Aggressively protecting residents from internal theft.

Few events are as dismaying to long-term care administrators as the theft of residents' valuables. However, methods of catching the perpetrator are improving.

Alice Smith, the administrator, was angry. She had just received the report of a third incident of theft from a resident's room this month. Mrs. Johnson's wristwatch had been stolen from her nightstand while she slept.

Mrs. Smith knew the loss of the watch would hurt this widow deeply. Every member of the staff had heard the story of Mrs. Johnson's gold watch -- a gift from her husband during the Great Depression.

The administrator felt a little guilty. She knew she should have been more insistent that Mrs. Johnson put the watch in the home's safe. But, Mrs. Johnson refused to part with it. Mrs. Smith wanted to know which of her employees took the watch. And, she wanted the watch returned to Mrs. Johnson.

The last time the nursing home experienced a problem with employee theft, Mrs. Smith had called the police. A polite young detective had come out and taken a report. The detective told Mrs. Smith he would get back to her in a couple of days. When a week had passed and the detective had not called, she called the detective. The detective said he had been tied-up investigating armed robberies and narcotics cases. He told Mrs. Smith, "Besides, you have too many suspects and no evidence."

A New Investigational Tool

Mrs. Smith decided to try a new investigative technique she had recently read about. She hoped this new technique would help her discover who stole the watch. This new tool was called a "loss questionnaire." She would start by administering it to each of the five employees who had access to Mrs. Johnson's room last night.

The loss questionnaire consisted of a standard series of questions about a theft under investigation. The questions are based on a fundamental hypothesis: A thief thinks differently about a theft he committed than an honest person does. The guilty employee will have measurably different opinions about that theft than will the employees who are innocent. Based on this, a "pattern of guilt" is sought by comparing a respondent's answers with those of workers who previously completed loss questionnaires about theft incidents in which they were involved. The basic question is, do the respondent's answers resemble the guilt pattern or the innocent pattern?

In the case of Mrs. Johnson's watch, four of the employees completed the loss questionnaire on their own by reading the questions to themselves and marking their answer sheets. The fifth employee did not read well, so a secretary read the questions to him and recorded his answers.

As soon as all loss questionnaires were completed, the administrator transmitted facsimile copies of the answer sheets for analysis by a computer. The computer provides not only quantitative scores, but flags important questions for the administrator to pursue in post-test interviews with suspects. This outline of questions he or she should ask is designed to give the administrator a feel for the guilt or innocence of the employee, and perhaps get the employee to admit to some knowledge of, or participation in, the theft. The aim is to allow the administrator to function as a professional interrogator without knowing the first thing about interrogation.

When the answer sheets were analyzed and the results returned to Mrs. Smith, the results indicated that three of the employees were above suspicion. A fourth employee, a nursing assistant named Frankie, could not be eliminated from suspicion immediately. Although she claimed in her responses to have a pretty good idea of who stole the watch, Mrs. Smith knew that Frankie had been having some financial problems. She wondered if Frankie's "suspicions" were in fact a smoke screen to divert attention from her own guilt.

In fact, however, a pattern of answers to the loss questionnaire strongly suggested that another nursing assistant, Paula, was the probable perpetrator. Before confronting Paula, though, the administrator wanted to interview Frankie to see if Frankie's suspicions were reasonable.

Two answers in particular had drawn the administrator's interest: Frankie had answered "Agree" to both of these statements:

(77) "One of the employees has been acting differently since this theft occurred."

(96) "I have a pretty good idea who committed this theft."

Frankie was initially reluctant to discuss her suspicions with the boss, and to Mrs. Smith it seemed clear that if she had not completed the questionnaire, she might never have acknowledged having any suspicions at all.

When drawn out, though, Frankie said that Paula had been acting extremely jumpy during the past two days -- almost as though she were the only one under suspicion. Paula had also said that she was planning to find another job soon. Frankie thought these reactions to the incident were unusually strong -- and so did the administrator, who knew that the other employees who had completed the loss questionnaire had described it as "no big deal."

Paula's responses on the questionnaire indicated that she had a strong need to project blame onto someone or something other than the perpetrator of the theft -- a common indicator of guilt. In Paula's case, she blamed the nursing home for "poor security." She also blamed the elderly resident for leaving her property lying around where "anyone" could have taken it.

Paula also scored poorly in a category of questions focusing on denial. She seemed compelled to go beyond merely denying that she had stolen the watch, and even agreed with this statement: "What the company thinks is stolen was just borrowed."

Paula had also shown unusual sympathy for the culprit, agreeing with this statement: "A good solution would be to transfer the person who did this theft into another job in the company (facility) where they wouldn't be handling anything valuable." Innocent employees can be harshly judgmental and seldom advocate allowing guilty co-workers to get off scot-free.

Sometimes employees who steal will betray themselves by their eagerness to scuttle the investigation. In Paula's case, she made the mistake of agreeing with this statement: "This investigation should be stopped because it is hurting employee morale."

Finally, a partial motive was suggested when Paula indicated disagreement with this statement: "I know this company (facility) really cares what happens to its employees."

Nevertheless, Mrs. Smith felt uncomfortable questioning Paula about stealing on the basis of this, and wanted more confirmation that Paula was really the perpetrator. She questioned Paula to see if she might admit to the theft. Paula vehemently denied stealing the watch.

The administrator decided to try another approach. She patiently explained how much the watch meant to its owner. The administrator knew that Mrs. Johnson's room had been searched twenty times by ten different people, but nevertheless concluded the interview by suggesting that Paula make one last search to see if she could find Mrs. Johnson's watch.

The next day when the administrator arrived at work, she noticed a small shiny object on her desk: Mrs. Johnson's watch. A short note accompanied the watch. The note said, "To whom it may concern: I hereby quit my job so I can go work at a place where they trust me. I looked again like you said and found this on the floor -- Paula."

The Psychology of Employee Theft

Most thefts in nursing homes are committed by employees who feel underpaid, overworked, and underappreciated. Under these circumstances, it is easy for an employee to rationalize theft. Stealing an institution's property rather than a resident's property is even easier to rationalize because of the impersonal nature of the ownership.

Had Mrs. Smith been using a good pre-employment honesty test, she might have learned beforehand that hiring Paula posed a security risk. (For more information on such tests, see "Testing for Honesty," this page). But, at the time she hired Paula, Mrs. Smith was unaware of the existence of pre-employment honesty tests and had always felt comfortable relying on her ability to judge the integrity of people seeking work in her nursing home.

Management can also have its own problem with denial. When theft occurs in any business, it is natural for the boss to deny its existence. No one wants to believe that an employee would steal from the institution or its residents. Believing that residents' property is actually misplaced or inventory has been miscounted causes less anxiety than believing that employees are stealing it. However, continuing to deny the existence of employee theft in the face of obvious evidence is dangerous.

Ignoring employee theft is like pouring gasoline on a fire. Dishonest employees come to believe management doesn't care. They feel that they have been given a green light to steal with impunity, so they steal more expensive items and steal them more often. As long as they are not stopped, they will continue to steal.

Promptly investigating every case of suspected employee theft sends the opposite message: Employee theft is wrong, unwelcome, and intolerable. Prompt investigation makes the culprit acutely uncomfortable. He or she may begin showing up late for work or not show up at all, or may suddenly quit without notice for no apparent reason, or perhaps betray a sense of guilt to co-workers by acting differently.

One of the many stereotypes that Hollywood has helped to create is of the thief as cunning, cool and confident. In reality, most thieves are cowardly, scared, and stupid. If pushed by an aggressive investigation and carefully framed questions, many -- though obviously not all -- will begin to display these traits.

Try it and see. And you thought the thieves got all the breaks!

TESTING FOR HONESTY

For administrators who are unfamiliar with the use of pre-employment honesty testing, there are several points to keep in mind:

First, you may notice that many of the questions in a typical test have to do with honesty in the retail environment. This is where, in fact, these tests have been used predominantly, and by and large they have been designed for this. This does not, however, preclude their relevance to the hiring of nursing home employees.

Second, unlike the earlier versions of such tests that focused strictly on honesty, today's tests offer a variety of other categories of information. For example, our company's VAQ test asks about not only honesty, but work history (does the applicant's record show a responsible, progressive pattern of employment during the past five years?); work attitudes (does the applicant have positive attitudes toward supervisors, co-workers, and the work ethic?); alcohol use (will the applicant's drinking, if any, interfere with work?); illegal drug use (to what extent has the applicant used such substances, now and in the recent past?); customer (or resident) service attitudes (does the applicant enjoy providing services to people, or is this seen primarily as a nuisance?); fundamental data (health problems? debt problems? gambling problems? criminal activity or other destructive behavior?).

A third, and by now obvious, consideration is validity of the applicant's responses. Most honesty tests disclose whether the applicant knows right from wrong. More desirable, of course, is that the applicant does what's right. An effective validity scale, used to interpret responses, should expose the applicant who is trying to "beat the test."

Finally, since hiring decisions should not be made by test scores alone, the better pre-employment honesty tests provide follow-up questions for hiring officials to ask during pre-employment interviews to help determine how serious the "wrong" answers are. For example, one of the VAQ questions inquires about participation in a serious undetected crime during the past seven years. Not everyone agrees on what's "serious." We have found that some of the younger applicants consider Halloween pranks to be "serious undetected crimes."

In conclusion, choosing a pre-employment honesty test from the variety that are available can be sort of like buying a car, but without the large initial investment. If you find a test you like, you can order the minimum quantity, try it and see how it works out. Does it fit into other facets of your applicant screening process? Are the results useful? Prompt? Definitive? You will find big differences in the instruments available, and you may have to try several before you find the one for your facility's situation.

James Bassett is president of the J.W. Bassett Co., a security consulting firm at 151 W. Fourth Street, Suite B, Cincinnati, OH 45202; [phone]. He is the originator of the Specific Loss Questionnaire and the V.A.Q. security pre-employment test using the concepts illustrated in this article.