Ford fired an employee for stealing a $1.95 cookie. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do.
Normally, I’m a big supporter of enforcing the small rules—after all, if you don’t enforce a rule, then the rule doesn’t exist. So, if you catch someone, on camera, stealing a cookie, you can go ahead and terminate.
Except when you can’t. And that is when you don’t conduct a proper investigation.
In this particular case, however, the employee was diabetic, his blood sugar was dropping, and he needed to eat something. Add to that, he did, in reality, pay.
When you have a video of something, you may think you don’t need to talk to the people involved. There is video. It’s like you were a live witness.
In this case, the video came from a self-checkout surveillance camera at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, so you would think it would be trustworthy, but it didn’t tell the whole story.
To keep reading, click here: Ford Fired an 11-Year Employee for Stealing a $1.95 Cookie. The Problem? He Paid
Theft of a $1.95 cookie certainly doesn’t rise to the “walk them out immediately” level. Someone was on a power trip here. Why on earth wouldn’t he have first been placed on a leave and told to submit proof of payment in X number of days after which the assumption would be that it was, indeed theft? I also believe in enforcing the little things…but you also have to…be human. He was diabetic and needed to eat. Was there no wiggle room to say, “we understand you had to address a medical emergency. We’re glad you’re safe. You do need to pay us back though and you have X number of days to do it.” This is so bizarre!
When it’s theft (which isn’t the case here), it’s never just one cookie.
The issue here isn’t the $1.95 cookie. It’s not even that he’s diabetic and needed to eat something – it sounds like whoever made the decision wasn’t are of *that* in the moment, either.
The issue is firing someone with no investigation, and taking weeks to figure it out. Whether it’s a $2 cookie or a multimillion dollar embezzlement, firing someone without an investigation is bad management. Obsessing over the value of the cookie is a distraction from the real mistake.