Staffers who flout their employer’s company card rules or expenses policy are in for a rude awakening. Not only are their movements being tracked more carefully, but their job could also be on the line if they’re found to be in breach.
According to a director at Payhawk, a company that monitors and blocks spending on company cards, bosses are asking for increasing scrutiny of their employees’ actions.
Not only can Payhawk block certain types of spending at particular times of the day or night, but it can also flag an employee’s spending as ‘suspicious’ and send an instant notification to a business’s finance department.
Employees have learned the hard way what can happen if they try to circumvent the rules laid out by their CFOs.
Meta reportedly fired a handful of staff earlier this year for flouting the rules applied to their meal stipends. The company gives employees working out of offices with no cafeteria a $25 allowance for food when working from their desks.
However, a number of staff were reportedly using the money to order items like toothpaste and tea.
Other employees were reportedly giving their GrubHub stipend to other members of staff.
A post on the professional social media platform Blind, reported by the Financial Times, was written by an employee who claims to have been paid $400,000 a year by the company.
They said they were let go for using the money on household essentials when they were dining out with friends or eating at home, and said it felt “surreal” to be let go over the violation.
In a similar show of strength against those who break company policy, EY reportedly dismissed a number of U.S. staffers after they were discovered to have attended two training sessions at the same time last month.
The employees were taking part in online classes this spring as part of the consulting giant’s Ignite Learning Week, the Financial Times reported.
Katie MacKillop, U.S. director of Payhawk, told The Wall Street Journal that employers are increasingly asking for custom features to control and monitor how their employees are spending.
One feature they are asking for, she said, is greater power over when and where employees can spend.
For example, grocery stores might be banned during lunch hour. Instead, access to restaurants selling quick bites might be green-lit.
Moreover, Payhawk is developing a system that will instantly alert corporate finance teams if a suspicious charge is made on an employee’s card, which the central team can block.
Other controls offered to employers include single and daily transaction limits, as well as cards with zero funds on them so staff have to request cash before spending, instead of making a purchase and seeking approval afterwards.
Control vs company culture
While finance departments might argue that workers shouldn’t be violating company policy, managers must strike a balance between controlling what their teams are spending without feeling like Big Brother.
Moreover, employers must be wary of the value staff attribute to ‘work perks’ and be mindful of being seen to change the goalposts.
In 2023, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) studied more than 5,000 workers and found that 18% of employees looking to move jobs were doing so for better work benefits.
Indeed, these benefits outweighed factors such as job satisfaction, potential for promotion and a desire to do different work.
