We recently got an email about a new process to help keep our expenses tight, as the company is in a difficult spot. Fine, okay, sure, let's be careful with our expenditures. I get that. But there's a line in the email from the CFO that seems like he just put it in to make everyone feel better:
“The new process is designed to empower everyone at XYZ Company to take full responsibility for spend…”
What do words like empower and full responsibility mean to you?
Well apparently they mean that a new committee will review and approve/deny/micromanage every single expenditure above a certain amount with, of course, an extra form to submit and the possibility of needing to provide extra information and show up to extra meetings with this new review panel.
Oh and also, the email adds, the finance group is also reviewing approval levels for spend below that threshold. So there might be updates to add more and more approvers for spend at much lower levels.
I don't know about you, but if 6 people need to scrutinize and can veto every single expenditure I might think is a good use of our funds because, you know, I have 20+ years of work experience including 12 at this company and probably know how to do my job without someone else asking me 50 questions about every single thing I do…then I don't really feel more empowered nor do I have full responsibility for anything here, do I?