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Originally Posted by Dusty_Star
I think this is a good, thoughtful question & I don't know the answer.
I did read recently (December 4th issue) in the online news site (I believe banned from this site), that a Walmart employee was arrested in her home for stealing snacks. She took items like Pepsi & consumed them in the break room & then when her shift was over she left without paying for them. I am not supporting her, I think theft is wrong & if she has memory issues, (forgetting to pay), then she should try to pay at the time she took the snacks.
But what does this say to your question? Is Walmart only going after low hanging fruit, regardless of cost? Is Walmart more stringent with employees than customers? Is there any consideration of the price of the stolen items? The article says they have video of six incidents. Are some of these questions decided solely by in store security personnel? Was the lady you spoke to right about the $400 theft, or did she not know the anwser & gave her opinion?
I don't know any of the answers. But am looking forward to the discussion.
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Thought-provoking comment about the Wal-Mart employee getting nailed for essentially stealing snacks.
Did some quick research on the topic of employee theft: statistics current as of this past September indicate that Wal-Mart employees are responsible for 28.85% of Wal-Mart losses due to theft. That is more than one in four. Again, this is most likely based on the number of workers actually being caught: the actual loss percentage is probably much greater due to the employees having at least some idea how to circumvent "the system" when engaging in theft. Wal-Mart certainly isn't alone in this, being followed closely by Home Depot and Target.
One unsettling stat I ran across was that the average retail theft by a "shopper" was around $100, while the average loss per employee incident leading to dismissal and/or legal action was over $400. This isn't exactly apples to apples though: a case against an employee may have been built up over several weeks, while the "per shopper" would logically be per incident. In any case, a quarter or more of the total retail "shrinkage" (love that word!) is huge.
A few years back, I remember a whole lot of animated discussion about the efficacy of employee background checks prior to hiring. Several advocacy groups maintained that such checks would disproportionately target minorities as statistically speaking the thought was they they'd be more likely to be involved in the sort of petty crime, leading to a criminal record, than would Caucasians. I'm not sure I agree with that--all ethnicities, if one checks police data, seem to be adequately represented when it comes to retail theft--but that outcry did have some effect, notably "Ban the Box" policies implemented by several states which effectively removed any questions relating to previous criminal activity when employees filled out applications for employment, and employers "encouraged" to first consider the prospective employee's qualifications for the position regardless of any criminal history. Federal regulations took things even further, through implementation of the "Fair Chance Act (2019) which prohibits federal agencies and contractors from requesting criminal background information from job applicants prior to extending an offer".
So...on the one hand America seems to be in pretty significant need of better screening for employees, while on the other we seem bent on hamstringing the very methods needed to assure those better screenings!
Answer?