Analyzing Employee Theft in Hotels: A Hospitality Management Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of employee theft within the hospitality industry, focusing on hotels. It identifies various causes, including lack of internal control and opportunities for theft, and explores different motives behind employee theft, such as financial struggles or feelings of entitlement. The report categorizes types of employee theft as intentional vs. unintentional and tangible vs. intangible. Furthermore, it examines best practices adopted by international hotels to prevent employee theft and offers practical recommendations for managing it effectively. The study uses research and examples to highlight the impact of employee theft on hotel operations and profitability, providing insights for employers to mitigate these risks.

Running head: HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT
Hospitality Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive Summary
The report has helped in analysing the different kind of employee theft in the entire
hospitality industry. The different kinds of employee thefts have been identified in the hotel
industry wherein these have caused huge issues in the organization. The different kind of
recommendations has been analysed that has helped in understanding to reduce such issues in
an effectual manner.
The main aim and purpose of the report includes the different kind of issues related to
employee theft in the international hospitality industry. The different kind of employee thefts
has caused huge issues for the employers and the organization as well. Different kind of
issues has been sorted with the different decision-making strategies that has helped employer
in solving the issues effectively.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Employee Theft in Hotel industry..............................................................................................3
Causes of Employee Theft.........................................................................................................4
Different Motives behind Employee Theft................................................................................5
Types of employee theft in Hotel Industry................................................................................6
Best Practices adopted by International Hotels to prevent employee theft................................8
Practical Recommendations to manage employee theft effectively..........................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The report helps in understanding and analysing the problem of the employee theft in
the entire hotel industry. The discussion is required to be done on analysing the problem of
employee theft in different departments of the hospitality industry. The different kind of
underlying motivations has to be analysed that helps the employees in indulging in such
activities along with the types of employee theft in the hotels.
The main aim and purpose of the report is to identify the different kind of best
practices by the different international hotels as to prevent the employee theft. The
recommendations have to be provided in an effectual manner as this will help in managing
the employee theft effectually.
The structure of the report includes the analysis of the employee theft in the hotel
industry as this will help in understanding the issues and solve them in an effectual manner as
well. The different recommendations are required to be analysed as this will help in solving
such employee theft effectively.
Employee Theft in Hotel industry
Employee theft is one of the age-old problem in the entire hospitality industry that has
caused different kind of nuisances as well. The employee theft is the stealing of the use or the
misuse of the assets of the employers without any kind of legal or formal permission. Money
is one the common kind of assets that are stolen from the different kind of employers in the
hotels in all over the world. As per the United States Chamber of Commerce, more than 75%
of the employees steal different kind of essential materials from the workplace and they do
and perform it repeatedly.
The business of the entire hotel industry loses billion of dollars every year in the
employee theft and there are different kind of hotels wherein there are numerous

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opportunities for the theft by employees from the different guests and house as well. There
are different kind of reasons wherein the employee chooses to steal from the employers in the
hotels.
Causes of Employee Theft
Employee Theft is becoming a huge issue in the different sectors of the hospitality
industry. There are numerous reasons wherein the employee theft can take place and this can
create huge issues for the hotels as well. however, the reasons for the employee theft has to
be known wherein the hotels can take extra security measures as this will help in ensuring
that the hotels need to take extra measures as to reduce the issues related to employee theft in
the following manner:
Lack of the internal control is one of the causes of employee theft wherein there is
absence of the strong leadership skills (Lorinkova & Perry, 2017). It has been determined by
the study that has been performed by Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in the year
2010. The study of the Global Fraud has helped in understanding that more than 47% of the
employees has been prosecuted under the employee theft cases in different hotels (Bhatti et
al., 2015).
The other common cause of the employee theft is the opportunity wherein it can be
due to having different kind of businesses with high chance of theft or it can be either a
situation wherein stealing may take a little effort. There are few kinds of businesses that runs
high risk of giving the opportunity of the theft to the employees.
There are few businesses wherein the theft has been huge in nature, however there are
little security wherein the employees handle the different cash flows of the restaurants along
with other departments of the hotel industry as well.

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However, there are other kind of areas of opportunity that exist when the different
employees are under proper impression that the employer does not pay any kind of attention
towards the practices of accounting and bookkeeping. These are the cases wherein the
employees get the opportunity wherein the employee can perform the theft of the different
books of the accounts.
The employee theft can occur in different kind of departments in the various hotels as
the employee can perform such illegal activities mainly in the marketing, financial or human
resource department. The financial kind of activities that are performed by the employees are
related to handling different kind of transactions wherein they can misuse the same and enjoy
their personal preferences as well. However, the employers provide such kind of flexibility in
the departments in the hotel as for performing the different kind of business related activities
in an effectual manner.
Different Motives behind Employee Theft
There are different kind of employee motives behind the theft in the hotel wherein
there are different kind of stealing from the employer in different kind of hotels (Soomro,
Shah & Ahmed, 2016). The variety of the motives can lead to the employee who are stealing
from the different employers in various hotels. There are few common motives that include
being addicted to alcohol or the drugs, overwhelmed financially along with addicted to
gambling as well. There are different kind of instances wherein the employee suffers
financially and they decide to steal from the employer in the hotel industry as well (O'Brien
et al., 2017).
Regardless of the different kind of instances, there are different kind of instances
wherein the employees are entitled in their lives as they feel they are not getting the required
promotion or the incentives that are required to be gained by them. These are the

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consequences wherein they feel and they are entitled towards stealing practices from their
respective employers in the hotels. There are different kind of reasons wherein the employees
choose to steal from their employers that may or may not be pre-mediated.
For instance- There are different instances in the hotel industry wherein when the
employees handle the cash department, the employees can transfer the money from register of
cash into the pockets when they handle sales such as petty cash boxes and then keep the
difference at sale point. The other instances of the employee theft are wherein there is loss of
the inventory and the theft can take place in the distribution process of the merchandise. The
employees can take different items from different warehouses and this causes huge losses in
the entire market as well.
Sabotage is one of the employee theft that takes place in the entire hotel industry
wherein it can take different forms depending on the kind of business. In the
hospitality industry, the employees try to harm the entire business of the employer
rather than stealing cash as the form of the revenge (Marasi, Bennett & Budden,
2018). The usual causes of the sabotage of employees include the different attempt
that disrupts the company operations and damage the reputation of the company. The
employees perform sabotage when they feel that the employee has done wrong with
them and they want to take revenge against the employers (Hollenbeck & Jamieson,
2015)
The misuse of the different kind of assets in the hotels wherein this is different from
embezzlement, wherein the different employees are provided with the full right to use
the different resources for the office related activities. In such cases, the misuse of the
different office assets is the different kind of misuse for assets for their personal
usage. The employer of the hotels need to create boundaries for the different
employees for using the assets for their personal usage (Tomlinson, 2016).

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Types of employee theft in Hotel Industry
There are different kind of employee thefts that takes place in entire hospitality
industry that includes the following:
Intentional vs. Unintentional Employee theft is one of the kind of employee theft
wherein in the intentional kind of employee theft the employees intentionally perform such
illegal theft activities and practices in their workplace. The intentional kind of employee theft
is done by different kind of employees in the hotels wherein they steal different kind of cash
or merchandising items from their hotel in different departments (Jurkiewicz & Giacalone,
2016). This kind of intentional theft is illegal in nature and this can cause huge loss to the
business and this will cause issues for the employees as well as the employer of the company
can take legal actions against the employees
On the other hand, the unintentional kind of theft in the hotel industry takes place
when the employee theft is performed in the hotel against the property of the employers
without any kind of purpose or motive (Jurkiewicz & Giacalone, 2016). The unintentional
kind of employee theft can be ignored and it can be prevented in an easy manner by the
employer of the hotel by providing training to the employees and making them understand
that these are the different kind of illegal activities that has to be reduced in an effectual
manner by the employees. The employees are needed to understand that such kind of
activities will is illegal and these can lead to legal actions against them as well.
Tangible and intangible kind of employee theft are the other kind of employee theft
that can take place in the different hotels. The tangible kind of employee theft in the hotel
industry includes the different activities that are performed by employees by physically
removing an item from the company (Goh & Kong, 2016). There can be different kind of
instances wherein the employee in a company can be dismissed from the office due to

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wrongful dismissal and unfair dismissal as well. However, on the other hand, there can be
intangible kind of thefts that includes the transfer of the different financial transactions in an
electronic manner (Larkin & Pierce, 2015).
These are the different kind of employee thefts wherein there can be different kind of
issues that can be faced by the company along with the employer of the respective company.
The employee thefts have to be reduced by the hotels with the help of the employers as to
reduce the employee theft in an effectual manner (Harvey et al., 2014). The tangible kind of
employee theft can cause to wrongful dismissal and unfair dismissal of the employees from
the different kind of hotels. In order to understand such areas, this will help in understanding
the different kind of techniques and steps that will help in reducing such practices as to save
the business of the entire hotel effectually.
Best Practices adopted by International Hotels to prevent employee theft
There are different kind of precautionary measures taken by the different international
hotels as to prevent the employee theft. The employee theft can cause huge kind of issues and
problems for the entire company along with the employer (Moorthy et al., 2015). The
employer can be facing huge amount of losses due to the theft performed by the trustworthy
employees. However, on the other hand the employees can be punished legally for
performing such illegal activities. The different kind of best practices adopted by
International Hotels as to prevent the employee theft are as follows:
Proper employee screening is essential in nature in the hotel industry as this will help
the hotel industry to hire trustworthy employees and not hire a thief (Bowie, 2017).
Proper employee screening will help the employer of the hotel to understand and
analyse the criminal records of the company and this will help the company in hiring
proper employees for performing tasks in the company as well (Rupp et al., 2017).

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proper background of the employees has to be checked in such a manner that this will
help the employees in the hotel to get their jobs effectively (Willison, Warkentin &
Johnston, 2018)
The employees have to be known by the employer of the company in a proper and
accurate manner and if there is anything that is not apparent in nature, the employers
need to perform reference checks and understand the motives of the employees as
well. the proper supervision of the employees is required to be done by the company
in an effectual manner. The employer needs to keep a proper check on the different
performance of the employees as this will help in controlling the purchase orders and
control the cash receipts at regular intervals as well.
Installation of the computer security measures is the other preventive measure that can
be adopted by the company wherein this will help in track the business checks and
this will help in being beware of the different kind of accounts receivable as well.
Proper ways have to be provided in an effectual manner that will help the employer in
solving such issues and handle the issues effectively as well
Proper management of the inventory system and use the systems of security is
essential in nature wherein the company can understand the different motives of the
company and this will help the company in avoid such issues effectively as well.
when the employer will suspect any kind of issue, this will help the company in
handling the issues and solve it effectively (Kennedy & Benson, 2016)
Practical Recommendations to manage employee theft effectively
Therefore, it can be recommended that there are different kind of steps that can be
taken by the employer of the hotel as to reduce such issues in the entire hotel industry. The
employer needs to understand the different kind of motives of the employees in the entire
organization as this will help the hotels in managing the tasks effectively. The company

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needs to adopt the following strategies that will help them in overcoming such issues and
handle them in an effectual and accurate manner that can reduce such issues:
The hotels need to adopt proper screening of the different activities performed by the
employees as this will help in understanding their real motives and judge them
accordingly as well
Proper tracking of the business check is essential in nature as this will help the
employer of the hotel to understand the different security measures adopted by them
to handle such illegal practices and reduce them overall
Proper usage of the informal audits is essential in nature in the organizations as this
will help the employers to understand the motives of the employees and sudden audit
checks will help the company to understand the issues faced by them and reduce them
with dismissing such employees who perform illegal activities
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that employee theft is one the crucial issues in the
entire hospitality industry that has caused huge issues in the organizations. The issues have
been analysed and solved with proper implementation of strategies as well. the kind of
employee thefts has been described wherein the different recommendations has been
suggested that can help the organizations to reduce such issues with proper implementation of
different kind of strategies as well.

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References
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