20 WESTERN PALLET
Employee Discipline and Manager Training
Employee Theft
Examples of employee theft were discussed. In one situation, a sales employee with a company credit card was found to be paying extra at hotels and for plane tickets to generate extra personal credit card points. The accounting department noted that the sales representative’s expenses seemed higher than for others, leading to an investigation. The employee was fired.
In another situation, an employee was found to have embezzled more than $25,000. When confronted, the person was told to return the money or they would be reported to the authorities.
The employee returned the funds and was then terminated.
Another situation that can be challenging to control is where cash is used as in the case of pallet companies buying pallets from pallet street vendors. A previously highly regarded staff member was found to be paying for more cores than were being received. For example, the employee paid the vendor for 200 pallets but only received 100. Then later, the vendor and the employee would split the extra money. It was an emotional experience for company owners, but they made the decision to relieve the worker of duties.
One company has added wording to its employee induction paperwork stating that all employees are required to consistently exhibit the highest ethical behavior. It is that company’s catch-all if someone is not acting ethically.
WPA’s August webinar featured employee discipline and management training,. Thoughts and challenges were shared by online industry participants.
The first part of the session focused on employee discipline, starting with the issue of theft. Stealing from the company was found to generally lead to termination.