Employee theft costs UK businesses £1.2bn

Employee theft costs UK businesses £1.2bn

Workers who help themselves to software, computer hardware and other office equipment are costing UK small businesses £1.2bn a year, according to new research.

Link: Strong warning for SMEs on cyber-crime

Light-fingered employees no longer content themselves with pilfering paper and pens, and instead are filling their swag bags with goodies such as computer hardware and software – and effectively treating office equipment as their own.

The study conducted by UK office supplier Staples found that the problem is worse in small to medium businesses, where a ‘help yourself’ philosophy to office supplies prevails. In bigger companies the process is more rigorously policed with stronger policies in place.

Joe Irons, marketing director at Staples, claimed that over the course of a year an employee takes home on average £400 worth of office supplies.

‘Multiply that by ten employees and the annual cost to that business is close to £4000. With approximately three million small and medium enterprises in the UK, that could amount to a staggering £1.2bn being stolen from under bosses noses,’ Irons said.

Staples blames personal email usage at work and more people being online at home for contributing towards the financial drain on company resources as workers copy information, and steal software for personal use.

Neale Bussey, partner at Ernst & Young, said fraud is a serious issue for companies of all sizes, with over a quarter of major corporations surveyed for its eighth global survey on fraud revealing losses last year.

And while relatively small thefts may be borne by larger corporates, Bussey warned that for small businesses ‘they can have a real impact on the company’s overall profit margins’.

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