance is the only solution.


I must ad that in our case we used a independent company to do the hearing. The guy was an ex judge who is very credible. We now have to go to a CCMA hearing soon as the guilty staff member is claiming she got fired for no reason - she now claims the money (R8K) was loaned to her. Actually she stole the debit card of the other staff member and made 4 withdrawals over a course of a few days from a savings account, each time returning the debit card. There is now a criminal case - supplying the case number sealed the deal even though the case is far from being resolved.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

the last guy we fired for theft, we ended up having to pay him R20 grand for "unfair dismissal"

This is why my wife and I decided to rather open our wallets and pay for an independent person to do the disciplinary hearing as only afterwards did we find out we would have made some mistakes on our side had we done the hearing ourselves - and we would have had to pay out R18K if it went to CCMA.

 

[Mars]

Thanks for all the advice.

I have just finished confronting them with the evidence. I have the entire interview, carried out by the P.I., on video. Two out of the 3 guys confessed, the third guy just denies everything. This is the same guy that almost got nailed by my supplier late last year.
Now that I'm not so angry about the whole thing, I thinking of approaching the whole thing a little different.
My father in law believes that everyone is a thief. Its a grim outlook, but he says its been proven to him over and over. During the last 10 years he says he has caught more than 100 staff members stealing from him.
He's tried to prosecute, fire, make examples of, threaten, incentivise, plead and many other things to prevent theft.
He has taken on new staff over and over, trained them, rewarded them for good work, and thought they where trustworthy. He says they all stole from him. Now he just takes the attitude if you try and steal you will pay back R1000 for the item you stole/tried to steal. And of course he just keeps a tight control on everything. Now it seems that his loss is at a minimum because the consequence is real and instant, and outweighs the benefit of stealing the small crap.

I think I am going to try a similar approach.

 

[unskinnybob]

Sadly not. Twice in the last two years my wife had to deal with theft in the workplace and we have learnt a lot. The most recent incident was a few weeks back and we followed the law to the letter on firing the guilty party.

Was the culprit handed over to the police, prosecuted and found guilty?

 

[Nerfherder]

Thanks for all the advice.

I have just finished confronting them with the evidence. I have the entire interview, carried out by the P.I., on video. Two out of the 3 guys confessed, the third guy just denies everything. This is the same guy that almost got nailed by my supplier late last year.
Now that I'm not so angry about the whole thing, I thinking of approaching the whole thing a little different.
My father in law believes that everyone is a thief. Its a grim outlook, but he says its been proven to him over and over. During the last 10 years he says he has caught more than 100 staff members stealing from him.
He's tried to prosecute, fire, make examples of, threaten, incentivise, plead and many other things to prevent theft.
He has taken on new staff over and over, trained them, rewarded them for good work, and thought they where trustworthy. He says they all stole from him. Now he just takes the attitude if you try and steal you will pay back R1000 for the item you stole/tried to steal. And of course he just keeps a tight control on everything. Now it seems that his loss is at a minimum because the consequence is real and instant, and outweighs the benefit of stealing the small crap.

I think I am going to try a similar approach.

+1

What you can do is just nail everyone for the sum of the missing stock... then people will start checking up on each other. No one wants to pay for some one elses theft.

 

[gregmcc]

What you can do is just nail everyone for the sum of the missing stock... then people will start checking up on each other. No one wants to pay for some one elses theft.

That's not legal and will not fly.

 

[waynegohl]

Madman like you said in the cat thread of Gary why not try WATERBOARDING on those staff members?

 

[xrapidx]

Thanks for all the advice.

I have just finished confronting them with the evidence. I have the entire interview, carried out by the P.I., on video. Two out of the 3 guys confessed, the third guy just denies everything. This is the same guy that almost got nailed by my supplier late last year.
Now that I'm not so angry about the whole thing, I thinking of approaching the whole thing a little different.
My father in law believes that everyone is a thief. Its a grim outlook, but he says its been proven to him over and over. During the last 10 years he says he has caught more than 100 staff members stealing from him.
He's tried to prosecute, fire, make examples of, threaten, incentivise, plead and many other things to prevent theft.
He has taken on new staff over and over, trained them, rewarded them for good work, and thought they where trustworthy. He says they all stole from him. Now he just takes the attitude if you try and steal you will pay back R1000 for the item you stole/tried to steal. And of course he just keeps a tight control on everything. Now it seems that his loss is at a minimum because the consequence is real and instant, and outweighs the benefit of stealing the small crap.

I think I am going to try a similar approach.

And you stole his daughter :twisted:

 

[Vegeta]

Everyone is a thief... People will steal if they can(Everyone even your high school sweetheart). Simple really, make it impossible to steal.

 

[Tomtomtom]

Theft is what happens when your employees earn hundreds of times less than you. That's why it's practically non-existent in Scandinavia.

Staff turn-over probably isn't much of a solution. What about paying them a bit more? There must be a good balance somewhere between the cost of stock loss and/or staff turn-over, and the cost of an above-market pay scale.

 

[Maddmatt]

Everyone is a thief... People will steal if they can(Everyone even your high school sweetheart). Simple really, make it impossible to steal.

I disagree. There are good honest people in the world. I'm no thief, not that I expect you to just believe me.

I say let the police deal with them if possible. Potential employers should know they are scum and only deserve crap jobs where they are not trusted with anything valuable.

I understand that the crap pay most people get in this country makes theft more likely though. Not that it makes it acceptable.

 

[w1z4rd]

Theft is what happens when your employees earn hundreds of times less than you. That's why it's practically non-existent in Scandinavia.

Yup, theft will always happen where there is great inequality.

 

[Vegeta]

I disagree. I'm no thief, not that I expect you to just believe me.

I don't believe you. If you where in his shoes you'd steal. I dont steal either because i'm just like you, comfy. But if i was hungry...

 

[fragtion]

Everyone is a thief... People will steal if they can(Everyone even your high school sweetheart). Simple really, make it impossible to steal.

You assume that everyone wants to be a thief, but that those who don't steal don't PURELY because THEY AREN'T ABLE TO?

For me, it's an objective moral abomination to steal from a fellow person such as myself, whether I like it or not... and I strive to live by my convictions more than anything else - therefore, even IF for example I am extremely hungry/desperate and have no other way and end up doing it, it's still wrong... and certainly doesn't imply that I WANT to be a thief (using your words)? On the contrary, every human being in a civilized, evolved, and therefore also spiritual society, will KNOW that theft is morally wrong and therefore have no desire to commit it whatsoever. Your claims then that 'everyone wants to be a thief' or 'people are only not thieves because they can't be' are therefore demonstrably false; indeed, all it shows, is that you're confused and actually need help...

Consider:
1. Do you think that theft is beneficial to society as a whole? The informed/correct answer is of course 'No'.
2. Do you want the best for society as a whole? The informed/correct answer is of course 'Yes'.
3. Therefore, if you want the best for society, you ought not to commit theft -- theft therefore becomes a crime, quite literally.
4. Therefore, anybody who partakes in, or supports/promotes theft, is wrong, and also a potential danger to the ideal well-being of society.

Basically, you should be a bit concerned about yourself if you think theft is a good thing, and even more concerned if you engage in it. You're doing the same thing that murderers do, the same thing cheating peers do... in essence, you're doing the very same thing that anybody else does to others that they wouldn't want done to themselves. Do you want people to steal from you? No. So why would you want to steal from anyone else? Everyone else is like you in that they value their own possessions, so why not do the logical caring thing and treat them as you'd expect them to treat you, or how you'd treat yourself? Surely that's ultimately the only way this world will find peace... and please don't tell me everybody wants anarchy and hell, and that we should prevent them from reaching that by making it impossible for them to obtain that? The ideal solution should not be to build a wall to prevent theft, but to get to the root cause of that theft (clearly ignorance and lack of education) and prevent it from being growing/being irrationally intended in the first place.

 

[Vegeta]

You assume that everyone wants to be a thief, but that some aren't merely because THEY CAN'T? For me, it's an objective moral abomination to steal from a fellow person such as myself, whether I like it or not, and I live by my convictions more than anything else, therefore even IF I am tempted to steal, it may be only because I am extremely desperate that I actually end up doing it - but that doesn't make it right. More importantly, does that mean that I WANT to be a thief (using your words)? Does it mean I would steal if I could? Clearly far from that conclusion. On the contrary, every human being in a civilized, evolved, and therefore also spiritual society, will KNOW that theft is morally wrong and therefore have no desire to commit it whatsoever. Your claims then that 'everyone wants to be a thief' or 'people are only not thieves because they can't be' are therefore demonstrably false.

There we go... THIEF! Just kidding but what i'm saying is that its natural survival instinct... Under the right conditions(for them) everyone will steal its just one of those things.
Some will steal because they're desperate some will steal cause they're hungry... Some might never steal unless the payoff is billions and the risk is none... but whatever the condition even you and i will steal regardless of morals. Theres always a BUT, IF or UNLESS....

 

[Vegeta]

Basically, you should be a bit concerned about yourself if you think theft is a good thing, and even more concerned if you engage in it. You're doing the same thing that murderers do, the same thing cheating peers do... in essence, you're doing the very same thing that anybody else does to others that they wouldn't want done to themselves. Do you want people to steal from you? No. So why would you want to steal from anyone else? Everyone else is like you, so treat them like you treat yourself. Ultimately, that's the only way this world will find peace.

What the hell are you ranting about i've never stole anything in my life and never intend to... I'm saying that anyone will steal given certain conditions. Poor starving or whatever, whatever the reason we all have the capacity and we will all use it if we have to. You have fists right? Do you use them to fight no? of cause not... but what if you had to... of cause you would. You have hands you'd steal if you had to.

And thats the thing with employment, its long term usually it covers a person in different states. Healthy & happy one year, broke hungry and desperate the next, things change life hands you lemons some days. Prevent everyone from stealing then you dont have to worry about their morals or their situation at home to determine if they're gonna steal or not.

 

[fragtion]

No, I think you missed the point. I just explained that even if I was in dire straights, and decided to steal to stay alive, that theft would still be wrong. Even if I'm keeping myself alive, I'm doing so at the unwilling expense of someone else: this is fundamentally wrong and should be avoided at all costs. The point? Nobody should WANT to steal, in the deep depths of their heart... and this in direct opposition with what you said: that everyone WILL steal if they CAN. I won't steal if I merely can. Yes, maybe I COULD steal if I MUST (if there's no other option) - but it would still be wrong of me and therefore against my ideal intentions. You could call me a thief, but I'd have had no other option. Most of todays thieves are lazy tik/glue sniffers - they have options, but theft is just an easy alternative for them personally, but at the end of the day they're harming society by their actions. Nobody should WANT to do that. Anybody who does, should be placed in isolation where they can't harm the rest of us who have no intention of harming others.