CCTV over the till in the shop

tjanec1212

We have two little shops right next to each other. The till has been short every now and then; sometimes when we have too many customers in one shop, the other one was left empty with no staff for a couple of minutes.

I have suspicions that one of the staff might be stealing from the till.

I am thinking about installing a camera over the till and a camera overlooking the whole shop from the back corner in each shop. Everything will be recorded, preferabbly also sent over the internet, so I can monitor what is going on in the shop even when I am travelling.

Is there any cost-effective reliable CCTV system that anyone can recommend? Thanks.

olly300

I hope you tell your employees in writing that you are going to do this and make it's clear it's a change to the terms of their employment contract, otherwise you could end up in legal hot water.

adonis

How is it a change to their terms and conditions, it is to catch a thief.
I am sure a honest employee would not object.

paulwf

I'll give similar advice to when this question has been asked before: you need to look at your overall till procedure not just think of a camera as solving all your problems. The till procedure is important as a) it might be more effective than CCTV and b) without it you will have a hard time challenging any staff you suspect of stealing.

Firstly any staff on duty should not have their wallets or any cash on them, and preferably nothing else such as mobile phone pouches etc where money could be hidden. You'll need to provide lockers in the staff room of course. Off duty staff who are carrying cash should not be allowed in areas where you are handling cash.

This is so important as otherwise if you challenge a member of staff with cash in their pockets they will simply claim it is theirs! You can back up this procedure with random checks, although personally I would minimise the use of this (once otr twice a year) and make sure your procedure is legal.

Next make sure each till has the same float in it every morning...get it counted and witnessed and of course log signatures for this. Make sure every staff member uses their own till login and as much as possible ensure only one member of staff uses one till. When their shift ends do an x reading and count their takings, slot in a new float for the new member of staff.

If you have a money weighing machine this only takes a few minutes, it really isn't any hassle. Of course if you have a large team regularly jumping on any till this won't work so well, but you can still do opening and closing balances.

Make sure no money is left around the till area, so for instance if a customer buys an item for 99p the assistant can't just hand them 1p from on top of the till then pocket the £1. Also impress on staff how important it is that every sale must go through the till.

Put a chart in the staff room showing the till over/under for the month. This will impress on staff how on top of the situation you are and you will soon see a theme develop if the same number of staff always has their till short. This only takes a minute every day.

Altogether these measures take only a few minutes a day and don't inconvenience you or the staff but will make a huge difference to potential theives.

olly300

adonis wrote: »

How is it a change to their terms and conditions, it is to catch a thief.
I am sure a honest employee would not object.

It's about protecting yourself from a disgruntled employee. People can be honest but if you p!ss them off in anyway they can find things to use against you.

As a small employer you don't have limited funds for legal disputes so paying a couple of hundred pounds now for legal advice is cheaper than fighting a tribunal claim even if the claim has no chance of winning.

There are lots of cases I personally know of where an employer has decided to put some sort of surveillance on their employees and the employer has not "officially" told the employees.

This means when there has been a dispute the employee can use the fact they were not "officially" told that the surveillance was there against the employer.

In one case of a dispute between an employee and a small employer, the employee reported them to the information commissioner who did an investigation as involved the use of CCTV. The fact that the employer was being investigated helped the employee's legal case.

By officially telling an employee it means having proof they were told the information. The best way is by making staff sign and date a slip which you keep to show they received a letter with the new conditions or training in the new method of working. Some lawyers will say you don't need to but the only company I've worked for where they never had any employee disputes they did it like that.

Having worked in shops before, even though it was years ago, the methods paulwf are suggesting are the best option.

With CCTV cameras you have to look through loads of footage to see what you want and if you want to use it against a staff member or member of the public you have to make sure it's timed and dated correctly. Then you have legal obligations under the Data Protection Act for storage of the recordings on the tape and this is regardless of business size.

anamenottaken

olly300 wrote: »

I hope you tell your employees in writing that you are going to do this and make it's clear it's a change to the terms of their employment contract, otherwise you could end up in legal hot water.

I agree an employer needs to tell employees that CCTV is in operation.

Covert surveillance is not right unless there are serious problems and you should contact the police/take legal advice about this before installing the cameras. And ensure the business's DP registration includes CCTV wherever it is placed.

Installing CCTV is not though changing the terms of an employee's contract of employment.

pitkin2020

Surely by informing the staff that CCTV is going to be installed to catch a thief undermines the whole point of it. If it is indeed a light fingered member of staff they will stop doing it as they know they are being recorded.

Surely the OP would be best to have it installed and instead of using it to prosecute the offender just show them the tape being caught in the act, most will resign to save face and not have a sacking on their record. Problem solved.

anamenottaken

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Surely by informing the staff that CCTV is going to be installed to catch a thief undermines the whole point of it. If it is indeed a light fingered member of staff they will stop doing it as they know they are being recorded.

Surely the OP would be best to have it installed and instead of using it to prosecute the offender just show them the tape being caught in the act, most will resign to save face and not have a sacking on their record. Problem solved.

There may not be a thief, there may be mistakes happening. Using covert CCTV is not allowed just because you think there could be something going on.

So what does the employer want to achieve - to stop a theft happening or finding that someone is actually stealing> If they want to prevent a theft, then informing staff that there is CCTV (for their own protection as much as the shop's) is more likely to stop the theft. Prevention is better than cure.

If you were to find that someone was a thief but allowed them to resign so there was "no sacking on their record", what do you do when a prospective employer asks for a reference? You owe that potential employer a duty of care if you give a reference and omitting telling them of a theft would be irresponsible. Would you want to take on someone who had already been found to be untrustworthy but where the employer didn't tell you?

paulwf

Prevention is definitely better than cure! I picked an article at random:

Out of a workforce, it is estimated that 25 per cent of your staff will never steal, 50 per cent may steal if given the opportunity, and the last 25 per cent will always steal. In other words potentially up to 75 per cent of your staff may steal if given the opportunity to do so.

When a member of the public steals an item, they are stealing the cost price of that item (i.e. item - retail price £29.99 - Cost price 5.99) while when a member of staff steals £30 from the till, they are stealing the retail cost i.e. the entire £30.

From: http://www.4networking.biz/articles/business-editorial-40/674.htm

The actual figures don't matter (they sound way too high to me). The general theme is that staff theft is widespread and one member of staff can steal over time as much as a larger number of shoplifters can. A lot of people join a company specifically to steal...hopefully if you can demonstrate to them they can't they will move on to their next target leaving you with only honest staff.

pitkin2020

Im not disputing theft is rife and prevention is always better than cure, but the OP believes someone is stealing and I would rather know who it was than it just stopped and be suspicious of the staff you have. The theft is from the till at the moment, covering it with a camera doesn't mean that person will stop stealing, just from areas in view of the camera.

Covert CCTV is used quite regulary, Royal Mail have just caught a manager using covert CCTV who was stealing cash from letters and cards. Obviously had they of told the staff CCTV was being installed they would never had caught him as he probably would have stopped and he would have got away with it. The news reported that the cameras were installed inside the building and he wasn't made aware of them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243682/Royal-Mail-boss-jailed-stealing-thousands-childrens-birthday-cards.html

paulwf

I hear what you are saying Pitkin, but look at a guide from a reputable source like the CAB:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_money/employment/monitoring_at_work.htm

Royal Mail will obviously have much better legal resources at hand than a small business. An accused or even sacked member of staff may want revenge...using CCTV on staff without notification appears to be a high risk strategy. Without having a proper cash handling procedure in place it makes it even higher risk.