Over 2.5 million British workers have stolen something from their workplace, admitting to sneaking food, mugs and even money home from the office.
1.5 million also confessed to stealing from their colleagues, with a quarter (25%) saying they did it because their colleague stole something from them first.
Following a rise in demand for secure office storage, office furniture suppliers, Furniture At Work asked 1,000 Brits about office theft. The data suggests it is on the rise, with almost 1-in-8 (12%) having had something stolen from them at work.
The most common stolen items were small things such as pens and stationery, but one-in-10 (10%) have stolen money and 8% even confessed to taking a phone. Food was also high on the list, as one in six (17%) have stolen food from the fridge, and 10% admitted to taking someone else’s mug.
The research also revealed which professions are most likely to steal from their workplace. A quarter (25%) of those working in law admitted to stealing from their workplace, more than any other industry. Law was followed by marketing and PR (20%), and leisure, sport, and tourism (18%).
If you work in any of the following industries, you might want to keep an eye on your colleagues:
- Law – 25% have stolen something from work
- Marketing and PR – 20%
- Leisure, sport, tourism – 17.6%
- Transport and logistics – 17.5%
- Retail – 15.7%
- Accountancy & banking – 13.8%
- Teacher training and education – 13.5%
- Information Technology – 12.3%
- Energy and utilities – 11.5%
- Engineering and manufacturing – 11.3%
Explaining why people steal at work, Art Markman, PHD, Professor of Psychology and Marketing, said:
“Human behaviour is focused on doing things that feel right in the short term rather than things that feel right in the long term. If you need to eat right now, then available food will feel good to eat, even if it is wrong to take food from someone else.
“People also tend to do what is easy for them to do in a particular environment. If you leave your new noise-cancelling headphones out on your desk in a cubicle farm, you are making it easy for people to give in to the temptation to acquire a new pair of headphones without paying for them.”
Christopher Paul Jones, Harley Street Therapist, says
“Taking small items from work, or from any place for that matter, is often driven by the need to feel safe and secure. It can be a way to feel in control. Particularly if someone is going through something in their personal life, where they perhaps feel out of control.
“In a way, taking these items, is not that dissimilar to when people hoard things, they take material possessions and surround themselves with the items in order to create a sense of security, by recognising and addressing this behaviour, one can put themselves back in the driver’s seat and address the underlying emotions in order to resolve things.”
You can find more about office theft on the Furniture At Work blog.
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