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Sambhar Mafia - Cooked To Kill!

Friday, September 23, 2005

Claim at your own expense

Think twice before you fudge your expense claims. Intel India has just fired 250 people for faking the expense claims. Few homegrown companies do have stringent checks to monitor fudging of bills and the concerned employees (irrespective of their position in the company) are shown the door. However such instances have been few and far between. This crackdown by Intel is probably the largest of its kind in the Indian corporate world.

The report implies bad employee practices like "faking bills to claim your allowances like conveyance [and] drivers’ salaries" are endemic in Indian business, but Intel, for one, isn't having any of it, and has for the past few months been monitoring expense claims.

The probe was conducted as part of Intel's internal Business Practice Excellence programme, an initiative put in place in 2003 to keep the chip giant's corporate nose clean in an era of ever-greater public scrutiny of big business' behaviour.

One element of the programme Intel stresses is employee rights, but clearly it believes they come with responsibilities too. Hence, it seems, the clamp-down in India.

10 Comments:

  • It goes to prove the old Proverb "Perasai Perum Nashtam"..

    By Blogger Rags, at 12:41 AM  

  • Many companies do fire people for exactly the same reason - faking bills. Companies, supposedly, want to prove that they subscribe to certain values.

    But it is easy to fire people. That's why so many companies do it. The pain is felt afterwards - to fill the vacant positions - by someone otherthan the decision maker. Firing as many as 250 people probably could speak about the company's commitment. But, does size matter?

    What it does show is how misaligned are its recruitment division's priorities with its own. 250 people, in any comany, is a big number.

    If companies are really committed, they should include this angle in their HR interviews. There could be hazaar other initiatives. Firing people is the easiest.

    By Blogger Chaitanya Sagar, at 2:24 AM  

  • These type of reimbursements have moulded the mindset of people that anything can be claimed and obtained back... This should be a good lesson for those people with a similar attitude to cheat on all these stuff.. As Rags had put it 'peraasai peru nashtam thaan'...

    By Blogger Ram C, at 9:29 AM  

  • @Rags,
    Quite true.

    @Chanakya,
    It is a strong signal that the company doesn't tolerate irregularities of any kind.
    I guess they would be more careful in spotting such characteristics in future hires. Maybe some behavioral tests would help them.

    @Ram,
    Guess people would resort to more innovative fudging methods in the future

    By Blogger Kaps, at 10:55 AM  

  • there was a rumour that since when Intel's demands were rejected by the govt, Intel became more strict and stringent. The practise of faking bills was sure wrong. hope things get better for everybody.

    By Blogger GS, at 11:13 AM  

  • totally approve of the move by intel..a step in the right direction..hope more companies follow such rules and create a standard...are the government organizations listening??

    By Blogger harry, at 1:06 PM  

  • Like Gayatri said, It was written in the same article that an Intel proposal to the govt. met with some roadblocks because the govt seem to be losing revenues because of the fake docs.
    One reason i never claimed reimbursements in my previous was that, you got the whole amount sans TAX anyway since it was part of the CTC. Why fake docs for a few thousand bucks. Faking itself takes a whole lots of effort not reallt worth the few mere thousands. nevertheless, it is rampant an dtaken for granted. Most companies also turn a blind eye to it since the company has to pay anyway, bill or no bill. In fact, every month on the reimbursement bill submission last date,Noby does their work and instead spen their time filing fake bills and thr forms..

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:37 PM  

  • @Gayathri,
    This must have been the result of some long standing inquiry and audit. I don't think the Intel investment decision and this one has any connection

    @Harry,
    Better to project a no tolerance corporate environment to the outside world

    @Tony,
    I think the government didn't react favourably to some capital contribution and subsidies requested by intel. Faking is not worth the effort and as we can see here it can cost your job.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 4:31 PM  

  • I don't fake.!! I think it is a moral responsibility of each employee.! I am glad they fired these thieves.!!!

    By Blogger Narayanan Venkitu, at 1:30 PM  

  • @Rajesh,
    Valid point. it would be impossible to conduct large scale scrutiny in the IT majors.

    @Venkitu Sir,
    It is not worth faking. Somebody is always watching.

    By Blogger Kaps, at 11:43 PM  

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