Accounting for Those Tools

One way to keep tools from "walking off" the job site is to assign each tool to one employee, says security expert Roger Schmedlen of Loss Prevention Concepts Ltd. (Farmington Hills, Mich.). He says that making individuals responsible for particular items seems to dramatically increase not only the security of the equipment, but its life expectancy as well.

Schmedlen notes that a security company discovered this phenomenon after years of frequently replacing hand-held radios for its guards. Radios handed out daily from a communal supply averaged a life span of three weeks before needing repairs.

Once radios were permanently assigned to guards, they lasted several years before requiring service.

"When an employee knows that the boss knows that he has this tool, he’s going to take better care of it," Schmedlen says. "Accountability makes a difference."

Schmedlen also recommends etching the company name, your name or other identification into power tools and other equipment to reduce their salability - and hence their attractiveness to thieves.