Test honesty of your staff? $50 temptation?
Home > Media > Embezzlement Blog > Test honesty of your staff? $50 temptation?What You'll Learn
- Why the popular trick of secretly slipping an extra $50 into the cash drawer to catch a dishonest employee is fatally flawed, since a thief who notices and returns it can turn that $50 into an 'investment' that pays back hundreds of times over in future stealing opportunities.
- The behavioral red flag Prosperident calls a 'conspicuous display of honesty' — an employee who makes a show of returning found money — which should raise suspicion rather than reassure a dentist, since genuinely honest people don't feel a need to prove their honesty.
- Why the $50 test can only ever give you useful information in one direction: if the money disappears you've confirmed a problem, but if it's returned you've actually learned nothing about the employee's real character.
- Prosperident's recommended alternative of pre-employment background screening that vets a candidate before they ever get access to the practice's finances, instead of relying on after-the-fact honesty gimmicks.
Test honesty of your staff? $50 temptation?
I have seen a few people advocate dentists setting up a plan to test honesty of their front desk staff. Normally this involves the dentist surreptitiously slipping an extra $50 into the cash drawer to see what happens to it. The theory is simple; if the person handling the cash brings the overage to the doctor, they are honest, and if they don’t, they aren’t – a way to test honesty.
This test suffers from a basic flaw — the inventor understood the thought process of honest people far better than he or she understood thieves.
Test honesty – what will you learn?
If I were working at your front desk and noticed an extra $50 in the cash drawer (and I would notice because thieves almost always have excellent control over cash), the question I would ask myself is what the best way to “invest” the errant $50 would be. Whether I would recognize that I was being tested or not, I would realize that returning this money to you would convince you of my honesty, which will dramatically increase my opportunities for stealing.
Therefore, my “investment” of giving you back the $50 would probably be returned to me hundreds of times. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find an occasional thief simply returning a small portion of what they have stolen from you as a “cash overage,” with exactly the same effect.
I’ll also make a basic observation about human nature. In general, honest people do not feel a need to tell you how honest they are, and what we call “conspicuous displays of honesty” are a red flag, whether you are observing the behavior of a staff member or buying a car.
So I agree that if you sneak $50 into the cash drawer and it disappears, you have a problem, but in the situation where the $50 is returned, I think that you learned absolutely nothing.
Have questions about your practice? Click the button below
Want to Know Who You're Really Hiring?
Prosperident's pre-employment screening goes beyond a resume check to give you a complete picture of a candidate's background—before they have access to your finances.
Concerned about embezzlement in your practice?
Prosperident is dentistry’s embezzlement expert. Talk to us confidentially — there’s no obligation.
I have seen a few people advocate dentists setting up a plan to test honesty of their front desk staff. Normally this involves the dentist surreptitiously slipping an extra $50 into the cash drawer to see what happens to it. The theory is simple; if the person handling the cash brings the overage to the doctor, they are honest, and if they don’t, they aren’t – a way to test honesty.
This test suffers from a basic flaw — the inventor understood the thought process of honest people far better than he or she understood thieves.
Test honesty – what will you learn?
If I were working at your front desk and noticed an extra $50 in the cash drawer (and I would notice because thieves almost always have excellent control over cash), the question I would ask myself is what the best way to “invest” the errant $50 would be. Whether I would recognize that I was being tested or not, I would realize that returning this money to you would convince you of my honesty, which will dramatically increase my opportunities for stealing.
Therefore, my “investment” of giving you back the $50 would probably be returned to me hundreds of times. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find an occasional thief simply returning a small portion of what they have stolen from you as a “cash overage,” with exactly the same effect.
I’ll also make a basic observation about human nature. In general, honest people do not feel a need to tell you how honest they are, and what we call “conspicuous displays of honesty” are a red flag, whether you are observing the behavior of a staff member or buying a car.
So I agree that if you sneak $50 into the cash drawer and it disappears, you have a problem, but in the situation where the $50 is returned, I think that you learned absolutely nothing.
Have questions about your practice? Click the button below
Want to Know Who You're Really Hiring?
Prosperident's pre-employment screening goes beyond a resume check to give you a complete picture of a candidate's background—before they have access to your finances.
About the author
David Harris
Forensic CPA, CFE, CFF, FIADFE — Chief Executive Officer, Prosperident
David Harris is the Chief Executive Officer of Prosperident, the world's largest dental embezzlement investigation firm. A Forensic CPA, Certified Fraud Examiner, and Certified in Financial Forensics, he has led investigations into financial crime in dental practices since 1989 and speaks regularly to dental audiences across North America on detecting and preventing embezzlement.
Book a consultation with David ›