Office supply theft is unfortunately very common. It can account for the loss of a lot of money from your company over the course of a year. It is something that you will want to stamp out if you are serious about saving money. Here are a few tips that will help you do just that.
It is frequently the case that employees help themselves to supplies without even considering that it is a form of theft. It is important that you make it clear to your team members that helping themselves to office supplies is not a perk of the job. Let them know that you will consider it theft if people are caught taking these supplies home with them.
If you have a large quantity of supplies in your office it is a lot harder to keep track of them. It also gives people the idea that you have plenty to spare. It is understandable that you want to order these items in bulk because this is how you get the best savings. The best way of dealing with things then is to not make the full order available to your office employees. Keep these items locked away somewhere and never supply more than a week's worth at a time. This will make it a lot easier to keep track of things.
Don't allow your employees to order personal stationary with your order for supplies. It just confuses everything, and people forget to pay back the money they owe to the company.
Put one member of your team in charge of your office supplies. It will be there responsibility to ensure that these items are being used correctly. It is a good idea if they do a regular audit of stationary stock; this will also help them when it comes to ordering.
Don't allow every member of your team to order office stock as they see fit. This just leaves the door open for abuse and confusion. Provide a notebook where people can write down anything they feel is needed, but leave the responsibility to actually ordering to just one person.
Keep an eye on the amount of supplies that are being used each month. If you are suddenly using a lot more than in the past, you will want to know why this is occurring.
Remember office supplies can be a very high expense in the modern office so it is very important that you take good care of them.
James T Lees writes for and on behalf of Evolving Office. They are specialists in supplying Cheap Office Supplies through their website.