If you are the owner of a company, what will you do?

If I am the owner of the company of course I will file the employee a legal case against him and no second thoughts of terminating him especially if I have evidences already to show that he have stolen. I could somewhat relate to that issue. I have a friend before who became my boss last year so he owns the company. He has his 3 partners so they are 4 in all. Though I haven't meet the account manager so they are only 3 partners that are coming inside the office. He was able to build the high risk business which is the magazine publishing but he lacks finances which indeed I was informed too late after two months of working with them without pay. When I am asking for the payment they are not responding by the time I am needing it. So what I did was to lock all his things inside the cabinet, his laptop, telephone and I just want to give him a threat that all his things are on my hands already and I am going to sell it. Though I have no intentions of getting all of his things because all of them are TOTALLY CRAP! which are useless already. So my boss is insisting that I have this plan to stole his things though the truth is I am not going to do that. I just want to scare him. Even his partner that is an incompetent and a lousy vice president of the company is insisting that I want to stole the things. But guess what? My boss have stolen the CPU of the other partner with the connivance of this vice president. He did that because he needs to pay for the bills of the company. The investor was surprise that his CPU is gone and they fought about it. It was not given the solution. The investor wants to file him a case but unfortunately it was not winnable because there was no witness when he did that grievance. But now I was able to ask my boss for the payment of the obligations that I have done for him by the time that I told him about sending him demand letter. His payment is not yet completed but hopefully he will accomplished it by end of this month.

bingskee, I believe this is the reason for the emergence of Human Resource Management over Human Relations which includes more than mere staff employment and dismissal but arbitration in accord with the law, and with the company's directives. As such HR function will process recruitment and selection policies, disciplinary procedures, reward or recognition policies. Also, an HR plan includes learning and development policies where all these functional areas of HRM need to be aligned and correlated, in order to correspond with the overall business strategy. So, you can see that how a good HRM could help a company progress and encourage trustworthiness of all working staffs within. I can understand that small and medium size companies may not have a HRM to assist them but it does not excuse business owners from undermining essential Human Relations principles for their employees. A lot of times, an employee would not be looking forward to flout the law and/or betray the company if they had not been neglected or mistreated in their employment and company. So, I have to say that the fault does not fully lie on the staff in question but the company as well. As for your post here, I would simply put it that the problem will be reduced when the company had bothered with the basics of hiring a staff starting with checking their credentials and bothered with their worked related performances or histories. A lot of time, companies have taken the unethical shortcut and compromise - hiring the wrong staff at the end of the day. About company espionage, I believe as a company owner he/she will have to evaluate the level of seriousness and see if it is criminal or not. Many times, companies have overlooked the need of a comprehensive employment contract which clearly spell out clauses that can protect the company and eventually deal with the situation when it arises. Other than, prosecuting the staff responsible, I believe companies will need to be mindful of damage control and recovery as first priority. Terminating is eventual but still there are more important things to take care.

if I were the owner of a company and found that someone had stolen, and has been stealing for a while, I would not give any second chances. That person would be terminated once I had sufficient evidence to prove that this was true. It's not fair for this to happen because so many employees, as well as owners, put their hard work into making a company what it is. If it's a company that treats their employees fairly that is. There are also companies that don't care about their employees and treat them as things that can be replaced, but they still may have higher level employees that they trust and treat well. Stealing can never be justified, but I think that if an employer treats their employees bad, they have to expect that things like this will happen. I doubt that an employer who trusts an employee will treat them badly though, because they need them. I would trust people if they show that they can be trusted. For new employees, I wouldn't give them my full trust because you can never trust someone you've just met. I would have to get to know them for a while and see that they are loyal before I can trust them. I guess my logic would be "expect the best but prepare for the worst" with new employees. I wouldn't have sympathy for a thief though. I have very strong morals when it comes to stealing. If I visit a person's house and see even a penny, I don't believe I have a right to touch it or take it with me. If it doesn't belong to me then I can't take it, and I expect the same courtesy from other people.

I have seen some such cases.In these cases the owner was able to salvage money to an extent.Later the employee was removed from service.It shows that the owner isn't a good judge of a person's ability and character.I will definitely terminate his service and put a black mark on his name so others are aware of his actions.

Dear Ms Bingskee Well, over the 16 years of my associations with firms and businesses, I have found that there are two disctinct categories of business houses(may not be on theory, but it is my perception) - A shrewd business - who cares only about Money, Reaching and Top and staying there no matter what the cost, and a Common Man Business - these are normally not that successful as they are not business oriented, they are more people friendly and normally stay out of the race to be at the top. For the first category - Employees - at any level are unimportant - they always believe money, perks, facilities (an a large population) etc can always help in case they sack out anyone - No personal relations, just and only pure Profession. The second category - they normally have trusted people or people they think they trust. Minor loopholes if exploited and less damage if caused, they still believe in giving a few more chances - though this is subjective and at times, they have to say NO More. That said, I would too do the same as you if s/he was guilty - maybe only ask him/her to resign and let go of the thing. Reason is not that we are shrewd but we have a family to support and our plans can get wrong and dumped because of such things. Again, when there is no faith and trust left in any relationship, I dont consider it wise to keep pulling it all along... it starts to rot and spread many discomforts.

Hi bingskee, As the owner of the company, I would investigate thoroughly. As soon as I find the proof that the employee was or has stolen from the company, not only would the employee be terminated but prosecuted legally/criminally as well. I would have no problem in doing so and not a second thought would cross my mind. The way I see it is, that the employee was stealing not I and or the company. I would also want to make sure that any other employee with even the contemplation of attempting to steal would learn from this valuable lesson. I was a company owner and was affected in this way, badly too. I did not loose any reputation from it from the other investors because I took affirmative action and made sure the person was fully investigated and prosecuted. Had I not done anything then it later was to be discovered than I think my reputation would have been at stake. Not doing anything at all and just terminating the employee leads to later having to cover it up and potentially the employee doing it to someone else, whom I might someday have to give a reference for.