Untrustworthy employees and how to avoid them
If you own or manage a business with employees, it can be hard to know that they’re trustworthy. It’s especially hard if you suspect that one of your employees is taking advantage of you. Our Private investigators are often called to investigate cases of employee fraud and dishonesty in businesses. You would like to think it wouldn’t happen to you, but if something doesn’t add up, you need to find out the truth.
There are two situations where you are at risk of being defrauded by a bad employee, when you’re hiring someone new, and when an existing employee seems to have gone bad. If you look out for the warning signs, and take steps to find out before it’s too late, you can catch them out before it gets too bad, or stop them before they even get into your business.
Investigating a Prospective Employee
You’re got a new position in the business and there’s a prospective employees that seems really great. You want to hire them, but something just doesn’t seem right. Pay attention. If your gut is telling you something’s up, of if there are warning signs in their paperwork, you might need to do a little digging to make sure.
Their work history could have strange gaps, short terms of employment or some titles that are very vague and don’t really tell you what they did. They could be acting strange in the interview, such as avoiding certain questions, or act strange when you ask about their past (such as laughing it off and not answering, or getting nervous, or even talking too much!).
But you can’t miss out on a great candidate with no proof. Instead, use these warning signs to dig a little deeper into their past and find out who they really are. It’s your right (and duty!) as a diligent business owner! You can find out if they’re lying to you about their resume with a professional background check. Our licensed private detectives can check out their past and let you know if anything comes up. A discreet investigation is much better than finding out the hard way. Hiring a bad employee will cost you a lot of time, stress and money.
Investigating a Current Employee
Sometimes you’ve hired someone great, but they’ve turned sour, or started to show their true colours. Unfortunately, bad eggs in your business rarely come up to you and announce their wrongdoings, so you need to investigate the issue based on the small warning signs, until you get the proof you need to fire them!
You might notice they only call in sick on Mondays or Fridays (defrauding you of sick leave to get a long weekend!), or they might seem to be very secretive, and jump when you come past unexpectedly. Or you could notice things in the business, like money going missing, stock being damaged or something not adding up on paper. The problem is, it’s rare to find actual evidence of dishonesty by an employee, but you’ll get these little warning signs. If that’s the case, you need to find out the truth, and fast! Discreet surveillance is the fastest, easiest, and often cheapest way to find out if an employee is behaving dishonestly in your business. The earlier you catch them, the more you minimise the loss they’re causing.
A common one that we investigate is worker’s compensation fraud. Sydney/Melbourne businesses lose millions of dollars a year from this insurance fraud. If your employee has genuinely hurt themselves, then an investigation will put your mind at ease, and they’ll never know you ran one. But if an employee is completely lying, you can catch it early, before you’ve lost thousands of dollars on a fraud! Warning signs of a worker’s compensation fraud include insisting on seeing a certain doctor and no-one else, seeming to exaggerate their condition whenever you see them, or never make much progress towards recovery. A skilled private investigator can discretely investigate these employees to find you the truth. We do it all the time! Hiring a detective is the most common and cost effective way to be make sure you aren’t being taken advantage of.
If you think your employee isn’t as honest as they should be, you deserve to know the truth. Give us a call on 1300 721 715 or email info@eliteinvestigations.com.au and protect yourself from fraud!