Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER APRIL 2019 26 INSIGHT 2 dreaded words: Expense reports O n my list of favourite chores, filing my ex- pense report falls some- where between going to the den- tist and dragging an overfl owing green compost bin to the curb in the middle of a steamy August heat wave. In other words, I hate it. Expense reports are not case studies in corporate efficiency. ey do, however, serve one pur- pose — as a glaring reminder of red tape and bureaucracy. I'm willing to bet that at your organization, they also offer a master class in inconsistency. e black-and-white rules exist, col- lecting dust on a shelf or occupy- ing a few megabytes of storage in the cloud. But they are just as surely ig- nored by claimers and approvers alike. e system may tell me I don't need a receipt for anything less than $50, but if it gets routed to the wrong bean counter, I may be presented with a demand to produce a receipt for the $12.40 taxi ride I took in Las Vegas two months ago. Meanwhile, a cubicle dweller from three seats over (you know who you are) faces zero scrutiny or demand for a receipt for a lavish $600 dinner because his boss has a lightning-fast trigger fi nger on the approval button. Keep that inbox clean and no scrutiny necessary, please and thank you. But me? I'm thinking of call- ing in a Canadian Forces CC-130 Hercules to help in my panicked search for the handwritten scrawl from that overly friendly taxi driver, praying that he legibly wrote down exactly $12.40, that I remembered which coat pocket I stuff ed it into and that it lines up perfectly with the charge sitting on my Amex. When I successfully submit an expense report, a sense of warm joy slowly fl oods over me. I feel like a group of teenagers who have just solved the last puzzle in an es- cape room and opened the door to freedom. I'm a Chief Scout. I'm also a Queen's Venturer. Unless you spent your youth shaking hands on the left, you probably have no idea what that means. Which means you also probably don't get the left-hand thing. If I stop talking in code, it's a very long way of saying I was a boy scout, and that I earned two of the highest accolades from Scouts Canada. It's also my way of saying I would never dream of cheat- ing on an expense report — it's not in my DNA and it therefore makes it doubly annoying to have to jump through hoops to prove trivial work-related expenses are legitimate. But, clearly, some employees think nothing of treating ex- pense accounts like a personal piggy bank. Late last month, Reuters told the tale of an industrial equip- ment company worker in the United States who billed the com- pany for US$12,000 in doggie day spa charges. It took the company more than a year to discover the fraud. e employer later found out the same worker "was run- ning a scheme to sell more than US$200,000 in company equip- ment on eBay," said Reuters. No merit badges for that guy, says my inner scout. at's simply one story in what the Austin, Texas-based Associa- tion of Certifi ed Fraud Examiners (ACFE) says is a US$7-billion an- nual problem in the U.S. Put another way, about 10 per cent of expenses have a problem that needs to be addressed. e Reuters story said "only" about 10 per cent — but that's a staggering number. I think CFOs would be rightly horrifi ed to think that one in 10 expense reports contains some- thing fraudulent. Fortunately, most of the mis- takes aren't deliberate. One of the most common problems identifi ed is employees acciden- tally claiming the same expense twice. (My faith in humanity is restored.) " at happens more often than you can imagine," Anant Kale, CEO of AppZen — which builds technology that audits expenses — told Reuters. "It's fraud, but it's an honest mistake." More telling is this stat — zero. at is the number of times App- Zen has screened expense re- ports at a company and found no problems. What's the solution? More training won't dent the problem — anyone with an expense ac- count already knows the drill. Instead, we should turn our eyes to the hottest of all trends — artifi cial intelligence (AI) — for a solution. Andi McNeal, director of ACFE, said robots are able to catch fraud "more than twice as fast and… losses are halved," ac- cording to Reuters. And forget spot-checks — every single ex- pense is given a thorough check by technology. If you marry that technology with a system that saves me from having to uncrumple the receipts from that big HR conference, well, fi ling my expense report will shoot up the charts of my favou- rite things. It will land somewhere between scrubbing that pan I forgot about from last night's dinner and vacu- uming behind the couch. In the meantime, I've got a hotel bill I need to itemize. See you in three hours. MAN DOWN NEW JERSEY — A bad acting job captured on a surveillance camera has resulted in the arrest of a U.S. worker on one count of theft by de- ception, according to CNN. Video footage appears to show Alexan- der Goldinsky, 57, in his company's breakroom, looking around before throwing ice on the fl oor. After standing over the ice momentarily, the worker appears to take a delib- erate tumble and lands fl at on his back. Goldinsky went on to fi le a false insurance claim for the am- bulance service and treatment he received at a local hospital for his injuries. An independent contrac- tor, Goldinsky was arrested a few months later. " e investigation revealed that Goldinsky purposely threw ice on the fl oor in the cafete- ria at his workplace, placed himself on the ground, and waited until he was discovered," said a statement from the Middlesex County Pros- ecutor's Offi ce. INTERESTING LEAVE CHINA — Two employers in China are off ering a unique leave opportunity to female employ- ees over the age of 30. e com- panies operating the Songcheng theme park have decided to give employees an opportunity to fi nd a life partner. Additionally, if true love is found and results in mar- riage by the end of 2019, a salary bonus will be awarded, according to the Khaleej Times in Dubai. e additional 15-day (and potentially longer) leave was off ered in Feb- ruary as an extension of a national week-long break from Feb. 4 to 10. e news was welcomed by staff , at a time when marriage is being put on the back burner as more Chinese women focus on their careers, said Huang Lei, HR man- ager at Hangzhou Songcheng Per- formance. e fi rm is considering off ering the deal again next year. POISON SANDWICH BERLIN — A German man has been sentenced to life in jail — normally 15 years in Germany — after he poisoned the sandwiches of colleagues, resulting in critical injuries. Identifi ed as Klaus O., the 57-year-old was caught on sur- veillance camera putting a suspi- cious powder onto a co-worker's sandwich at a business in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, leading to his arrest last May. Similar actions by Klaus O. left one 23-year-old col- league in a coma with permanent brain damage after he ingested mercury. Two other victims, ages 27 and 67, suff ered serious kidney damage from lead and cadmium poisoning, and now face a height- ened risk of cancer, according to the Associated Press. A search of the accused's home uncovered a primitive chemistry laboratory and a substance "more danger- ous than all combat agents used in World War II," said Judge Georg Zimmermann. Klaus O. did not speak during his trial and his mo- tives remain unclear. BARISTAS BEHIND BARS ENGLAND — e whirr of an industrial-scale coff ee roaster and sharp hiss of a milk frother greets "customers" each morning inside one of Britain's toughest young off enders prisons. Staff ed by pris- oners aged 18 to 21, the Redemp- tion Roasters café inside Aylesbury prison trains inmates with special- ty coff ee skills in a bid to help them fi nd jobs upon release, according to the omson Reuters Founda- tion. e small-scale coff ee com- pany is part of a growing number of businesses globally that aim to have a positive social impact while turning a profi t. With about 4,000 young men in prison across the country in 2018, helping them fi nd meaningful and stable work post-custody is an imperative, said the justice ministry. Ayles- bury prison holds more than 400 of these young men, with nearly 70 serving a life sentence, said prison governor Laura Sapwell. Redemp- tion Roasters trains 10 inmates at a time with coff ee roasting, cus- tomer service and food-hygeine skills for up to one year. 'THE WHOLE STORE HAS QUIT' OHIO — e new owners of three Sonic drive-in loca- tions in Ohio received a startling reception from staff in February. Each of the fast-food restaurants saw complete staff walk-outs as employees protested the ownership change, according to Fox News. Employees claimed the stores' new owners imme- diately implemented a major wage reduction to US$4 per hour for tipped employees — a claim that was refuted by management. e changes caused staff to walk out en masse at locations in Circleville, Lancaster and Grove City. Notes were left in Circleville and Lancaster alerting management to the reasoning behind the walkouts, including the following statement: "Due to terrible management, the whole store has quit." Since the management turnover, two stores have permanently closed, while eight others have re-opened under the new ownership. Credit: James R. Martin (Shutterstock) W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 32 No. 4 – April 2019 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2018 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. 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