How surveillance changes behavior

[bayonetbrant]

Just knowing they were being watched, restaurant workers' behavior changes resulted in big financial swings.

But monitoring software is now available to track all transactions and detect suspicious patterns. In the new study, the tracking software was NCR's Restaurant Guard product, and NCR provided the data. The software is intentionally set so that a restaurant manager gets only an electronic theft alert in cases that seem to clearly be misconduct. Otherwise, a manager might be mired in time-consuming detective work instead of running the restaurant.

The savings from the theft alerts themselves were modest, $108 a week per restaurant. However, after installing the monitoring software, the revenue per restaurant increased by an average of $2,982 a week, or about 7 percent.

The impact, the researchers say, came not from firing workers engaged in theft, but mostly from their changed behavior. Knowing they were being monitored, the servers not only pulled back on any unethical practices, but also channeled their efforts into, say, prompting customers to have that dessert or a second beer, raising revenue for the restaurant and tips for themselves.

"The same people who are stealing from you can be set up to succeed," said Mr. Pierce of Washington University.

In the research, the data sets were sizable. For example, there were more than 630,000 transactions by servers tracked and collected each week over the course of the project.

But more significant, the researchers say, is what the data analysis might contribute to fields of study like social psychology and behavioral economics — and the business discipline of human resources management.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/how-surveillance-changes-behavior-a-restaurant-workers-case-study/

[LongBlade]

That's been known for a long time.

IIRC there was a study done in the 60's on the secretarial pool about levels of lighting in their rooms.

What was significant wasn't the lighting - it was the fact that they pool felt they were important enough to study. *All* levels of lighting, more and less, saw an increase in productivity because they felt they were doing something important.

[bayonetbrant]

but that wasn't purely surveillance.

the estimation of theft in the restaurant was $108
surveilling should've resulted in around $100 back in the till
instead, sales went up over $2000.

was there more cheating going on than they'd estimated / detected?
or was everyone working harder not knowing what the surveillance was catching?

[W8taminute]

Or was everyone working harder because they knew they were being watch and couldn't steal anymore?  Hence they pushed customers to buy more in order to increase their tips.  As a result restaurant sales increased. 


Edit:  Hmmm...reread your post and see that you basically said the same thing already.  So take my post here as agreement to your statement you made in the last sentence of your post.

[bayonetbrant]

holy crap!  someone's actually agreeing with me around here! :)

[LongBlade]

holy crap!  someone's actually agreeing with me around here! :)

Definitely a sign from God that you're both wrong.

[W8taminute]

^LOL


I think that an "honest" petty thief seeing that they're being monitored would turn to making a little extra cash legitimately through increased tips.

[Steelgrave]

With over 30 years of retail and restaurant management under my belt, I can say that it's not unusual for any given operation to lose an average of 10-15% of profit to theft, at a minimum. Some of it is straight cash, some of it is inventory, some of it may be sales not being run, freebies, unauthorized discounts, etc.... I've found everything from boxes of steaks, shrimp and lobster going out in the trash (for recovery after work), to expensive steak knives, dining room chairs and lamps (!), any kind of retail merchandise you care to discuss, etc.... Its not always pure theft, often losses occur due to no more than young, poor workers feeding themselves or their friends for free.

I was known as a "turn-around" artist. I would take over management of a struggling unit and turn it around, it was my specialty. I didn't always do things by the book....after taking over one money-losing restaurant in San Antonio and identifying where the seepage was, I had an employee meeting and told my employees that from now on each of them would be entitled to a free meal per shift (in violation of company policy), but if I caught you feeding your friends for free it was instant termination, and for those I decided to keep, they could expect their pay to improve as the restaurant numbers turned around. Six months later, my food costs had dropped 22%, I had almost zero turnover, sales were up significantly and the store turned a profit for the first time ever.

The folks who take cash are the easiest ones to spot, even without surveillance. Aware management knows what to look for. Sadly, at least 50% of the time when I had a "cash" thief, it was management. When someone is counting the tills for other folks, making the deposits, it's easy to steal or to even make it look like someone else is taking money. More and more operations nowadays have a camera in the back room where the manager counts the registers and puts together the deposit. Get a handle on that, hire the right people, treat them well, and a lot of problems resolve themselves. Surveillance is another tool and it can most definitely be useful, but if that's all you're relying on you're not doing your job as a manager.

[GDS_Starfury]

at just about every bar or club I worked at we were allowed a $100 per shift in free drinks to customers. it made the regulars happy and got the staff bigger tips.

[besilarius]

Back in the day when registers used paper rolls to track all transactions, there were quite a few restaurants where management would take out the roll during the last hour of business.
This allowed a lot of unreported income for the owners and managers.  At that time, the only way to catch it, was to have an inspector go through all the rolls for a month at a time.  Never happened due to manning levels and time needed.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

That's been known for a long time.

IIRC there was a study done in the 60's on the secretarial pool about levels of lighting in their rooms.

What was significant wasn't the lighting - it was the fact that they pool felt they were important enough to study. *All* levels of lighting, more and less, saw an increase in productivity because they felt they were doing something important.

R U referring to the Hawethorne effect? You gotta tell the whole story not just jump to the conclusion. The story has interesting value.

[LongBlade]

That's been known for a long time.

IIRC there was a study done in the 60's on the secretarial pool about levels of lighting in their rooms.

What was significant wasn't the lighting - it was the fact that they pool felt they were important enough to study. *All* levels of lighting, more and less, saw an increase in productivity because they felt they were doing something important.

R U referring to the Hawethorne effect? You gotta tell the whole story not just jump to the conclusion. The story has interesting value.

Probably. It's been a long time since college. Don't remember the full story or the name, but I do remember the punch line.

[Windigo]

holy crap!  someone's actually agreeing with me around here! :)

I always agree with your well reasoned and researched thinking and articles.  Your articles follow an easy to follow path of reasoning.