Tuesday's Business Brown Bag Lunch and Learn - how to reduce employee theft

The Business Quick-Start Lunch and Learn group at City Hall

The free business start-up lunch-time seminar on Tuesday, November 30, will have a guest speaker who is an expert in loss prevention. 

At the Tuesday session he will discuss "Tips for Avoiding the 'Hidden' Expense: How to Reduce/Eliminate Employee Theft – Beyond Pens and Pencils."

Anyone can participate. The sessions are aimed at people who are starting businesses. 

They are held from 12:00 - 1:30 pm Tuesday at Shoreline City Hall, 17500 Midvale Ave N, Shoreline 98133. There is no charge thanks to sponsors, but participants should bring their own lunch.

Are you concerned about employee theft? You have good reason. Bankers, financial consultants and assistant district attorneys agree that internal employee theft or embezzlement is an increasingly frequent and costly problem facing today's small business community. Employees helping themselves to company funds cost U.S. businesses about $550 billion annually, according to a recent report from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. The report also revealed that more than 46 percent of all workplace fraud happens to small businesses with fewer than 100 employees.


The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that employee theft is growing by as much as 15 percent each year. One-third of all business bankruptcies are due to employee theft, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The average business loses 6 percent of its annual revenue to fraud and abuses by employees, according to the American Management Association.

The reason why small businesses are so vulnerable is that many don't have adequate internal controls. Join us for an informative session where you will learn:

• The importance of having a loss prevention policy
• Theft Statistics
• Why Employees steal
• How to prevent customer and employee theft
• Training employees on theft prevention
• Policies recommended to be put in place
• How cameras can be effective...or not
• How to recover hidden dollars on customers who shoplift or who have passed a bad check

Speaker Doug Rector

Founder of Northwest Loss Prevention Consultants, Doug Rector has over fifteen years in the retail field of loss prevention. Doug started Northwest Loss Prevention to help smaller businesses that didn't have a loss prevention department recognize the need of “proactive” loss prevention (prevent loss before it occurs). Along with consulting small businesses in the area of loss prevention, NWLPC also offers mystery shopping services, and has just added pre-employment background checks. Doug has recently completed the Private Investigation Certificate program at the University of Washington and he is licensed by the state of Washington as a Private Investigator. Doug also teaches mystery shopping classes at Renton Technical College in Renton, WA and is an active member of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Business Network International (BNI), the Oregon and Washington Restaurant Association and the Washington Association of Legal Investigators (WALI).

This event will be facilitated by Sandy Bjorgen of Improv-able Results.

For more information about the Brown-Bag Lunch and Learn sessions, visit the City website or contact

Mark McVeety, Director, Small Business Accelerator, Shoreline Community College at 206-533-6647,

Check the Community Calendar  to confirm workshops, study groups and special events. A list of scheduled sessions is available in our previous article on the topic.