0:01
hey mike kelly here i want to make a
0:02
quick video had a
0:03
question submitted earlier this week
0:04
regarding employee theft just on the
0:06
road here about to uh hop on the plane
0:08
but thought it was important to tackle
0:10
this one head-on this morning so issue
0:12
was that gentlemen had someone steal a
0:14
piece of equipment and want to know if
0:16
you should just press charges fire the
0:17
gentleman or
0:19
what else should he do so i’m going to
0:20
reflect back on my years of 25 plus
0:22
years of my lawn care company and how we
0:25
handled threat and what the biggest
0:26
thing that popped into my mind was when
0:29
a gentleman a few years ago actually
0:31
stole uh gasoline from us well below the
0:34
gas prices that we’re seeing now
0:36
but this approach to how we handle the
0:38
prolly that may actually surprise some
0:39
people so
0:41
at that point our shop was about a half
0:42
a mile down the road from the gas
0:44
station we’d have four or five gentlemen
0:45
come in and gas up 18 to 20 trucks every
0:48
morning load them up and then um the
0:50
crews would arrive between 7 and 7 30
0:52
and they’d be staged out to go out so i
0:54
got a call around 8 8 30 in the morning
0:56
from the gas station obviously spending
0:58
a significant amount of money there
1:00
they alerted us that one of the
1:01
employees pulled up in their personal
1:03
vehicle
1:05
and actually grabbed the
1:06
gas handle and filled up their personal
1:09
vehicle
1:10
while
1:11
some of the crews were filling the
1:13
trucks
1:14
while the crew leader actually was
1:15
inside the gas station
1:17
going in to pay for one of the other
1:18
pumps so the other employees saw but
1:20
didn’t necessarily facilitate it but
1:23
what’s going to probably shock you is
1:24
the amount of gas this gentleman
1:26
actually stole
1:27
if he’d actually asked me i probably
1:29
would have just told him to put in his
1:30
tank and not to worry about it but he
1:31
actually stole about three dollars and
1:33
say 75 cents worth of gas probably just
1:36
enough to get to the shop problem is
1:38
ethically we did not stand for theft in
1:40
the company it did not align to our core
1:43
values at all um so
1:45
literally went down to the gas station
1:47
got a picture and a video of the
1:49
gentleman stealing the gas
1:51
spent about two and a half to three
1:52
hours went down to the police station
1:54
press charges but
1:56
the way i tackled it was a little bit
1:58
different and we had been plagued with
2:00
theft as well already
2:02
our shop had been broken into twice some
2:04
of the trucks and the tablets ripped off
2:05
the dashboard so
2:07
this was literally the last straw for me
2:08
but i needed to make a stand that i was
2:10
not standing for
2:11
a couple dollars worth of gas or
2:13
thousands of dollars worth of equipment
2:14
being stolen so after getting to the
2:16
police station and pressing charges
2:18
the officers wanted to know if i knew
2:20
where the truck was well that this guy
2:22
was working i knew exactly where it was
2:23
but i said listen guys could you do me a
2:25
favor i know you’ve been down to the
2:26
shop a few times we’ve been broken into
2:28
really want to uh unfortunately make an
2:30
example this gentleman to let people
2:31
know where we stand on theft
2:33
so what they did is they arranged to
2:35
come down to the shop
2:37
at 7 00 a.m during our team meeting
2:40
unbeknownst to me they came in hot we
2:42
had the gate open because we had an
2:43
electric gate with a passcode but they
2:45
came in hot with about three cruisers
2:48
and pulled up to probably about 35 to 40
2:51
guys literally standing at a team
2:52
meeting uh while i was on top of one of
2:54
the trailers kind of addressing the team
2:56
and we literally as the officers pulled
2:59
up and got out of the car i went over
3:01
and basically talked to them thank them
3:03
for coming and we actually pulled out
3:06
um and asked the gentleman to actually
3:08
come out
3:09
and kind of present himself uh to the
3:11
officers and at that point they actually
3:13
arrested him put him in cuffs
3:15
and put him in back of the cop car and i
3:17
will tell you
3:18
by doing this we were able to really
3:21
address how we stood on theft and where
3:23
we were going as a company and aligning
3:25
to those values so yes we actually had a
3:27
gentleman arrested for a little under
3:29
four dollars worth of gas in front of
3:31
the whole entire company
3:34
but what they did is it created a story
3:36
and it created clarity so literally
3:38
after the gentleman got drove drove away
3:41
in the car i asked everybody there are
3:43
we clear of where we stand on theft and
3:44
they were like yes we are crystal clear
3:47
and it was interesting things in the
3:48
shop stopped going missing things like
3:51
um additional gas or weed whacker line
3:53
things like that started to actually use
3:55
less and i have a feeling we actually
3:56
had some more theft
3:58
or people taking things probably for
3:59
their own home that we didn’t realize
4:01
but the end of this was it was very
4:03
clear where we stood on theft
4:05
but the cool thing was it was a story
4:07
that got better and better year after
4:08
year and i remember by the third or
4:10
fourth year um the story got so
4:12
embellished but it was just one of those
4:14
things that it when these things happen
4:16
you’ve got to literally act in the