How To Prevent Employee Thefts In Your Restaurant?

Employee thefts or internal thefts in a restaurant is a widespread problem across the globe. We have often heard restaurant owners sharing their most horrifying insecurity about running a restaurant is employee theft.

No matter how much you think you know your employees you cannot 100% guarantee their behaviour in various situations and therefore shouldn’t take internal thefts in restaurants for granted. 

A survey uncovered that internal employee theft is responsible for 75% of inventory shortages and about 4% of restaurant sales. That totals between $3 and $6 billion annually.

It’s time for you to invest in a good restaurant POS that helps you protect your assets and helps you make your restaurant anti-theft. 

Here’s How You Can Take Necessary Anti-Theft Measures In Your Restaurant

1. Implement zero-tolerance company policy

You need to form a solid company policy that includes zero-tolerance against any kind of theft, sexual harassment or discrimination. Given the policy terms and conditions, any employee can be terminated effective immediately. Every employee should be well aware of this company policy since day one. This will prevent employees to plan or even think about internal theft. 

2. Install 24×7 working CCTVs

A CCTV camera investment can go a long way to prevent any kind of internal theft by employees as well as by outsiders. It will create a cautious environment where employees will be discouraged to indulge in any such unethical activities. It will also serve as honest proof against someone falsely blamed for any wrong deed.

Not just theft, CCTVs will help you monitor your employee’s performance, punctuality, the way they treat your customer and other things as well.  

3. Limit your staff access

Invest in a POS system that understands your needs and gives you an option to limit access to certain people for different things in the restaurant. 

Let’s understand it with an example if you have an expensive ingredient kept in your inventory that is very prone to get stolen or altered you would want fewer people to have access to it right? with good restaurant management software you can customize the rights to do an inventory of that particular ingredient. 

Petpooja POS allows you to customize not just inventory rights but also billing rights for your staff, you can customize who can create a discount coupon, change customer details, modify bills, reprint bills etc to ensure safety and anti-theft transaction. You can set different rights for your biller, captain, manager, delivery boy and waiters. It is completely up to you.   

4. Keep close eyes on reports

As a restaurant owner, you should be able to see reports on a real-time basis about inventory, sales, bills, discounts and multiple other things to keep a close eye on the data. 

Petpooja POS provides 50+ reports on various operations of your restaurant on a real-time basis which leaves no spot, no activity uncovered where theft can take place. You can also use the advanced restaurant analytics tool – Petpooja Insights, to make a customizable dashboard to visualize your restaurant’s data the way you want it. Make insightful reports and analysis that are appropriate to your business needs.   

5. Maintain a positive working environment

Keep an open-door policy where it is easier for staff to report any employee thefts anonymously. Be empathetic and keep staff feedback confidential. Treat your employees as human beings and understand their needs. If there’s a positive working environment where your employees don’t have attrition towards you or your brand they are less likely to do any unethical activity. 

If an internal theft takes place at your restaurant make sure to terminate that employee so the rest of your staff can understand the consequences of such actions.

Hope this helps you prevent employee thefts and ensure the safety of your restaurant operations.

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