Why You Should Never Give A Key To Your Office To An Employee

Stay in business long enough and you'll most likelylocal university. This particular individual was able to
develop friendships with some of your employees.begin and complete our jobs without much supervision.
Maybe not a close friendship but one that gives youHe had computer skills that others didn't have at the
and them a comfort zone that differs from when theytime, that enabled him to excel in areas were we
were first hired. As more trust is built or gained throughneeded more help. I agreed to his new schedule and
ongoing working relations, usually everyone lowers theirallowed him to come in at the end of the business day
guard a bit and begins to settle into a ?workingand work till late evening. BIG MISTAKE!
relationship?.Shortly thereafter I noticed his production began to
It's not an uncommon practice or unusual expectationdrop off. For some strange reason his progress
to offer a key to your Office Manager or a keydiminished and jobs began to become incomplete.
personal assistant (no pun intended). In fact, I've found itWhen I approached him his response was, ?I had
to be quite normal that ranking personnel have accesshomework?. (Call it a clue when your employee offers
to certain files and other business trade secrets thatup 'homework' as an excuse for not finishing their job).
are not available to each and every colleague. ThatI strongly suggest he communicate with me if these
doesn't mean they know every asset of the companymatters were to continue keeping him from completing
and have access to all things. However an implied trustthe tasks. He agreed but things didn't change.
is given and whatever they learn, is to spur on theI returned to work one Monday morning in January to
company's business and enable them to do the bestfind none of the scheduled work was completed. Not
job for you as their employer.one job had even been started! I decided that was it,
If you as an employer do not have certain ?fail safe?enough was enough and it was time to let him go and
tactics in place you are setting yourself up for a hardmove on. When he arrived later that afternoon I
lesson. I'm suggesting its not ?if? but only a matter ofexpressed my disappointment and fired him! Upon
time before someone takes an undue advantage ofretrieving the office key, he flipped it to me as if to say
their position. I would agree most are minor and don't? ?so what?!
require firing, let alone a lawsuit. However, you wouldA few days later one of my other employees
be wise to install certain procedures that allow you toinformed me he was competing with me and calling
check up on your employees.our customers. Calling them and offering to do their
It's a good practice to call into your office and pose ascontract work at one-third of the normal price! This
a potential customer (or existing customer) and askwas a moment of utter aggravation!!
questions about your products and/or services. MonitorI later learned he had helped himself to ALL of our
calls if you have a phone system that allows you toproprietary software (software that had been
do such a thing and grade your employee'sdeveloped over nearly a decade) along with copying
performances and critique their customer service calls.our entire customer database! This my friends is a
You will learn a great deal as to how your ?real?whole other story and would require many pages of
customers are being handled and glean goodwriting to inform you of all that happened over a total
information in the area of employee conduct.of 11 years!! That's right, eleven years of litigation.
I'm writing from experience. I had given extra liberties toA long story short ? My Company secured over a
one of my employees, including supplying a key to the$650,000.00 judgment, that grew into more than 1
office. He had asked me if he could work nights due toMILLION over the years! We sued and we won!! It
he wanted to finish up some college classes at ourwas an expensive key!!!