Bad Guy Billionaires: Pre-Hire Protection from Pilfery

The Forbes billionaires list would seem like the kind of roster in which everyone wants to be included—until you realize that six of them are in or going to prison. The crime, in most cases, is greed—i.e. theft (and these are the richest people in the world!). What causes these wealthy men to steal from those who trust and, in some cases, depend on them for their livelihood? What can be done to minimize this deviance?   First, some examples:

• South Korea’s Chey Tae-Won is serving a four year prison sentence after his faith in the paranormal led him to embezzle nearly $50 billion, losing it all to a not so good fortune-teller. Chey entrusted his company’s assets to a manager rumored to have previously been a shaman.

• Allen Stanford stole $7 billion from his investors, and was sentenced to 110 years for his “massive Ponzi Scheme."

• Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, two of Russia’s richest men, were convicted in 2009 for embezzlement and money laundering. During sentencing, Khodorkovsky said “I am far from being an ideal person, but I am a person with an idea. For me, as for anybody, it is hard to live in prison, and I do not want to die here. But if I have to, I will have no hesitation. What I believe in is worth dying for. I think I have shown this.” Sounds like a stand-up guy, right?

Ninety-five percent of employers are victims of theft, and 75 percent of employees who steal from employers do so repeatedly. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that theft by employees costs American companies $20 to $40 billion a year. To pay for it, every man and woman working in America today contributes more than $400 per year. In 2012, 70,000 employees were apprehended and $150 million was recovered.

In the 25th Annual Retail Theft Survey released by Jack L. Hayes International, (which reviewed 23 of the U.S.’s largest retail companies, with 18,900 stores and over $596 billion in 2012 retail sales) revealed that these 23 retailers alone apprehended over 1.1 million shoplifters and dishonest employees, and recovered more than $189 million.

The billionaires mentioned above have (or had) more money than most of us can even imagine, yet still they stole as much as they could get away with before getting caught. So, what’s to say your next minimum wage hire won’t do the same to your company? Nothing can guarantee your protection, but pre-employment screening tools like Profile International’s Step One Survey II can help.

By using resources like SOSII, you can identify if your next hire is trustworthy, dependable, and if he or she will be a long-term, hard-working employee. With the right implements, you will be able to protect yourself from a possible dangerous hire or slippery billionaire.

Authored by Ty Hall on Profiles International Workplace 101 Blog - View Blog Entry