You and your employees should work as a team to make sure your business is a success. However, there will be dishonest employees who will try to steal from you and undermine this relationship. Employees steal cash from the restaurant and sometimes they steal from one another. However, they also give away free meals or items to their friends or take a piece of dessert for themselves. Some also take home food supplies or pilfer from the alcohol stock. This means lower inventory for you, which in turn will affect your business. So here are some tips to help stop such loses.

1. First, install good POS (Point of Sale) software. This software will keep track of each order the moment someone places it. It will help you in two ways; first, if your kitchen has strict instruction that they are to process an order only when it comes with a POS ticket, it will cut down on the freebies your employees may be offering. Secondly, at the end of the day, the software will calculate how much money has been earned that day. If it does not match with what is actually there in the cash box, it means your cashier is either miscalculating or someone is taking money from the cash.

2. Keeping track of your inventory will be done every day. At the end of the day, make sure you go through all the present items and tally them with how much was used or wasted. When ordering items, keep track of how much you order because some employees lift items as they are delivered. Sometimes, sneaky employees place stolen items in the trash and someone picks them up. To prevent that, make sure your outside trash bin lid is under lock and key during operation. Within the premises, use clear plastic bags. Have two people empty the trash bag or alternate employees in this job.

3. Some dishonest employees may not steal from you but steal the very important customer’s credit card details. So make sure your computer security system is top notch and there is no compromise when it comes to PCI (payment card industry) standards.

4. If you think that some of your employees are stealing from you, don’t rush into confronting them. First, make sure you have gathered enough evidence to support your suspicion. If you can arrange to catch the suspected employee red-handed, it is even better. However, do not confront them in front of the other employees. Call him/her to your office and present all the evidence against him/her. If you want to terminate, then do it immediately and allow the person to gather his/her things before leaving. Be sure to monitor him/her during this time so that he/she does not do anything spiteful.

Trust is the basis of any employee-employer relationship and you are no exception. When it happens for the first time, you will no doubt get a shock and think that trusting your employees was a na