[Closed] sacked office manager.... views.

TV belongs to the company so gross misconduct IMO

did the office manager pay for the goods?

if not then the tv belongs to the company

i don't think your office manager was very clever

tv belonged to the company; should have been put up at work or raffled or summit. was a freeby he got by spending someone elses money.

Hmmm. How about this one then...

Your work takes you all over Europe, and your company pays for your flights. Every time you fly, you get Air Miles. At the end of the year, you treat yourself and your wife to a holiday, using the Air Miles you've collected.....

depends on the written policy on gifts.

Normally they'll be declareable if in excess of some value threshold say, £25. Id say that it would be up to the company to decide what to do with the TV, not the purchaser of stock.

Whilst it's not very bright to take the tv home it's a ****s trick to sack someone in this current economy. Should have given the guy a chance to put right his wrong. On the bright side you might be able to nab a promotion 🙂

That's justice.

imho, in both cases, the TV and the airmiles, they belong to the company who paid for the product/flights and is theirs (the companies) to do with as they see fit. As mentioned above, it depends on their gift policy as to how they handle it. In the case of the TV, it looks as if the guys selfish actions could have led to overstocking which could have other implications for the company in the current economic climate.

its theft. its gross misconduct. Whether its right or wrong, its a sack able offence.
In this climate, no-one should be doing anything wrong at work, its likely to get you sacked

I've sacked people for less. He was dishonest plain and simple.

Sacking him was a bit harsh! I'd have asked for it back (and given it away to someone at random) or given him the option to buy it...

tails surely in these bad times you want jobs to go to decent people. This guy has both defrauded his employer and shown his contempt for those below him. You should be very glad to see the back of a manager whose only agenda was his own self interest and who has proved that he cannot be trusted by those above or below him.

Air miles are a little different. The company can register all its employees on a scheme and collect them or allow individuals to collect them for their own use. I am free to collect them myself and had reached over 500,000 BA miles at one point. Fewer now as I sold some to my boss for £600 last year.

i think he was lucky to get a lift home...

I'm pretty sure that if a TV was offered as an inducement a discount off the invoice could have been secured instead
The TV wasn't free, it was part of the order

A manager who thought that a) It was acceptable to order 12 months stock to get a new telly, and b) Thought he'd get away with it - deserves to be sacked for being a ****wit, never mind the gross misconduct and theft (guilty x2)

avdave2 - Member

Air miles are a little different. The company can register all its employees on a scheme and collect them or allow individuals to collect them for their own use. I am free to collect them myself and had reached over 500,000 BA miles at one point. Fewer now as I sold some to my boss for £600 last year.

I don't think it's any different. What about your fellow workers who don't get the opportunity to travel as much? Aren't you "showing contempt" for those folk?

Oh - and did you declare those as a Benefit in Kind and pay tax on them?

I don't think it's any different. What about your fellow workers who don't get the opportunity to travel as much? Aren't you "showing contempt" for those folk?

What about all those hotel meals & drink for free then?
What about the employees who are at home all the time & have to pay for their own?

If i was offered a bottle of wine i might not say anything to HR and claim ignorance if i did wrong, but if the gift was a telly i would go to HR and find out where i stood.

Besides the conduct issue, how do the co workers respond when they see managers on the take, doesn't sit well.

right decision

...it's a **** trick to sack someone in this current economy...

On the contrary; this current economy means all the more reason to toe the line and do all you can to keep your job.

If the Tellys out like those crap power supplies you flog us, it will have gone up in a cloud of smoke by weekend! 🙂

yep the TV was company property, unless he had been told that he could take it by senior management it would have been theft, that said I've received a wide screen TV from work in the past, but I had the savvey to get one for the FD at the same time 😉

I'm not condoning it, but a mate of mine who is Head of Operations for a small Hedge Fund does this all the time (buys IT/AV hardware and gets a freebie which he takes home). I don't think it is right, but it happens.

What about petrol vouchers received after buying fuel on the company account / fuel card / claiming expenses?

Same as Air Miles, but maybe happens more often to a 'blue collar' bunch like yourself 🙂

We all travel, all of the time. We are paid no overtime or travel time, even when having to be up at 3am to get to the airport, get no extra allowances for being overseas and a 12 hour working day is average when on site. I've had a few all day all night and all day again jobs and yes that's without overtime. And when I say without overtime I mean without any additional pay whatsoever. So a few air miles really isn't all that great as compensation. Also the real difference is that we do not choose and book our own flights and therefore only some of them qualify for airmiles. The purchaser and the receiver of the benefits are not the same person. If this guy had gone to his boss and said I,d like to put this order in and get this plasma screen for the staffroom or some such thing then everything would have been fine but the guy has shown that he cannot be trusted to make a decision in the best interest of the company. He clearly made the decision based only on the reward for himself.

Can remember working for Woolies in their warehouse in Swindon in the early 90's and pallets of champagne being delivered for the buyers at Christmas.

Wot Dave Aber said. He deserves the sack twice - for theft from his company and co-workers and for being so stupid!

My place so much as a pen and it has to be handed in!

Many companies now have written policies stating whether or not you can keep airmiles, sainsbury's points etc. Normally they say you can and it is specifically to avoid daft arguments that accepting a TV as a bribe / making off with a TV that belongs to the company (take your choice) is the same as choosing a credit card that gives you airmiles on everything you purchase some of which you might later claim back on expenses.

If I worked for / with this guy and he hadn't been through the disiplinary procedure (which normally would mean sacking in the first 3 months at our place) I would want to know why.

It's engenders a culture where bending the rules to just short of breaking point is acceptable otherwise - ask Severn Trent about that one.

Incidentally if it was us the supplier would probably have been black listed too for offering inappropriate inducements.

2 things you can't teach an employee, 1 - honesty, 2 - intelligence.

Lack of intelligence can be worked around.

Dishonest people can never, ever be trusted and that poisons a business environment.

(BTW I would have sacked the supplier too for offering an inducement to one of my staff to act dishonestly)

This is corruption on both sides IMO..supplier to offer a bribe like a TV and then buyer to accept it. No excuses either way. I would dump the supplier as well. CIPS member.

a guy i used to work with did a cips (charted institute of purchasing & supply) qualification, i think you could have your qualification revoked for receiving goods.

You'll probably find that the company have a clear policy of not allowing employees to take these kind of sweetners, I know we do and people, including the MD of one division have been marched off the premises for this on one level or another.

On druids point is totally different I hope, as I use loyalty points and cashback to gain via business travel. But we are expected to pay for it and claim it back on our own credit cards, and therefore at our own risk, so seems like a different kettle of fish.

What about your fellow workers who don't get the opportunity to travel as much?

They don't need compensating then for staying in shite hotels, away from family and either stuck in traffio or cramped in cattle class. The novelty wears off quickly when all you see of a city you've never been too before is it's ring road, in the dark.

On druids point is totally different I hope, as I use loyalty points and cashback to gain via business travel. But we are expected to pay for it and claim it back on our own credit cards, and therefore at our own risk, so seems like a different kettle of fish.

Not different at all. Who actually pays for your business travel? What is the risk?

A mate of mine works for a Uniservity, and is in charge of stores. There are regular incentives to buy extra stuff, but he only buys what they need, as he's on a strict budget. But now and then, he gets the odd little kickback, if he needs the amount of things that come with a free gift. But it's never much; a crappy DVD player, printer or something at best (was the offer of a load of bricks, once). Usually more like a batch of detergent or some such thing. He did get an iPod a few years back, so that was a result.

Perk of his position. His bosses know about it, but it's not an issue. He regularly manages to save them money, so any little extra he gets, as long as it doesn't cost the Uni extra, is fine (one of the regular perks is loads of free batteries; hardly a 50" Plasma TV!). He has to declare everything, so as long as there's no irregularity, everyone's happy.

He does give stuff away to colleagues, which I think is pretty decent of him (mind, free hair-curling tongs aren't really his thing!).

In the case Ton describes, the TV does technically belong to the company. I reckon, to avoid trouble and other staff getting pissed off, maybe the company would be good to give the thing to a charity, or a hospital or something. Karma restored.

Usually, though, it's the bosses who nick all the good stuff.

Pulling tricks like that after three months is asking for the boot, and if he's on a probationary period it's probably quite easy for your boss to get rid.

A year's worth of spend upfront is the kind of thing that could ruin a company, if it's not been budgeted for. Imagine paying a year's electricity bill in advance, based on what someone has assumed you might need...?

pretty fekking dumb really....what was he expecting to happen?

That the employer may not get the money back to you in time to pay it off, thereby you incurring charges and / or interest? That may happen for starters...

You could be mugged, and loose your receipts for meals etc. How do you claim those back?

Lots of things make it a lot riskier than if the company gave you an advance on such things, which most don't

Our old company (that we set up and then sold to a Telco) had no policy as such. Once we'd sold it and were in the 3mth handover period we got this amazingly hilarious gifting policy. Sadly we got a case of really great Central Otago Pinot Noir given to us which the gift-waffe said we had to hand in to be raffled etc etc. What they missed was us swapping the $50 bottles for the $5 bottles in the kitchen (that i suppose technically they owned already as they were company property) - tee hee. Once the smoke cleared we hoovered them all at Friday night drinks 😉
PC bolax gone wild but yer man who took the TV was on the take IMO.

I can't believe that NOBODY has pointed out the bloody obvious here...

Forget the sodding TV, if ANYBODY working for me (sorry, Logistics is my forte) ordered a year's worth of stuff in one go, particularly if it tied up £5k of my own bloody cashflow, my boot would hit their ****ing arse before they knew what to bloody do! As any astute businessman knows, cash is king, and available cash in the bank is the be all and end all. I could potentially understand if this was something like biro's, or sellotape, but a year's worth of either of these doesn't cost £5k unless you're a VERY large business.

Forget the TV (which incidentally is the company's, he was rightly sacked FOR DEFINITE), if you're in purchasing and you fall for the age old tricks of "here, buy a year's worth, we'll chuck a freebie in" then you need to be looking for another job anyway if you ask me! That kind of inefficiency, driven by blatant greed obviously (in the knowledge that he was going to get a TV, and keep it for himself), would not have any place in any company that I had any responsibility for.

This is cut and dry, honestly, no 2 ways about it. Even if he gave the TV back, it's still intent to steal or defraud. Gross Misconduct, not an employment lawyer in the world who would defend his case I'm sure!

Seems one of the chaps in your place grassed him up then?
That's even more worrying.

zokes - are you really suggesting that if you got mugged and lost your expense receipts a company would not have processes in place to reimburse those expenses? 🙄

Maybe if you worked for Mickey Mouse Ltd

The issue is that business expenses are paid for by the business. Any goods or incentive procured as a result of paying for those expenses also belongs to the business.

Grown up businesses that expect their staff to pay for lots of expenses provide advances or company credit cards to minimise the amount their staff have to pay for themselves up front.

imho, in both cases, the TV and the airmiles, they belong to the company who paid for the product/flights and is theirs (the companies) to do with as they see fit.

Any goods or incentive procured as a result of paying for those expenses also belongs to the business.

Not true in the case of air miles. Legally, the miles/points/whatever are awarded to an individual, not to the company. This is in the terms and conditions of the programme. You could be receiving air miles in one of two ways - or both if you are lucky/savvy.

Firstly, the company card you use to pay for business expenses may provide you as the cardholder enrolment in BA miles or any other such scheme. In this case the company is aware when they took on the card programme this is how it works. The miles are funded by the card provider as an inducement to get you to use their product. In turn, the company also benefits as having you use the corporate card means their expense reconciliation process works more efficiently rather than having to process cash receipts. The company may also be accruing some rebate or other benefit on all card spend, so it's not like they lose out.

Secondly, you may have to make payments for business expenses through your own means (or a company card which does not provide reward points) and could enrol directly with the frequent flyer programme off your own back. In this case it is again a contract between the airline and yourself that they will give you a benefit when you fly on their planes, it has nothing to do with who is paying for the ticket.

There are also company level reward programmes such as BA On Business or Star Alliance Company/Corporate Plus. These work in concert with cardholder level programmes rather than in place of. They generally only provide a benefit on miles flown rather than on all spend. Either way, the airline and/or card company makes it quite clear who gets the reward and in what situation.

Sorry for the lengthy reply.

In the case of the guy and the TV however, it's likely that the conditions of the offer would have stipulated the TV belongs to whoever paid for the goods. At the very least he's an idiot for not thinking of the likely consequences of this.

Right to be sacked. I work in purchasing and every freebie I get goes to the company charity raffle. Mind you the best I ever get is a bottle of whisky or wine, never a telly.
The bloke is a dishonest plonker to think he could get away with stealing a telly.

Sam you may be right re airmiles, but HMRC would still consider them to be taxable benefits.

Its company property. A Buyer for Woolworths was once sacked for accepting Wembley tickets from a battery company/supplier. Guess what? There was shedloads of batteries knocking about forever as the Buyer over-ordered to gain the 'favour'.

Such an expensive gift as the TV doesnt come free, its an obvious conflict of interest and your Office Manager obviously didnt have your companies interest in mind. Better off without him. Could you trust this person to procure goods and services at the best possible prices for your business in the future? NO.

"one of our suppliers was offering a 42'' plasma tv at xmas if you bought £5000 worth of gear.
this is a years supply of the stuff we buy from them."

Just reread that line.
So he bought a years supply of stock possibly at an uncompetitive price that has to be stored somewhere for many months to come. Runs home with his ill gotten gains. I wonder if he had gotten away with it what else would he have gotten upto!

I dont care who said 'who grassed him' above (sad) but characters who dont have efficiency/well being of a business deserve to go asap.

A general rant. I hate people who see work as 'us and them'. If a company is paying my wage my loyalty is to them, not elements of 'fellow colleagues' who see ways of skiving, take the p1ss etc as normal and a right. Immature doesnt come close to describing what I feel about them.

TBH these offers like the 'free' TV flippin annoy me. I mean what good is a TV to a business?
But more to the point, forget the TV's just give me a good service, and if you have money for 'free'TV's then just lower the price even if it's only short term.

You've got to at least have an agreement with those above you about the allocation of airmiles, just buying £5k of supplies for your own benefit is a foolish mistake that was always going to bite him in the ass.

As for sacking the guy, you think they should have offered him a healthy redundancy package - not really feasible was it.

He also may have been given the option to do something in the meeting, refused and then been sacked - who knows what went on behind the closed doors.

the guy was dumb, plain and simple. If he wasn't smart enough to clarify the position, there's no way I would even employ him as an office manager.

3 months into the job too. clearly not the sharpest tool...

At my company we received a Nintendo Wii free with an order. As most people already had one I asked everyone (about 15 people)if I could take it for a very substantial donation to the tea/coffee club. Everyone now has free coffee and biscuits for 4-5 months and I've gave the Nintendo Wii to my son for his birthday. Everyone happy!

TBH these offers like the 'free' TV flippin annoy me. I mean what good is a TV to a business?

The company Ton works for are in the TV aerial/satellite wholesale business so a TV could reasonably be expected to be sold on to their existing customers.
It's the same in the fixings market
Hilti will give you a very nice drill indeed if you buy enough fixings - it's just the way that sort of wholesaling works
The TV was the company's to sell on - not a freebie [totally unrelated] gift.

sacked for stupidity.

no leniency required, thats why our economy is ****ed - we already employ too many morons.

discuss.

coolhandluke - Member

Seems one of the chaps in your place grassed him up then?
That's even more worrying.

How so? I'd grass him up in a second, and I'd run around telling everyone I did too! As Hora says, less of the "them and us" attitude, if a company pays your wages your loyalty is to them. It's guys like this guy stealing the TV that means everyone else is less likely to get a bonus etc. come wag review time, so he's not just stealing a TV but stealing money out of everyone else's pockets by being greedy and inefficient.

In my last job, trying to get everyone to conciously recycle all the plastics and the cardboard in the warehouse was a nightmare. Everyone assumed that it was a management decision to "make their lives worse". Of course, when you try explaining to people that by recycling we were going to be paying a lot less to the refuse collection company as we were charged per skip empty, and that people would pay for cardboard and plastic if we collected enough of it and sorted it properly, they were still a bit flummoxed. Only when they actually saw it working were they even in the slightest won round.

People's natural reaction is sadly very anti change, and anti management.

What the guy at Ton's company should have done was made his boss aware that if he bought £5k's worth of stuff, he could get a free TV for the company to do what it wishes with, and to let his boss then decide. Being astute and letting your boss know all the facts often has a much better end result than stealing stuff on the side. Unless your boss is a total c*nt of course! 😉

But what about the collateral damage? Ton had a days holiday booked to come and ride with us round Ambleside today. He had to go into work, and we had to enjoy a great day in the snow without him.

That sales manager has no thoughts for anyone but himself!!!

P.S. Ton, when I buy tyres off you in future will you make sure that I put the ****** things on 🙄

frank, problem with the tyres, please tell me.

did you have a good day.
i was gutted but could not get away.

the guy was found out because the supplier [unifix] billed our company for £5000.
it rang alarm bells at head office who contacted the supplier to ask about the invoice.
a copy invoice was sent to them , it showed the tv at zero cost.
no one grassed him.

Ton, the only problem with the tyres is that I was too lazy to fit them. A good day. Deejay will send you some piccies. Rydal Water was waist deep. That was fun after a couple had been through and muddied everything so we couldn't see the rocks!

Sam you may be right re airmiles, but HMRC would still consider them to be taxable benefits.

It's a bit of a grey area really. The latest indication from HMRC is that as long as the individual pays the programme enrolment fee (there usually is one) then there is no fringe benefits tax liability. In practice this fee is billed to the card and settled by the company as a business expense. To date, the HMRC have not investigated/assessed anyone for benefits received through air miles. The complication is that your one air miles account can earn points through miles flown and pounds spent both as an individual and as an employee. So far it seems the HMRC haven't got the appetite to go digging through it all as the sums involved are generally very small. Also, how would they value a point/air mile? Their nominal value as declared by the creator of the loyalty currency is very small (usually 0.01p per point). So do you value it at what they 'could' be exchanged for? if so, then what? Most schemes offer a wide range of redemption possibilities which also have a wide range of value per point - which would they choose? Do they take the cost price to the provider or the market value of what's redeemed? Anyhow, it's a pretty complex area, which is I guess why they don't go into it...

Sorry for the ramble, it's one of few things I actually know a little about...