In 1979, a loss control consultant working for Lodge Service carried out investigations into an accusation of theft against a member of staff working for one of the company’s clients. A ‘test purchase’ integrity test was conducted (covertly) on the person concerned, who was seen to be taking money rather than placing it in the cash register post-sale. The member of staff was then interviewed, and duly confessed their sin.
Summarily dismissed from employment, what happened next beggared belief. Four weeks later, the very same individual was discovered to be stealing from the same retailer, but in a different store and in a different town!
Our loss control consultant then discussed the occurrence at a meeting with his line manager. What was the point of conducting investigations if the same guilty people were just going to keep on committing the same crimes over and over again?
That meeting underpinned the future development of the Employers Mutual Protection Service (EMPS) Database, designed to provide a mutual deterrent tool for security managers and loss prevention specialists in the retail arena that will help them in preventing unscrupulous staff from targeting (or re-targeting) the business. The EMPS would also add a level of intelligence sharing hitherto unheard of in the retail sector.
So how does the EMPS work? The client’s security manager would produce a list of names of prospective employees (in electronic format) and send them to the EMPS Screening Centre. Here, the names are rigorously checked. If no matches exist, an e-mail is sent confirming that fact. If there is a match, the dismissing employer is contacted to verify the dismissal. On confirmation, the two employers are put in touch with each other. The new employer then has all the information at hand to make an informed decision on recruitment.
In truth, the EMPS has since evolved into a full pre-employment screening and vetting service for security managers and Human Resources professionals in the retail, healthcare, education, social services and corporate sectors. Its holistic ‘package’ approach to screening is designed around industry and regulation requirements, risk assessments of each level of department/job description in a company and cost/value (return on investment for the retailer).
EMPS: the basic concept
In the 1980s, the thought process was for the ‘retailers’ to benefit from a single source database of those individuals who had been dismissed for theft. What evolved from there was the definition of ‘gross misconduct’ formulated by ACAS, and so EMPS adopted this as the template for defining who would be placed on the database.
Refining this process over time – and in line with the introduction of the Data Protection Act and BS 7858 – it was then decided that two more provisions would be included: that the individual(s) concerned would be informed, while the details held on file would be kept to the barest minimum so as not to be classed as ‘unfair’. Second, and again in line with BS 7858, names would be held for a period of ten years (deemed reasonable for this purpose by the Information Commissioner).
BDO Stoy Hayward offers a forensic accounting service – entitled FraudTrack – to its clients in which the company identifies six steps any business can take to reduce its exposure to rogue employees, and thereby improve fraud prevention. Step One states: “Comprehensive pre-employment screening is a key tool in fraud prevention. This means detailed checks at every level”. Meantime, the British Retail Consortium’s 2004-2005 Retail Crime Survey includes the following comment: “The value of losses attributable to staff theft has risen to GB pound 498 million from GB pound 282 million in 2003”. The report also suggests: “The amount of funds spent on crime prevention in 2004 compared to 2003 is estimated to have decreased by GB pound 249 million.”
In percentage terms, staff theft was responsible for 35.1% of total retail crime losses for 2004. The figures for crime prevention show 37% of available monies being spent on security staff, 27% on theft prevention/protection and only 3% on ‘Other’. The ‘Other’ category, one presumes, includes pre-employment checks. In addition to these statistics, a MORI survey in 2001 suggested that more than 7.5 million of Britain’s 25.3 million working population had misled their potential employer while applying for a job.
Chris Holland – head of retail loss prevention at Sainsbury’s – was recently quoted in Security Management Today as saying that: “The majority of retailers do not talk to each other about dismissed staff. It’s a cycle that simply must be broken.”
Determined, practical deterrent
The EMPS Database was designed to provide an added-value tool that does not need to take into account the above statistics. It does not look to prove CV authenticity. It does not confirm addresses, previous employment details or any of the other number of ways that exist to provide a bona fide appraisal of a potential member of staff.
What the EMPS does do are two basic things. It provides a determined, practical deterrent for retailers, and checks to see if the person has ever been dismissed for gross misconduct. Those checks are instant.
Opportunity for shared intelligence
With the desire for better information sharing techniques to benefit the retail industry as a whole, and to safeguard it against both organised and individual targeting, it seems illogical that an opportunity for shared intelligence, strong deterrence and improved staff and company security is not being adopted more widely for an average price point of just GB pound 1 per name check.
Security and retail loss prevention managers looking to improve their organisational and managerial skills – and at the same time show a genuine return on investment to the Board by way of cutting down on staff theft and constant re-employment – ought to take a look at what EMPS can offer their department.