This is a question of what would be ethically sound, not what I could convince my
boss was sound.
If I travel on a company ticket should I be owed the frequent flier miles?
If I buy a case of paper on the company credit card and use a coupon for a free ream, should I get to keep it?
What if it were a dollar-off coupon, should I get the dollar?
Is it kosher for me to fill my travel mug with company coffee for my trip home, to be
drunk essentially after work? After all, it’s free during lunch hour.
On the frequent flier miles, I believe either keeping them or giving them to the company should ethically be stated as company policy, and the employee should abide by the policy.
There is a pretty good argument for the company keeping them, though. I actually read an academic paper on this, and when people who have any control over their own business travel get to keep the miles, they waste a lot of time and money scheduling travel to maximize their free bonus miles. This may not be apparent to the low-level worker who takes the occasional business trip at the clear direction of his manager, but when you get to the higher ranks, those folks have quite a bit of discretion in travel and apparently use that discretion to their own benefit quite a bit. (The paper was The ethical dimensions of airline frequent flier programs, David W. Arnesen, C. Patrick Fleenor and Rex S. Toh (1997))
I believe you ethically cannot keep the ream of paper or the dollar. If you have authority over a budget, your fiscal responsibility is to manage it for the good of the shareholders (or taxpayers, if you work for the gov’t). If you can get paper cheaper, you should. It’s not like every time you find a way to save the organization a buck, they will give you a buck. It’s quite likely that, if Staples has paper at $30, BOGO with a coupon, Office Max has paper at $20. If your office only needs 1 ream, you just spent $10 of company money to get your “free” ream of paper. Like the frequent flier miles, you as an agent of the company were attracted to a deal structured to your advantage. The government example is instructive–how would you want someone who is spending your tax dollars to handle the situation? People who are good at procurement should be rewarded with salary and promotions to manage bigger budgets–not with little freebies along the way.
I’m not really sure about the coffee. How would you feel about that practice if, rather than company-sponsored coffee, it was a situation where co-workers took turns buying the coffee, and one of your coworkers was doing that? Personally I can’t see drinking coffee at 5pm. But I could see a night shift worker doing this on the way home in the morning. And to me, that would be a reasonable action to stay alert on the drive.