Interviews

Business time

by msecadm4921

Running a business in your company’s time is good business for you – but not so for the employer, David Kearns, pictured, MD of Expert Investigations writes.

 

 

The economic crisis sees employers within the commercial sector use the facilities of surveillance and computer data retrieval to gather evidence concerning employees running a business, or assisting a spouse or partners business in their employers company time. These activities existed prior to the credit crunch but now become exposed as the climate changes.

 

Once suspicion is aroused of their activity there is a very valuable benefit in conducting a covert investigation whilst they are still running that business. Allowing all evidence to be gathered lawfully without giving the employee the opportunity to ‘cover their tracks’ or close down or move their operations is vital.

It is not uncommon to find that the employees business is very closely related to job for which they are employed, such as a consultancy service, or printed services or a maintenance engineer. These employees are exposed in both the public and private sector.

 

The costs to business can be considerable and can be in loss of productivity, loss of clients’ to that employees own business but even costs for theft of product, if they are stealing their employers products / materials, or utilities. Computer data retrieval is done without the knowledge of the employee and even deleted data can reveal the extent of activities when retrieved from documents, emails and website usage. Employees may be downloading employer’s data for their use or building databases in the employers’ time. This retrieval allows for primary evidence to be gathered for use in discipline actions.

 

Surveillance, in the form of following the employee or placing a covert tracking device on their vehicle will give evidence of the time spent on the employers work and time spent on their own. Including delivery drivers making private deliveries, sales staff taking appointments and selling their product at the employer’s expense and engineers working on their own projects. The value of a surveillance team allows the officers to adapt to the events that they see unfolding in front of them, allowing for all of the evidence to be gathered at that point in time and this reduces the difficulty in retrospectively trying to secure that evidence later.  

 

In this current climate employers need to be very aware of unwarranted issues in their workplace as increased personal and private demands that effect employees directly may force them to increase their own business capabilities while neglecting those of their employer and by being hugely less productive that they should be. 

 

About Expert Investigations 

 

Expert Investigations are a commercial Detective Investigation Agency with head office in Coventry and with offices in London and Birmingham. The company specialise in investigating workplace issues of dishonest employees, including investigation of theft and fraud, false absenteeism, fraudulent claims and employment issues such as breach of contract and dealing with allegations of harassment in the workplace. Having started the business from home MD David Kearns has expanded in the company’s 13 years.

 

He has been able to expand his team to 22 former police officers (plus 16 military officers) by employing staff recently made redundant from the police. He recently increased his fraud investigation team with two former West Midlands Police Officers and two civilian staff, as well as three part time surveillance officers from Warwickshire, with another soon to join.

 

Email: [email protected]

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