There you are lying under a palm tree with your favorite drink in your hand. The sun is shining; a cool breeze is blowing, your feet are in the sand and your eyes are on the sparkling blue water ahead. Aaah, paradise...a chance to relax at last!
No matter how much you love your job and feel passionate about what you do; most of us would rather be in paradise than at work. But there are some....
There are employees out there, often labeled the "best" you could imagine, who never take vacation. You know who they are:
- First one into work
- Last one to leave
- Unable to take time off (seemingly don't want to
leave you in a lurch!)
- Willing to "do it all"
- Unwilling to cross train or give responsibilities
to others Sound like a dream employee? They could become your worst nightmare.
Consider one of my clients. This professional described "Jill" as the perfect employee. In fact, Jill was the "mom" of the office. She managed all the daily operations of the office. My client loved her. His own clients loved her. But she worked so much. In 15 years, she had never taken a full week's vacation. In fact, my client couldn't remember a recent day that she had taken off of work (not even sick leave). He hired several assistants for her; but they never seemed to work out.....
Jill was unable to work because of a major illness. Her absence resulted in the discovery of unpaid payroll taxes (she diverted money to herself instead). My client faces an unrecoverable loss estimated in the mid six-figure range.
The majority of the frauds I investigate involve employees just like these - well liked and diligent. Hard workers who don't want to burden anyone else with their responsibilities, so they don't cross-train and they rarely ask for help. They are always the person you would last suspect would ever breach your trust.
When implementing internal accounting controls in your organization, don't forget to make vacation one of them. Every key accounting employee should be required to cross-train others on significant accounting duties, and they need to be required to take at least one week of mandatory vacation annually. Knowing that they will have to train someone else on their job, and that they will be required to be away from the office, can be enough to deter someone who might otherwise commit a fraudulent scheme from doing so.
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