Backstory: Many of our company facilities have unoffical “employee funds” which are funded by a combination of snack sales, recycling soda cans, etc. These funds are intended to support occasional employee events or make purchases of things the employees want for work that are refused by the company. For example, the company provides a refrigerator to store our lunch in. If desired the employee fund could be used to purchase an ice machine (some warehouses have) and make needed wiring/plumbing installation. The fund has been run rather informally (and questionably) for years under the supervison of our last warehouse supervisors/facility managers.
Now we have a new warehouse supervisor and he has gone on a mission to make the fund run right and add some accountability. He keeps a ledger, which any of us can review at will, want to know anything ask…reciepts for snack purchases…right here. The companys official position on the whole fund thing thing is dont ask dont tell. If we have the funds they permit it but any problems arise and they will shut it down.
Facility manager gets a decree from regional manager to have an employee BBQ once a month at companys expense. Facility manager is now demanding that major portions of our recycling money be turned over to fund these BBQ’s. No problem except…manager also of course demands receipts which he then turns in on his expense reports and gets reimbursed for them. So in a nutshell our boss is saying “that money is for funding employee events, give it to me so I can pay for it.” the employees are saying “No, boss pays for it out of his pocket and gets reimbursed by company”. We do not have petty cash around because the company is very good on its reimbursements (usually back in 3-5 working days).
Me and the warehouse supervisor have been debating this for days with facility manager and its come down to him refusing to accept that there is any other way but his way and the employees have no clue what they are talking about because they don’t understand ".
I looks to me that our boss is trying to rob the employee fund or the company (depending on POV) of a couple hundred a month. From my breif googling of the definitions it almost looks like it would qualify for embezzling but I don’t know the legal angles for what kind of actions/ng practices warrant that charge.
So how would the dopers address this rather touchy legal/accounting/political situation at work.
He gets reimbursed personally for money he takes from the fund, and he doesn’t give it back? He’s a fucking thief. Refuse to give him anything more from the fund without getting a receipt, and then present him with the receipt a few days later and insist that he repay the fund. Or tell him not to get reimbursement. Or cut the prices so the fund doesn’t make any profit.
He gets reimbursed personally for money he takes from the fund, and he doesn’t give it back? He’s a fucking thief. Refuse to give him anything more from the fund without getting a receipt, and then present him with the receipt a few days later and insist that he repay the fund. Or tell him not to get reimbursement. Or cut the prices so the fund doesn’t make any profit.
If it’s supposed to be at company expense, the employee funds have nothing to do with it. Your facility manager is a thief.
However, since you have been running the fund on an informal basis, the burden would be on you to prove that the fund belongs to the employees.
Question: what happens if the funds simply aren’t turned over? What’s he going to do, not hold the barbecue (in violation of company directive)? Fire everybody?
He is insisting that there are 2 employee funds one that he controls and the one which we control. (this is news to us and first we heard of it is when we were about to do a $300+ pallet recycling run.) Crew would rather stack the pallets outside and light them on fire than give boss the cash.
The existence of the fund is not in question, just that boss refuses to submit to any kind of accountability for the money and insists that the larger portion of recycling revenues must be turned over to him.
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Question: what happens if the funds simply aren’t turned over? What’s he going to do, not hold the barbecue (in violation of company directive)? Fire everybody? **[/QUOTE]
Remember this is the guy who can fire us, does our evaluations, etc, etc. Walking in and calling him a theif would probably not go over well. Complaining to upper management may have mixed results…is the company out money? No, they were paying anyway? The victim is the employees and like you said we have to prove the money was ours to begin with. We have always used company vehicles (with company approval) to do these recycle runs, he has refused to permit use of the trucks unless we turn over the money. Hauling 150 empty pallets and 40-50 pounds of aluminum cans is a bit much for a car and none of the employees have pickup trucks.
Just don’t do it, drachillix. Like you said, light the pallets on fire. Just leave them there. Whatever. I’ve had informal-fund-related problems before, and the solution has frequently been, “Fine. It’s dissolved. Happy?” It’s drastic, but I’d say that it beats the hell out of doing all the work and letting him make a profit from it.
drachillix I don’t know where you work, but every job I’ve work the company STRONGLY frowned on theft. He is embezzling from the company (at least that is the spin I’d put on it) by supplying false reimbursement receipts.
I would go to human resources, and tell them exactly what is happening. Also I would mention the blackmail part with the truck. He isn’t pay for the gas, or your time, why should he demand payment for the truck.
Keep in mind: this method is guaranteed to get the fund eliminated. but at least he’ll probably get fired.
Actually it has generally been done using compnay trucks on company time (slow day when it would not interfere with primary work) so he pretty much can say no if he wants to.
Of course if he ** didn’t** get fired for whatever reason, it could be very very messy around here.
To avoid getting ID’d on an anonymous email, I would have to aim for some pretty big pay grade head honchos and potentially step on alot of toes if it surfaced who did it. I have anonymously emailed a bigger boss before and when he showed up to address the problem they were already 90% sure I was the one who emailed them. Computer saavy folks are kinda few and far between in many facilities.
Who actually has possession of the money? What’s the account balance? Maybe you should empty out the fund (buy one last icemaker or whatever), and thereafter don’t have a standing fund, just pass around the hat when a purchase has to be made.
It’s not as fun that way, it changes the way you’ve always handled the fund, but it’s a painless way to get your thieving boss’s hands off the money without having to make a stink with him.
Can you just send an anonymous letter to the higher-ups? Not email, just print out a simple letter in Word, and send it via regular snail mail. Just state the facts of what is going on – they can check up on the details themselves. I don’t see how they could track it to you, and they would probably check into it.
I’m with ratatoskk - just stop paying into the fund. Take your empty pop cans home with you, or just throw them out, or whatever. It’s your money; there’s no reason you should have to hand it over to anybody if you don’t want to.
Money is in a locked cabinet, in warehouse supervisors office, manager does not have access. Balance currently is about $600 we are planning on opening a checking account (multiple sig required checks, 1 sup, 1 elected crewmember) with it so there will be better accountability.
Unfortunately we are talking about 15 $7-$8 dollar an hour employees. Most of them would balk at the idea of coughing up $20 or $30 all at once for something big, but the 20-30 cents going into the fund in profit adds up in a hurry during the summer and we already are used to paying 50 cents for a soda anywhere else.
Well #1 concern is that nobody (other than the manager) would be disciplined. I don’ t think thats likely no matter what. #2 concern would be preservation of the fund, its kinda a neat thing being able to do and so far there has been almost ZERO bickering among the crew over any aspect of it. #3 Even if we stopped paying into the fund, the recycling would continue to go into his pocket, therefore the biggest part of the problem never went away.
Let me throw in a warning flag before you go running to an other officials in the company, about the SOURCE of the money. If there’s NOT a company policy about how profits from things like vending machine sales, can recycling etc. are used, then it’s completely plausible that the company might take the position that the money is being stolen by the employees who manage and/or deposit money into the fund. MY former employers a policy about those profits – they were to be donated to a local charity designated by local management.
So I suggest not running to HR and yelling thief, that’s a brush wide enough to paint more than one of you. Though I agree, this guy IS a thief.
So I think you only have one choice, which is to ESTABLISH an official policy on how this kind of money is spent. That’s not to say it will be one you’ll like, there’s no guarantee the company will decide to spend it on employee “wellness”, but at least it will make HIM account for the money. If you write off the money and simply raise money for things entirely privately, he will pocket the money collected to date, and continue to pocket future profits.
A front-person involved with bookkeeping/accounting for the local office would be the best person to bring this up. Just an innocent question up the line to the parent company accountant, something like, “You know we’ve collected a few hundred bucks of revenue here due to some peripheral employee related activites, like the employee lounge vending machine. How do we account for it, what can we do with it?” No accusations, no demands – probably a suggestion like, “I think we’ve used it in the past for some small employee benefits, and I think that’s a good idea.”
You may be surprised that there IS such a policy, and if not the accountants will come up with one, because accountants just cannot stand unaccounted for money.
Like I said, maybe this works to the benefit of the employees, maybe not. But since the fund is now in the hands of a thief, your best option is make him account for it so he doesn’t KEEP stealing.
First of all, I’ll assume the employee fund buys the candy and soda(if the company does I think you’re in trouble ) If that is the case it seems to me the fund is simply a small cooperative business that takes place on company property. I could see them putting a stop to it or regulating it but not just taking the money.
Your boss’s policy of open books contradicts his so boldly stealing the money. Maybe you should calmly mention to him that the company allows the employee fund on an informal basis only. They probably don’t want official company directives being financed by it(some do-gooder might want to try/sue them for embezzling or it may screw up some BBQ tax right off- don’t know how likely either of those are but your boss probably doesn’t either). Explain that the fund has always been used for things the company isn’t willing to pay for, not as a loan fund. If he is worried about getting reimbursed maybe suggest he apply for a company credit card.
Bottom line is the company said they would pay for it, so at the end of the month the employee fund should not be out any BBQ money. Simple as that(if as already stipulated the fund is not making money off the company).
Gotta begrudginly agree here. I dont know if there is an OFFICAL policy on this or not, although I have heard the regional manager make a statement to the effect that the money should be used for employee activities.
If the company got involved in an offical capacity…oh I can see it now…we would like to set a goal of increasing recycling revenues by 8% or more…
I was considering something like calling up one of our accounting types and asking “I have some questions about expense accounts, do you have a minute?” “so if I was paying for the BBQ , I would get reimbursed…can <employee funds> be reimbursed if our manager is a little short this week but the fund can cover it?”
) If that is the case it seems to me the fund is simply a small cooperative business that takes place on company property. I could see them putting a stop to it or regulating it but not just taking the money.