Background: I'm an electrical engineer by education. 15 months ago I changed to the current job and had been happy until about 3 weeks ago. Boss was reasonable and shielded us from a lot of BS coming from above. I got over a 50% pay rise from my previous job too so that was nice. What BS, you may ask?
I work in Test & Measurement sales. Like any sales organization we have a sales goal thrust upon us by upper management. Our 2022 sales goal was YOY 29% higher than the previous year. Just ridiculous. Then they took away a pretty major product line that could have helped grow the business. Basically the sales goal was impossible.
Because the sales goal was impossible, two sales managers left. I think I should also discuss the structure a bit. Our sales department is responsible for all North, Central, and South America. Normally we have 3 RSMs (Regional Sales Managers) for that entire area. All-in-all we have only about 10 employees to do Sales, Service, and Support for two continents. Quality is pretty bad too and we keep raising prices every 6 months by 8-14% each time so customers have started dumping us as a supplier. We've told upper management that all these things combined are getting really bad and making it hard to win opportunities. We're about to lose our shirts. No one cares and the beatings continue until morale improves.
My boss, the one that shielded us from upper management stupidity, left about 3 weeks ago after his ideas to increase sales constantly kept being dismissed. Cue the setup for the malicious Compliance. Around this same time our Finance team got nine 2nd level strikes on an audit. I'm no audit expert but I guess that's quite bad. Or so the rumor goes. In response, Finance has clamped down HARD on Expense reports, but in the most stupid way possible and having nothing to do with the audit findings.
Company global policy says we don't need to upload receipts for expenses under $75. Now the division president tells us we need receipts for everything! Spend 1 penny? Receipt! Tip a driver $3? Receipt! Get a $1.50 bottle of soda from a vending machine on a business trip? Receipt! Oh and this policy went into effect with an email and with immediate effect so those of us who had just returned from a trip had expenses where we basically had to retroactively get receipts or fight with Finance. Again this only affects our division since global policy allows them to be more strict than the global policy.
It gets even more stupid… We use Concur for receipt uploads and reports. They are denying reports for not having receipts and saying if we don't have receipts to fill out a lost receipt affidavit. Well, because company global policy is $75 and over, the option for an affidavit isn't listed for lesser value expenses. The Finance Director didn't even know this!
We also must put comments on EVERY. SINGLE. EXPENSE. Even with the receipt. Expenses already need date, amount, receipt, vendor, etc. I need to justify why I bought a bottle of water at the airport. I even got a refund for $30 that was put back on the company card and needed to comment why, despite the fact it was fully explained in the attached receipt. They justified this with a 20 year old story about a Finance director who used to book Business class flights and exchange them for Coach class and pocket the difference in price. But this can't happen anymore because the difference would come back to the company on the company credit card as a refund, just as happened here. There's no way to siphon the money away to my personal card or bank account. Things that used to get approved without any scrutiny are suddenly being inspected ad nauseam.
In all this craziness about expenses the President sends out a new policy email which says “For those who have a local office, Work from home expenses will not be reimbursed.” This gets me thinking because I am a remote employee… What expenses are they talking about? Apparently I can get my internet paid for. I have never even thought to charge the company for my internet at home. Here's the malicious Compliance: From now on I am submitting my WFH internet bills to the company. This tight-fisted overbearing Finance policy will end up costing the company thousands of dollars a year now. Probably small for them but pretty major for me.
I've also heard that people who put just a few words in the comments are getting them denied so I'm going to make a mockery of the entire expense report process and write a novel for each line item. My direct boss has already said my comments are too long but that's the only way I can make sure I do the expense reports only once.
Being treated so ridiculously is probably going to make the 3 or 4 good employees find other work very soon. This is the straw that broke the camel. This company is eventually going to be gutted. All because they made terrible business decisions, didn't listen to employees, and then wrote a blank authoritarian check to the finance team to run every aspect of the business.