If you indeed know for a fact that the benchie is stealing, and not that the sales associate has a personal vendetta against him/her, it will be up to you to create a system by which you can track the parts removed. If you ignore the problem, it may grow. A confrontation will be ugly, and should be avoided. Having the jeweller leave all discarded items and scrap in each job envelope can be a great solution to the problem, especially if a "customer" were to call looking for the missing scrap and it no longer existed in-store. Blame loss, not theft, and subscribe to the new method to avoid future embarrassment.

You’ve done a good job of laying out the premise and your side of the situation. The first question I have is “What is the bench jeweler’s motive.” Money jumps to the top of the list. But is money really just the result of his actions and not the underlying issue? Consider some alternate scenarios: 1. You don’t have a clearly defined policy for handling scrap so human nature takes its course. 2. He was taught that unless told otherwise, repair scrap belongs to the man that creates it. 3. Scrap created by bench repairs is his reward for a job well done. 4. The scrap is coming from jewelry that is paid for and not from the store owner. Since the jewelry owner has no use for it and the value is miniscule, it stays on the bench as scrap to be recycled as ‘Krazy Money.’ The second question is “What is the factual proof that this is happening and how does the sales associate know its happening?” Is the jeweler bragging about it? Was the jeweler ‘caught’ in the act? Was there a scrap incident with a customer that has been kept from you? Is there bad blood between the jeweler and the sales associate? What to do? Guide, direct, manage, and train the bench jeweler to adopt your business processes and procedures. Do this as a leader, not an accuser; the bench jeweler is an asset to your store and you want him on your side. Depending on the answer to question two, find a personal way to create a clear understanding of company goals and policies with each employee. And good luck.

John2007--This situation is one that used to happen all the time in our FL store. We've never had a jeweler who didn't take the scrap. It's like working for a fortune 500 company and bringing home $5 USB's, paper clips, printer paper...It's things that are so minor that most business owners like myself feel this is just the cost of doing business and need to keep an eye on more important things like: Is the jeweler doing the work on time? Are his/her finished products done well and with accuracy? So, what would you do? If you really wanted to solve this situation...my answer would be to ignore it which many may not understand why I say that...What policy besides having them put the scrap back in the envelope and then having to go through each repair and take it out. I find this to take too much of my time and more costly in the end..."Time is Money." Motive---you did a fabulous job of explaining some scenarios. The proof is that you know you have X amount of repairs done each week based on your log book or based on you checking that each repair is done right and lobsters, o-rings, end caps, etc are not in a box on his/her bench and not in the envelope. John, Do you have any set policies in your store of how to handle this?

Neither! There is no place for a dishonest employee. Our industry was built on honest people concluding business with a handshake. If they steal a little now, they will certainly steal more later!

This is a common problem for a wide variety of retailers and the soloutions are best handled by loss prevention specialists. There are several red flags here. 1) The owner admits that there is not enough time to be chasing after a dollar here and a dollar there. 2) The owner is "satisfied" with using convential record keeping methods 3) The owner is receing information from another employee. It's difficult enough getting business in,it should not be as difficult keeping your hard gained profit! There are Digital Mgt systems which report events to the owner which makes it very time efficent to track a specific event (as opposed to viewing large segments of a recorded event). These events can be viewed off premises, which gives the owner a real feel for what the employees are doing. The owner admits to losses of 2,000 per year. In five years, that would have more than paid for such a system, not to mention the other benefits. As for the bench jeweler, any system you impose, will only have him seek out other ways of skimming his share. If he is that good, chances are he will be looking for another opportunity elsewhere. How will you protect your business with the next jlr? Regarding the sales employee who spotted this, without taking action, this skimming will spread, the losses will widen. ...By reviewing 15 minutes a day (on your laptop at the coffee shop!) you will become empowered with the knowledge of what is happening in your store! You will be telling your employees what they have done correctly and incorrectly! See what a difference that makes! Besides being empowered and in control, you will soon regain the thousands that were going in the pockets of your "help". The workforce that you will end up with will be the ones you trust and the ones who respect your business. You'll gain better insurance rates and have a tax writeoff to boot!

as a bench jeweller myself I find it hard to believe that a "good" jeweller would risk his entire career for 2000 dollar (theft bonus)....jewellery shops are hard work and there are more important things to worry about than wether every jumpring ends up in the customers packet...OH PLEASE. IF..and i say IF...the jeweller is pocketing scrap then he is a thief...there is no grey area...you are either honest....or you are dishonest......give him a lesson in honesty and ask him straight out...tight work areas require good cummunication......confront and open this situation with the people involved and you will find your answer.

i am a jeweler of 35 years. most of you would call me a bench jeweler when in fact i am a jeweler in the 1st sense of the word i.e.: one who designs and creates jewelry. i consider most of you jewelry merchants not jewelers. anyway i will answer this question for you. a poster above answered it, i will expound. this business is built on trust and there is no room for stealing. the goldsmith/jeweler should be told all scrap of any significance will be returned to the customer in the job envelope. all small pieces and filings from sizings etc., will be collected at some time during the week or daily. don't be mean about it, just explain it's policy. it's the stores gold. ideally, there should be a shop foreman do handle this. it's money. gold=money. you counter jewelers might want to let this sink in. gold=money. one other suggestion, try paying them fairly, in the end we jewelers make you.

i almost wish i said the exact words that Zampan wrote.....in my previous comment on this subject i was attempting to encaptulate the situation as a whole and help you solve your entire problem....but regret that I didnt stress the upmost importance of complete honesty in a jewellery workshop......when I stated that jewellers have more important things to worry about than the occasional jumpring not making its way to a job packet...what I was trying to state was that mistakes do happen and sometimes gold gets left on the bench..its happened to me possibly 4 or 5 times in my whole career..infact i drive the boss almost around the bend telling him every detail of what gold is going where.....at no point whatsoever should gold entering ones pocket ever be condoned.....i just find it difficult to believe that a "good" jeweller as you say would do such a thing and encourage you to face this problem immediately and get to the bottom of it....is what I was trying to say.