Watching Your Staff

By Author: Emily Robinson
Total Articles: 45
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When most managers or executives implement a new security system, be it digital or analogue, Hikvision or Milestone Open Platform; they often do so in order to prevent cases of petty theft or vandalism in order to help protect their assets, their customers and their staff. Generally this is considered protection against the public, but what they may not consider is that a CCTV camera can also help protect against the staff themselves.

Cases of employee theft are on the rise and only getting higher. These take many different forms, the most obvious being employees steeling profit. Often will an employee steel from the tills or even the customer by giving them false change (which will keep the cash float appearing normal). This can go on unnoticed for a long time resulting in the loss of profit or reputation for the business as well as loss for the customers. By installing an analogue CCTV camera or a digital IP camera then, an employer can do regular checks to ensure that nothing is going missing from either their wallets or their customers'. While it would be nice to trust your staff, as the roster of names grows larger ...
... it will be harder to know all of them on a personal basis. At the same time as protecting you though, an IP security system or similar will protect your staff from allegations or accusations if they're innocent. Should a customer accuse them of steeling or being rude for example, you can rely on your surveillance to find out whether they are being truthful.

Staff can ‘steal' in many other more subtle ways however. For example, an employee may steel company time by clocking in late and/or clocking out early. This way they will be getting paid more than they are earning through deception, which again is a waste of the company's money. Similarly staff can ‘steel' company time by being idle at work, chatting to friends on the phone (and can cost the company more if it's the company phone) or browsing the web. Obviously it would take hours to check every piece of security footage pertaining to staff entering and leaving the premises, but if you suspect a member of staff is not pulling their weight you can check using a CCTV camera.

Finally staff can steel information. If your company has a lot of private data, perhaps the names and addresses of clients, then a member of staff may try to copy that information in order to set up their own rival company, or to sell to other small companies starting out. Again using an IP camera you can then check for any suspicious behaviour.

At the same time, watching your staff can help you check for their satisfaction at work which can help you find ways to improve health and safety and/or productivity. You can also see which members of staff are interacting and which are being less social which can help with a variety of other decisions. Look for a security system that meets the ONVIF standards. Hikvision, NUUO Australia or Milestone Open Platform all adhere to ONVIF and offer complete and high quality solutions.

Author recommends NUUO Australia products for in-store cctv camera solutions.