What to do if member of staff is stealing from other employees in UAE office

Light-fingered colleague needs a stiff reprimand to stamp out petty pilfering - a commonplace problem in many offices. The Workplace Doctor advises.

I have a sensitive situation in my office. I think one of the administrative staff is stealing from other employees. A number of items have gone missing from the office recently such as mobile phones, corporate gifts, even a wallet. I spotted this particular person acting suspiciously when I came in one morning but I can’t be sure. Everyone is rattled – but how do I deal with this without falsely accusing someone of doing something they haven’t? PO, Sharjah

This is always a difficult one for management to deal with sensitively. The sad truth is that pilfering is commonplace in many offices. In too many places of work, anything left unattended – which is not owned by an individual – is considered fair game, not by professional thieves who come in from outside, but by opportunistic amateurs who work in the same building or even the same organisation. So corporate gifts, office supplies such as pens, tablets, reams of paper, envelopes and the like, all disappear like dew in sunshine.

Many people who work for a living think of these things as perks of the job and don’t think of themselves as being dishonest in any way when they misappropriate these items for themselves. It is then, for a very few people, a short step to stealing mobile phones, iPads, wallets and other personal goods. In my experience, theft in offices often has less to do with need on the part of the thief than to do with compulsion – an inability to resist temptation. Often the culprit, when discovered, is a most surprising person.

Of course it can’t be tolerated. But there are two things to address here. The first is how people come to believe that such behaviour is acceptable. Management has some blame to bear here. There is a cultural responsibility which management must shoulder to make clear that pilfering, however innocent it may seem, is simply not acceptable. There are grey areas that need to be addressed.

Many of us now work from home some of the time. So it is right that we should be allowed to use some office stationery at home – but by arrangement, with permission and within agreed limits. There should be an audit trail that protects everybody. Anything outside the code of accepted practice is a crime against the culture of the team or organisation and needs to be dealt with firmly, quickly and consistently. Persistent offenders need to be moved out of the team or organisation. Once this culture is established, then serious stealing such as you describe becomes rarer, because it is an escalation.

However, what you have to address is the second thing, which is the escalation – the culture is cracked, and you need to address a case of serious and persistent theft. You must not make baseless accusations. If you do, you potentially face a tribunal, or at least a slanging match where your accusation is strenuously denied and your “proof” turns out to be insufficient, leaving a bad taste in every mouth. So you need hard, incontrovertible proof. In your position, I would set and bait a trap. Leave something tempting (don’t be blindingly obvious) and leave the bait under surveillance using a hidden camera. Use an external supplier to provide the surveillance equipment if you prefer – set it up over a weekend, let nobody else know, then review the footage. If and when you catch your thief, take the appropriate action against the individual, but then you must also re-establish the culture that disallows any dishonest taking of supplies or equipment. By making the more minor crime unacceptable, you make the bigger offence more unthinkable.

We can help this culture to flourish by championing it and by helping those who are easily tempted – which we do by removing temptation from their path. Let’s not leave phones, wallets, cash, iPads, MP3 players, e-readers and so on lying around on our desks. Let’s also keep off of our desks portable goodies like calculators, external hard drives, USB pens and other desirable portables. Out of sight can be out of mind for the opportunistic pilferer.

Doctor’s prescription:

Let’s create an atmosphere of trust by making dishonest behaviour unacceptable and unthinkable.

Roger Delves is the director of the Ashridge Executive Masters in Management and an adjunct professor at the Hult International Business School. He is the co-author of The Top 50 Management Dilemmas: Fast Solutions to Everyday Challenges. Email him at [e-mail] for advice on any work issues

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