When you are thinking about theft of your business, your mind often goes to criminals who break in to steal money or goods, but you rarely think about an employee as the perpatrator. Unfortunately, the reality is that employees sometimes pose a greater risk due to their access. If you have caught an employee stealing, here are some things to do first.

Adhere to Your Theft Policy

If you have a policy that states any employee found stealing or shoplifting from yours tore is to be fired, then see this through. It can be hard to terminate an employee, even when they do something dishonest, but you need to make an example of them. It lets your other employees know you are serious about your company policies, especially in terms of any type of theft or dishonest behavior.

Change the Locks

Before you even terminate the employee from their position, you should change any and all locks they had access to. They will probably return the key they had, but this doesn't mean they don't have copies made. Just to be on the safe side, you should change the locks of whatever door they had access to. This is a perk of having an electronic access system. Instead of calling a locksmith to come change the locks, you can easily just program a different pin for their access card.For more information regarding business security, contact companies like Gene's Lock & Key.

Focus on Inventory Control

Having good inventory control lets you see right away when a potential theft has occurred, but it can also send a warning to other employees. If they know you are keeping up with inventory and tracking it closely, they are much less inclined to attempt to steal from you.

Add Better Security

Now is a good time to beef up your security and consider what you can do to prevent this from happening again. Even though you are making an example of the employee, others might consider theft from your company an easy thing to do and get away with. If the employee had easy access to a restricted area, it is the perfect time to figure out how to make that area more secure. Perhaps you have a buddy system where employees should never be in any area of the building alone after hours, or you turn off access to their key cards at the end of the day. You may also want to add more security cameras in the building.