Co-op’s ‘unknown leakage’ costs £1.4m in one year

THE Channel Islands Co-operative Society lost more than £1.4m. in ‘unknown leakage’ in the year to 11 January 2009.
The sum includes between £425,000 and £560,000 estimated to have disappeared through theft by staff annually.
The figures were quoted at an Employment and Discrimination Tribunal at which a former employee, Damien Ormrod, unsuccessfully claimed he had been unfairly dismissed.
CI Co-op chief executive Jim Hopley (pictured) said that while the figures might seem ‘horrific’, they were well within industry standards for a company that had a turnover of £142m. in its food retail business last year.
‘The standard for the industry is between 1.5% and 2% but our figure is about 1% and slightly less in Guernsey,’ he said.
‘Some shrinkage can be identified, goods being sold cheap because they are near their sell-by date or items that are damaged and can’t be sold,’ he said. ‘But then you have your unknown leakage.’
That could be theft by customers or staff, differences between what is delivered and what is invoiced by the supply base or administration errors.
The loss to staff members was based only on the percentage of the total figure that the industry estimates it should be and there was no hard evidence to support the figures.(from thisisguernsey)

A possible £500,000 being "Stolen" by staff, that's frightening, and a sad statement if its not true, seems hard to believe that such a figure being accepted as a standard industry norm....

maybe thats why the prices keep going up.i guess somebody has to pay for the theiving gits

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm don't think I'd like to work for a firm who had me marked down as a 'potential' thief!

karma wrote:Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm don't think I'd like to work for a firm who had me marked down as a 'potential' thief!

Fact of life Karma, most thefts/frauds are done by employees. Hence whistleblowing legislation and clauses in legislation to protect those who report theft by colleagues.

Age has it's benefits - I no longer have to join the workforce!!!!

Karma,
The vast, vast majority of our workforce are totally honest. They are also our best asset - and they know we think that because we tell them. Similarly the vast majority of our customers are not shop lifters. However both employees and shoppers are human beings and a very small percentage are dishonest. We gave those figures to the unfair dismissal tribunal because they needed to know why we took the subject of leakage so seriously. As Jim Hopley said our record is much better than the industry average but the sums still soon add up across a significant business. As a "not for profit" business where the shoppers own the shops it is the honest customers/members who lose out if others are allowed to get away it. Like you I cringed when I saw the spin the Press put on it as it could be construed as meaning we think that many of out staff are crooks. Be assured that we dont.