No business can be successful without the right people: employees, managers, suppliers, and customers are essential to generating profits. However, they also present risk, as in these common scenarios:
- Employees can defraud a company, steal merchandise or intellectual property, or make expensive mistakes due to a lack of skill or preparation for the work.
- A new business partner may misrepresent their knowledge, business connections, or financial status.
- Customers might default on payments for goods that have already been delivered.
- Suppliers may fail to deliver goods crucial to the business’s operations.
- Bad actors could risk the company’s cybersecurity or harm the company’s brand using brandjacking or similar strategies.
Anticipating and mitigating these risks can save businesses money and protect them from reputational damage. Here’s how Private Investigators use their skill and expertise to help companies to avoid risk and recover from losses after the fact:
- Conducting background checks. Hiring new staff? Is there anything about them that could be problematic in the future? Private investigators are skilled at uncovering things people are trying to keep concealed. They will conduct a thorough search to find out if your prospective hire has a criminal record, a drug habit, unsavoury personal connections, or a checkered employment history. If you’re considering taking on a business partner, a Private Investigator will also research the businesses they’ve been involved with in the past, how stable they are financially, and what others in the industry think about them.
- Evaluating your security systems and testing your operations. Scanning your security setup can prevent problems from happening or diagnose what happened after the fact. Techniques such as the “secret shopper” may also uncover gaps in your operations that could lead to losses.
- Carrying out insurance investigations. When an employee is injured on the job, they’re entitled to take time off to recover. But what’s the best approach if they’re taking too long to get back to work? Workplace insurance fraud is a common problem that a Private Investigator can help with. They will find out if the employee is malingering, submitting false health-care claims, or working another job. Using investigative techniques such as surveillance, they will track them and record their movements and activities. A Private Investigations firm will provide you with the photographic and video evidence you need to stop the fraud in its tracks.
- Investigating fraud and theft. It’s not always easy to spot the misappropriation of goods or services that rightfully belong to your business. Bad actors have many ways of taking things from you and reselling them, including your intellectual property. Technology makes it that much easier to carry out theft or fraud undetected. You need to know exactly what happened so you can put a stop to it. With their surveillance skills and expertise in criminal activity, Private Investigators can get to the answers quickly.
- Looking into harassment, bullying, or other troubling worker behaviours. If you’re receiving complaints about a particular employee or group of employees, it may be hard for you to investigate yourself because they’ll be on their best behaviour when you’re nearby. Using their well-honed evidence-gathering techniques, a Private Investigator can dig into the situation more effectively and efficiently than you can on your own.
- Skip tracing. Has a key employee gone missing along with some of your important assets? Locating them is another task you may not be equipped to dive into and certainly don’t have time for. A Private Investigator can devote their entire day(s) to tracking and finding this person.
When it comes to avoiding risk, no procedure or process is perfect, and sometimes things fall through the cracks: the wrong person gets hired, a fraudulent supplier gets awarded a contract, or someone hacks into your delivery system and redirects a shipment. Hiring a Private Investigator will help you get the information you need to recover from any losses, restore faith in your operation, and instill confidence in your customers and your workforce.
In the Greater Toronto Area, your go-to Private Investigators are at Star Quality Private Investigations®. With over 20 years of proven success in the Investigations industry, we are intimately familiar with corporate and employee malfeasance in all its forms. All our investigators are former law-enforcement officers who bring their experience and expertise to bear on their roles. Star Quality Private Investigations® hires only the best of the best from this talent pool; you can rely on us to scan and correct any issues so you can focus on what you do best. Call us today to get more information about how we can help you protect your business.