My fellow entrepreneurs,
I own a cannabis retail business and I'm facing a tough decision.
Two of my employees, one being a manager, have been falsifying sales data to earn a performance bonus. They're manipulating the numbers and undermining their coworkers' efforts.
The performance bonus in question is a monthly incentive for the employee with the highest average sale. By falsifying sales data, they're not only cheating the business, but also depriving their coworkers of their opportunity to earn the bonus.
We began offering the bonus this month, and these two clearly decided to work together to cheat immediately. They've been doing it so blatantly that it's been obvious to me and my other employees based on the sales data alone. But today they showed me clear evidence from our surveillance footage.
Here's the twist:
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The manager involved has a key, alarm code access, and performs inventory counts
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I'm now concerned about what else he might be doing wrong, given his level of access
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Their coworkers are unhappy and morale is suffering
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The employees involved are otherwise excellent performers, well-liked by customers, and very reliable
My concerns:
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Inventory discrepancies
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Unauthorized access or tampering with security systems
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Potential diversion of product
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Compromised compliance
I'm struggling with:
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Terminating valuable employees for their misconduct
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Addressing the toxic environment created by their actions
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Ensuring fairness and integrity in our performance-based bonus program
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Potential security and compliance risks
Options I'm considering:
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Immediate termination for cause (especially for the manager)
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Suspension and mandatory ethics training
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Performance improvement plan with close monitoring
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Auditing inventory and security protocols
I haven't confronted the employees yet. What would you do in this situation?
TL;DR: Top-performing cannabis retail employees (incl. manager) caught falsifying sales data for bonus. Manager's access raises security concerns. Help!
Caught employees falsifying sales data in cannabis retail – How to handle?
byu/unclemike22 inEntrepreneur
Posted by unclemike22
21 Comments
I am really sorry to hear that you are dealing with this. But I don’t think you can do anything but fire them. I would have it carefully planned out since the manager has keys, passwords. But this isn’t the first time they have stolen. This is the first time they got caught.
Off with their heads!
But really, these are not “valuable” employees. Morale is a powerful thing and you admit it yourself that it is bringing people down. Your employees deserve a fair working environment. These bad eggs need to go before they spoil the entire crew rotten.
If they’re not honest then they weren’t valuable employees to begin with. You need to surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth regardless of how bad it gets. Don’t be one of those guys who sticks with bad friends just because they’ve been around for so long, eventually you’ll lose your frame of reference on what is good and bad as well and start wondering why you’re still suffering even after all those meetings.
I’m going to be honest, I don’t have any management or ownership experience so please take what I say with a grain of salt, but this is definitely a fireable offense, in my opinion. What makes them valuable? Are they truly irreplaceable?
In my experience keeping those people around is going to continue to harm the work environment. You listed the risks to keeping these employees, but what are the benefits? I feel like at the very least you have suspend them, if you don’t either no one will take you seriously, or everyone is going to think your picking favorites.. and nobody likes to work an environment that feels like that
Undermining the efforts of another is a whole different story. You seriously need to have a talk about morals with them. I’d give them one more chance if they understand exactly why what they’ve done is such a negative thing. If they take the route of apologizing to their mates and showing they’re serious about their future and the future of the company then they stay. If they still have an attitude that screams that they don’t care about their own future or the future of those around them let them go.
I don’t see the question here. You have to step up, fire them both and fill the void until you can backfill.
It sucks but if you don’t then you will always have this same problem because staff will think they can get away with it
Trust has been broken and they have shown who they really are. Unfortunately they do not seem to be a good employee. Time to go
You need to be changing passwords, codes, and keys right now.
You need to document everything you found and you should probably be talking to a lawyer. Not only is this a fireable offense this is theft.
You need to let them go immediately. If it were me I would just say sorry this isn’t working we are letting you go and not provide any details beyond that.
Under no circumstances are thieves valuable employees, particularly in any kind of retail setting.
When people show you who they are believe them. Terminate and never look back.
Hire a fractional HR consultant and do whatever they tell you. It will be the best decision you’ve made all year.
You need to fire them both. As for morale and the other employees, if you can swing it, consider giving them all a mini-bonus as they were affected by the scam. This makes them feel that you are all a team against the corrupt individuals and helps unify the employees during a time of transition.
When you have cancer, you need to cut it out at all costs. As quickly, Feely and efficiently as possible.
I think deep down you know what needs to be done.
> Suspension and mandatory ethics training
hahahaha
1. Fire them.
2. Don’t make stupid bonus structures that encourage cheating.
Suspend both employees immediately, unpaid. Take their keys, change the security codes, ask your provider for logs on any outside of the normal security activity. Hire someone to help with an internal inventory audit. Depending on the size of your shop, it shouldn’t take longer than a night. Have your bookkeeper audit your books.
Once you finish your investigation, terminate them both for unethical behavior. It’s better to suspend people during investigations, because they still think they are employed, they may also be more open to provide you with more information if they think it will save their job.
If they’re impacting overall culture, that reflects poorly on you, and good employees will leave due to poor management.
Nah, terminate their ass. If you’re missing inventory and that finds its way to the state? You may lose your cannabis license. Not worth it, fire them and hire new people.
Firing them is the easy choice. I’d look into it in case there’s any legal action you can take. They’re practically stealing money from you.
You instituted a policy of internal competition and now your work place culture went to shit? Gasp!!! How did that happen?
Guess there is only one thing to do – weed them out.
I’ll show myself out.
Been through this and went through the mental hoops you are.
From experience, you just need to change codes and systems and terminate them immediately. Call the locksmith.
It’s unfortunate, but you have too much on the line and other people and employees to consider.