The article I selected for my Padlet topic is expense report abuse and how employees often see no ethical issue in taking advantage of the system. From personal meals being comped as “business” lunches, to embellishing travel expenses or altering receipts employee abuse of expense reports is an ethical issue.  Some employees view these mileage or lunch expenses as petty amounts but no matter how small these offenses may still be indicative of other fraud problems in the company. These frauds are viewed as a relatively insignificant part of the company’s overall financial picture and because of this it’s easy for companies to ignore(Coenen, 2016). I think because companies see it as insignificant employees committing the expense report fraud don’t think it’s a big deal. 

 

I personally have brokers at my work who write off lunches or bar tabs that were not client related whatsoever. I have experienced brokers that embellish the miles they drive to get more money. I think because brokers discuss this among themselves and think it’s no big deal to fudge their expense reports presents an ethical issue(cultural relativism in the workplace). Because everyone else is doing it at my company should I increase my miles logged or write off an extra lunch as well? I agree with the article above that management needs to communicate to their employees that expense report abuse is a serious issue and that there will be a zero tolerance policy enforced. By setting clear expectations of what’s to be expected of employees it sets the tone for that particular issue and other ethical behaviors throughout the organization (Coenen, 2016). 

My personal suggestion to discourage the expense report fraud would to have employees provide the original receipts so they do not alter numbers via pdf. All expense reports also must be approved by a managing director to be sure they are constantly monitoring those expenses. I think these additional steps can help mitigate expense report abuse in the workplace. 

Coenen, T. ( 2016 May). Expense Report Abuse: A Sign of Bigger Problems. Allbusiness.com. Insurance & Risk Management.