95% of all businesses have experienced employee theft at some point or another, so when the odd thing goes missing, that’s just a normal day at the office, right? It might not seem like a big deal when a pile of Post-Its or some break room supplies drift away, but small-scale theft can be a canary-esque warning that something far worse is brewing. If workplace culture turns sour and a breeding ground for theft emerges, your losses might remain petty—but they might extend into embezzlement or corporate data theft, so consider those small losses a cue to sit up and get your eye on the ball.
Corporate theft is a spectrum that spans everything between pocketing a pen from the supply closet, through to some of the most nefarious forms of white collar crime. Leadership uncovering a misdeed at any point on this sliding scale can easily dismiss it as an isolated incident, but will theft truly be nipped in the bud through a single disciplinary action or termination? More importantly, what else could these incidences be warning of?
When disappearances or losses are repeating like an unwelcome re-run that should have long been off the air, there’s a good chance that the problem has entered into pervasive territory and is already denting your bottom line. In these moment, turning to a trusted corporate investigations bureau skilled in addressing these kinds of issues is likely going to be your best defense against accelerating future losses.
What Makes Employees Decide to Steal in the First Place?
An employee on the take may simply be a lone bad apple, but it’s worth stepping back and looking at the larger picture after concluding your corporate internal investigations. Perhaps surprisingly, the most common motivations driving corporate theft don’t include the desire to be a criminal mastermind!
Instead, employees might feel as if their employer has wronged them, or that they are not adequately appreciated or compensated for their efforts. They might imagine that their crime is victimless either because it is small, or because the business is insured against theft. Finally, they might have found themselves within an environment where nobody is held accountable for their actions—letting them know not only that they wont be either, but that taking a moral stance within a toxic workplace might just be a waste of their time.
Each and every one of these drivers for employee theft can be traced back to an erosion of corporate culture. When corporate culture is strong, employees feel valued and find satisfaction in succeeding. This forges positive feedback that propels the whole team forwards. So, how can you tell if your corporate culture is in trouble?
What Does Healthy Corporate Culture Look Like?
A good place to start is in understanding what prospering corporate culture is supposed to look like. Healthy workplace culture can be thought of as a cycle—a beloved and welcome rerun in this case—that begins with happy employees. When your team at large are thriving, they will be more engaged, creative, and productive in their daily working lives. Of course, this bountiful reality is the perfect incentive for leadership to continue to invest in their team, delivering rewards such as pay-raises, opportunities, benefits, and praise.
These indicators tell employees that their work is being valued, which boosts their happiness further—and so the cycle continues. Not only can this positive feedback loop allow a business to storm through successive growth, but it can also create a culture of resilience and trust that allows riding out the storm whenever an economic downturn or industry challenge creates bumps in the road. If your efforts to kick-start this kind of triumphant working environment have fallen flat to date, then a corporate culture audit is going to bring whatever is letting you down into focus.
The Risk of Letting Employee Theft and Poor Corporate Culture Slide
If corporate theft is the canary warning of a corporate culture crisis in the coal mine, then what can go wrong if you don’t take action? Sadly, the manifestation of these kinds of pervasive problems can extend far beyond having to buy your stationary twice over. Undervalued employees will not only underperform themselves, but they will inevitably contribute negatively to the engagement of others.
Time theft might be the next impact, as breaks become extended or multiplied, followed potentially by FMLA or compensation fraud. Fundamentally, reoccurring instances of employee theft aren’t something you can afford to ignore. When we consider that 33% of corporate bankruptcies in the US are linked to employee theft, it becomes clear that proactivity is the best approach to keeping corporate theft down, and corporate culture riding high.
How a Corporate Culture Audit Can Help
Trying to assess corporate culture problems from within can be a little bit like trying to see the wood for the trees. Those who are engaging in employee theft will likely be protecting their actions from your eyes, and other employees may feel conflicted by a sense of loyalty to their co-workers, or a shared sense of frustration with their employer. Rather than spiraling through increasingly heavy-handed corporate internal investigations, bringing in expert private investigators to conduct a corporate culture audit can be the most effective way to break a bad pattern of employee theft, misconduct, and underperformance.
A corporate culture audit can be seen as the equivalent to going to the doctors for a thorough checkup. All areas are evaluated for signs of illness, so that causes can be addressed—and not just symptoms. When corporate investigators carry out an objective and independent audit on your behalf, their comprehensive approach will take in everything from internal operations to your hiring processes, and from spanner-in-the-works employees through to leadership unknowingly taking a damaging approach. Not only will they provide an in-depth report on the current corporate culture landscape of your business, but also a clear road map for resolution and ultimately prosperity. If you think your business or organization would benefit from a corporate culture audit, get in touch with Lauth Investigations International today. Going far beyond assisting in corporate theft cases, for over 30 years Lauth has been providing corporations with proactive solutions to stimulate real success. We are always here to answer your questions and provide a free no-obligation quote.
We all like to think that every one of our employees or co-workers is guided by a strong moral compass and is conducting themselves accordingly. In some instances, we might even imagine that a little office banter with sexual undertones is harmless, but the reality is that when no clear line is drawn on what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace, a slippery slope is often established in its place.
Sexual misconduct of any kind can lead to pervasive distress, loss of productivity, and ultimately loss of talent—as a toxic working environment leads precious innovators to look for healthier work environments elsewhere. Employers should also recognize that receiving one sexual harassment complaint may mean gaining oversight on what is ultimately only the tip of the iceberg.
The reality is that while 81% of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime, 58% of those who were harassed at work don’t file a complaint for fear of factors such as retaliation or disbelief. According to data gathered confidentially by Stop Street Harassment, as many of 43% of men have also experienced some sort of sexual harassment—so there’s no escaping that this is a problem that can impact anyone, and is ultimately one that we often don’t get a true sense of.
When it comes to receiving a formal complaint and gearing up ahead of investigating sexual harassment or sexual misconduct in the workplace, there’s a lot to navigate. On behalf of both the victim and the alleged perpetrator, responsibility in regard to physical and mental health, privacy, and legal rights all land in the hand of the employer. Meanwhile, for the organization itself, risk of retaliation, liability, and reputational damage hang in the balance. That makes what happens next something that must ready to stand up to scrutiny.
Turn to Corporate Investigations Services When Handling Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
With so much at stake, investigating sexual harassment or misconduct means building a case that cannot be left open to any perception of bias. If a complaint should evolve towards litigation, an employer’s failure to fully undertake and document an impartial corporate investigation, or it’s failure to act decisively upon any complaint received may well end in liability. Information gathered might later become admissible in court proceedings, while a poorly judged step may damage the credibility of evidence. This makes turning to an external investigator the best way to safeguard the interests of both the organization and the individuals involved.
Hiring a private investigator with a proven track record for corporate investigations of this nature also means lifting the emotional burden of investigating a colleague—under what may be distressing circumstances—from your HR or leadership team. A professional who is seasoned at investigating sexual harassment and misconduct in the workplace will not only be adept at discreetly and efficiently gathering the information necessary, but they will also be able to advise on every investigatory and reporting step from a legal standpoint, guaranteeing due process and exemplary action along the way.
The Opportunity to Be an Industry Leader in the Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
While the occurrence of a sexual misconduct complaint may well leave any organization anxious about what lies ahead, choosing to step ahead of this issue is an action that can only be rewarded. Since the #metoo movement arrived, attitudes towards sexual harassment in the workplace have evolved, with 99% of employees successfully recognizing sexual harassment situations, and the vast majority supporting the fight against this type of workplace misconduct.
While this new era has created an environment in which many feel more able to speak up, statistics tell us that it is also in fact driving down incidents of sexual harassment in the workplace, with EEOC actually reporting a drop from 2020 to 2021. This tells us that setting clear policies and demonstrating a safe environment for employees is a worthy pursuit. Of course, this is a transformation still in its inception—HRAcuity reports that only 15% of companies are on the case. Are you ready to establish your brand as one who lives by values that everyone can believe in?
Alongside outlining clear and easily understood company policies and delivering training across every employee tear, organizations are increasingly turning to corporate culture audits as a health-check for issues ranging from sexual harassment to discrimination, and even corporate theft and white collar crime. Taking this proactive step means getting ahead of problems before they manifest into costly or damaging incidents that warrant corporate investigations, litigation, or substantial losses. Better yet, it means forging and sustaining a thriving workplace environment in which employees can grow, flourish, and drive the bottom line. If you’d like to learn more about corporate investigation services in relation to sexual harassment in the workplace—or the phenomenal results that corporate culture audits can yield—the team at Lauth Investigations are ready to take your call.
When a company finds itself lurching from crisis to crisis, rather than reactively scrabbling to rein in the consequences, there’s a lot to be said for hunting out the cause. Many employers remain oblivious to disastrous impacts of employee alcohol and drug abuse until the worst occurs.
The reality is that employees engaged in substance abuse pose a serious threat to their managers and co-workers—as well as the company at large—and every day that the problem is left unaddressed is a day lost to both the individual and the business. Resulting problems might include diminished performance or productivity, tardiness, absenteeism, runaway turnover, theft, compensation bills, and even physical danger to people and property.
While it might seem clear that the individual engaged in alcohol or drug abuse is at fault, allowing such conduct to fester can leave employers exposed to legal liability too, so a prompt workplace investigation is certainly the place to start. Culprits are likely to be covering their tracks, and substance abuse can be tricky to pin-point and document. This makes the surveillance and clue-finding skills of specialist corporate investigations services an ideal ally in this scenario. Better yet, a Corporate Culture Audit can help you stamp out the seeds of workplace misconduct before they sprout—but we’ll return to that momentarily.
Understanding the Complexities of Employee Drug and Alcohol Abuse
The impacts of drug and alcohol abuse are far reaching. So much so that, according to the data from the American Addiction Centers, the price tag lands at $740 billion annually in lost workplace productivity, healthcare expenses, and crime-related costs. The substances in question might be liquor, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, or over-the-counter medications. The abuse in question may be taking place during work hours or off the clock. Crucially, understanding how to identify the point at which you can take action is a necessity in terms of liability.
Clearly outlining rules in regard to consuming such substances during working hours in the employee handbook offers a well-lit legal path to disciplinary procedures if an employee is caught in the act. However, such cases are not always so cut and dry. For example, discrimination against those suffering from alcoholism is prohibited in many states by the Americans with Disabilities Act. This makes it vital to document a direct breach of policy, an impact to work performance, or a demonstrable threat to workplace safety, rather than simply a suspicion of intoxication.
Similarly, an employee is entirely entitled to take correctly prescribed medication—but an employer’s right to act comes into play when that medication makes them drowsy while operating machinery or driving a company vehicle. That said, state and federal laws in relation to disabilities may limit the options of an employer in these scenarios, perhaps even obliging the company to facilitate safe medication use of said employee, so expert guidance is always advisable.
Of course, if an employee’s workplace drug abuse extends to illegal substances, there are far less protections in place that might limit a company’s options. Depending on the circumstances—and crucially on the company’s pre-defined policies—actions taken might span from written warning to termination. However, be aware that your choices may have a knock-on affect on contractual obligations to customers or insurance policies. It is also vital to be mindful of social responsibility and federal regulations in regard to reporting crimes and referring those in need to assistance.
When It Comes to Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Prevention is Better Than Cure
No CEO or manager can know every detail of what employees are doing at all hours. But, what they can do is enact evidence-based prevention interventions aimed at mitigating workplace substance abuse, while fostering an environment of support and prosperity.
A more proactive form of corporate investigation is ideal as a preventative measure, and this is the Corporate Culture Audit. This serves as a health-check for your business, identifying conduct, policies, and patterns of behavior that may be undermining the company’s goals and ideals. Periodic audits can be complemented with supervisor training and education programs for employees. In certain cases, workplace drug testing may also be deemed appropriate. Ultimately, whatever program is opted for, its success can only be measured through an intelligent monitoring protocol. If you would like to know more about the spectrum of corporate investigations services available in relation to drug and alcohol abuse—including specialist capacity ranging from surveillance to undercover operations—the team at Lauth Investigations is always on hand to advise. Learn more about the powerful rewards offered by Corporate Culture Audits, or get in touch today to discuss your unique investigative needs.
If your enterprise or organization is riddled with issues like employee theft, sexual harassment, hostility, or fraud—and internal corporate investigations aren’t throwing up a bean—then it’s pretty clear that you’re going to have to call in the corporate private investigations cavalry. But, what if if you haven’t spotted any obvious warning signs but nothing is going as smoothly as it should? That’s where a corporate culture audit can come in handy.
Sometimes, the signs that corporate culture has slid sideways are glaringly obvious, but at others, they can be a little more demure. If you know that your business is not meeting its true potential, a corporate culture audit is just the solution for the job. This proactive and comprehensive assessment offers up a health check for all areas of your businesses, providing evidence-based strategies that will help you turn the corner once and for all. If this has piqued your interest, then lets dig a little deeper. Read on for seven indicators that you should take as a sign that urgent action is needed.
1. Pervasive Problems Have Become a Broken Record
If the same old loss reports, harassment complaints forms, or underperformance records just keep on sliding across your desk, then it’s time to raise the alarm. Ask yourself: Have you been pouring resources into internal corporate investigations and disciplinary actions, or perhaps sucking up holes left by minor but repeating corporate theft?
Either way, the nature of the problem—be it small or large—is fundamentally insignificant. Whether rooted with internal processes or personnel, until you get to the source of the pattern and address it, the cycle will not be broken. In contrast, when corporate culture is corrected, operations and employees alike can begin to truly flourish.
2. Accountability Has Fallen Out of Your Team’s Vocabulary
If your workplace meetings and exchanges tend to tumble into a charade of shrugging and finger-pointing, you can be certain that corporate culture has grown sickly. Engaged, happy employees within a healthy workplace environment are far more likely to step up and take responsibility for their actions. When everyone seems more interested in deflecting accountability, it comes with the cost of slumping productivity, and wasted time on all levels.
Particularly perilous, when leadership is behaving badly a mindset of “If the boss is doing this, it must be okay.” sets in. Grappling with executives and leaders who aren’t holding themselves accountable can be particularly challenging for internal corporate investigations, but an external investigator is perfectly poised to make impartial assessments, and suggest effective remedial options.
3. A Contagious Form of Apathy Has Struck
We all have our better days and our worst days in terms of productivity, but when activities have mysteriously slowed to a snails pace office-wide, you can be certain that a hidden cause awaits discovery. A healthy corporate culture shines with engagement, elevating the experience of both employees and customers. If your team instead exude a vibe of sapped energy and drained morale, then whatever lies behind it needs to be identified and neutralized before your profits and reputation take a hit.
4. The Employee Ethics Compass is Spinning
When we talk about employee ethics, we mean something universally shared rather than the cumulation of individual moral stances. It’s down to companies and organizations to establish a clear framework of values that employees can get on board with. This means more than talking the talk—the walk has to be walked too.
If employee ethics have lost their clarity, your team are likely to exhibit signs of an identity crisis—with cohesive productivity paying the ultimate price. One of the elements tackled by a corporate culture audit is assessing collective understanding of and quality of mission statements and values. From there, worthy common goals and a shared sense of purpose can be established.
5. Your Workforce is Lacking in Diversity
When it comes to corporate culture, one of the biggest red flags to be alert to is a lack of diversity in the workforce. What’s more, allowing homogeneity in terms of race, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation to become the status quo means actively stunting your organization’s ability to develop and grow.
Statistics tell us that the most common version of this picture is cisgender, straight, white men in leadership roles—recruiting, promoting, and mentoring others who tick the same boxes. However, a rut in terms of diversity can take many forms, and all are equally limiting. Employees who are able to bring a variety of experiences and perspectives to their team provide the strongest path towards innovation, evolution, and staying ahead of the competition. Not something to let slide!
6. Employees Are Working in a Pressure-Cooker Atmosphere
It’s true that the capacity to work under pressure is a prerequisite for plenty of job roles. However, all forms of baked-in stress needs to be effectively counter-balanced to avoid workforce burnout. Employees who are running on empty will not only lose engagement, but they may also begin to fall into a mentality that raises risk of corporate theft, misconduct, workplace bullying, or even white collar crime.
Employers who safeguard their employees’ wellbeing—harnessing workplace support, benefits, paid-time-off, and vacations—are more often than not rewarded with a team that can fire on all cylinders whenever required. Specialist corporate investigations can help to highlight an impending burnout that hasn’t been spotted by leadership, before major damage is done.
7. Poor Investments in People Keep Sending You Back to the Drawing Board
All too often, leadership can be entirely unaware that they are stuck repeating bad recruitment and promotion practices. Inescapably, investing in the wrong people is always a huge drain on resources—as the hiring, on-boarding, and training stages are repeated again and again.
Muddying the water further when individuals don’t meet expectations, focus frequently remains solely on retention strategies. While this is an important part of forging a strong corporate culture, investing in the right people from the get-go is also crucial if terminations and turn-over are going to be brought into line. In this area, a corporate culture audit may extend from examining recruitment and promotion policies into carrying out corporate background checks.
Corporate culture audits are a fantastic way to gain comprehensive insight into the health-status of your business—something that is often impossible to achieve from within. The results of our investigations will allow us to provide expert guidance on how to bolster the wellbeing of every aspect of your business. With a trusted corporate investigation specialist on hand, you can also be confident that investigations can be scaled as necessary, for impactive and cost-effective results. Learn more about Corporate Culture Audits from Lauth Investigations, or contact our team today for a free quote.
Nobody at the helm of any kind of organization wants to see it driven into the ground, and yet across America, corporations and businesses fall into crisis every day. The reality is that even for the most astute and visionary leaders, seeing the signs of danger with unwavering clarity isn’t always an easy thing to do–the type of signs that a corporate culture audit could identify.
When crises move from being isolated incidents into becoming part of a pervasive pattern, the tough truth is that an undoing may have already begun. In these instances, a corporate culture audit provides the powerful insight and game-plan required to not only avert catastrophe, but get growth and prosperity set back between the sights—where it belongs.
What is a Corporate Culture Audit?
A corporate culture audit is a comprehensive assessment of all the moving parts that together comprise a business or organization. Its goal is to reveal the root causes behind the challenges faced by so many contemporary businesses, and plot a course towards their remedy. The corporate culture audit can be seen as akin to getting a check up from a great physician—the idea being to pinpoint how to cure the disease, rather than simply treating the symptoms in a reactionary fashion.
Undergoing a corporate culture audit will almost certainly bring big results, but it’s not something to view as a big disruption. Corporate investigations specialists know how to navigate essential information gathering with discretion, efficiency, and respect for your day-to-day operations. So, the only impacts felt will be the ones that come with the positive action that follows!
Turning to the role of the auditor, their efforts will be to assess factors such as hiring protocols, organizational subcultures, leadership functionality, interdepartmental and hierarchical communication, on-site security, team morale, external influences, and potentially much more. They may also examine the company’s corporate culture history—going back to its inception—in order to develop an optimal picture of the best way to get back on track.
Who Performs Corporate Culture Audits?
Programs designed to evaluate business operations can be found across a number of different avenues, but the most common providers—and usually the best equipped—are risk assessment and private investigations firms. Here, we find the broad skill set required to follow leads within a professional setting, gather corporate intelligence, engage the workforce in valuable interactions, compile a documented body of evidence, and make precision and practical suggestions for effective remedial action.
Of course, many businesses will be keen to keep corporate investigations internal as far as they can. This instinct is understandable—the idea of having an outsider come into the organization in order to seek out its weaknesses may well be a source of anxiety for leadership. However the problem with internal investigations is inherent; there’s no escaping the fact that objectivity is almost impossible from within, and failing to acknowledge this is all too often where organizations start to stumble.
Even when transparency and accountability is the quest objective, viewing day-in-day-out co-workers and the culture within which one is immersed with impartiality is not as easy feat. What’s more, it is difficult not to be bias when the impacts of an investigation may mean dramatic changes for the business, or an emotional fallout for those doing the reporting.
In the case of smaller businesses, there may simply not be the budget to maintain an internal corporate investigations team—not to mention, the will to take team members off vital tasks so that they can put their private investigator caps on. Bringing in external corporate investigations services as and when required can deftly side-step all of these issues. Professional investigators do this sort of work every day, serving swiftly with independence and autonomy. Their role is to provide you with the information you need today so that you can change tomorrow’s trajectory for the better.
The Value that External Investigators Bring to Businesses
With a fresh pair of eyes, corporate culture auditors will be able to establish whether there is cognitive dissonance between leadership and employees, and whether internal operations are as efficient and effective as they should be. Seasoned analytical skills will be turned to examining the chain of command, productivity flow, and the quality of communication company-wide. This may involve the confidential review of meeting minutes, interviewing department heads, or environmental evaluation. Through this process, previously unseen causes for concern or further indications of corporate theft and misconduct may also come to light.
Fundamentally, even the most engaged, efficient, and talented team member will struggle to perform well within a flawed corporate ecosystem. With this in mind, it becomes clear that every company can find value in periodic corporate culture audits—whether seeing signs of a problem or not. There is a lot to be said for performing maintenance before the cracks start to show.
With a corporate culture audit report in your hands, you will not only find a detailed overview of the current status quo, but also explicit recommendations for how to fix every hidden flaw identified. From there, enacting the transformation is up to you. Being a beacon of change means having a clear plan in place, and setting it into motion. If you’re ready to light the way, contact Lauth Investigations International today for a free quote. Our team of corporate security and investigations specialists are here to help you prosper.
