By Will Sherman

Are you sure that your company's supplies are safe from being stolen? Are you puzzled by unexplained revenue loss and monthly supply shrinkage? Are your balances just not adding up?

It's time to consider the possibility of employee theft. Along with business owners everywhere, you should beware of this growing threat. Indeed, what you don't know could cost you lots of money.

That's because employee theft is a major problem today. While many business leaders allow this mysterious cause of revenue loss to continue, an increasing number are getting wise to the fact that workforce theft is damaging their profits significantly.

Fortunately, there are solid ways to combat employee theft. By engaging in reliable employee screening, administering polygraph lie detector tests and enforcing a strict termination policy for thieves within the workforce, employers like you can gain the upper hand.

But how, exactly, do these techniques actually stop your employees from stealing?

First of all, a reliable pre-screening of job applicants can weed out thieves who might otherwise clear the employee background check. This is due to the fact that many employees who steal don't ever get caught or prosecuted. While a thief's criminal record may be clean, his or her response to a pre-screen can often yield a much different result.

Furthermore, a polygraph lie detector test is able to deliver a highly accurate score, which helps when investigating a particular case of theft. If followed through with a no-exceptions firing policy, an employer can effectively get rid of thieves while setting an example for others in the workforce.

The best feature of these methods, however, is their affordability. Not only do they salvage huge losses in revenue, but they actually cost less than the more conventional employee theft prevention options. For instance, an accurate pre-screening is much cheaper than a background check and often can rule out the need to spend extra money on one.

So if you think you might have a problem with employee theft, consider joining the large number of employers who have found that pre-screening job applicants is a truly cost-effective way to protect their inventories as well as their profits.