Funny how hard times can make dishonest people of us all. Two surveys out recently highlight how staff feeling vulnerable in a recession are likely to go down the slippery slope.
According to a Reuters report, when management specialists Cyber Ark polled 600 workers in Canary Wharf and Wall Street about data theft, they found that 41% of people had taken sensitive data from their company to their new job. And almost 'half the financial sector workers in London and New York say they would take sensitive company information with them if they were fired'.
Some 50% of respondents of the transatlantic survey said that 'if they were fired tomorrow they would take company information with them, and 39% would download company/competitive information if they got wind that their job was at risk'.
It's not as though they weren't aware of the rules: 85% of people said they knew it is illegal to download corporate information from their employer.
Then there's the Global Economic Crime Survey (GECS) by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which canvassed more than 3,000 senior executives of organisations in 54 countries.
PwC says the results are evidence of a 'cappuccino crime wave', revealing how middle managers defraud employers to maintain their lifestyles. Around half (47%) of all economic crimes in the UK were perpetrated by middle managers, as opposed to junior or senior staff, up from 32% in 2007.
GECS found that almost half of UK organisations had faced some form of economic crime in the last 12 months. When you look at the contributing reasons for committing fraud, it's personal factors that come to the fore. In the UK, 'fear of losing jobs (46%) tops the list, followed by targets being more difficult to attain (40%) and difficulties reaching performance numbers to achieve bonuses (28%).
Many people rationalise their motives for committing fraud, says the report – 77% said they did it to maintain current living standards. The second most popular ‘rationalisation’ for economic crime is 'a perception that the higher bonuses earned by others are unfair'. PwC says both these levels are higher in the UK compared with the global sample.
Do you think that people lose their moral compass in a recession, or that the bonus culture drives people to fraud? Drop us a line.
