Is being permitted to claim expenses a perk of the job? Many employees and their managers seem to think so.

Who doesn’t recognise a corporate credit card as a badge of office given only to those who achieve a certain status within a company along with access to the company pension plan and a company car? Being given a platinum corporate card is akin to receiving the keys to the executive floor bathroom.

It would be an unusual employee who doesn’t experience a giddy rush of pride the first time he, or she is given permission to take a taxi home and charge it to the company. It’s a sure sign that their work is valued, that their efforts have been appreciated and that they have been rewarded. In short: a benefit.

There are many stories circulating out there of partners or company executives that have an expense allowance making more junior employees pay for the taxi journey to a meeting and claim it back, for example, rather than eat into their own personal allowance.

The distinction between what is company money and what is ‘my money’ can become confused. Employees start to see expenses as a right and view them as an adjunct to their salaries. This blurring of the boundaries is most visible at the top of an organisation and can have embarrassing consequences, as seen with members of the House of Commons and European Parliament. Employee expenses are frequently perceived and treated as a benefit, even if that is not the reality.

Employees not only see expenses as part of their own personal benefits, but managers and more senior executives with sign-off responsibility can wield their power to approve or reject their employees’ expense claims as a tool to reward staff behaviour. Managers may decide to take the team out for a lunch on expenses as a reward for the completion of a project or winning a contract, for example.

Employees believe that their managers use employee expenses to reward staff for a-job-well-done or working long hours, punish staff, favour particular employees and shape employee behaviour, according to our survey undertaken by YouGov.

If managers and senior executives treat employee expenses as a personal money-box and use expenses to reward staff in a way not sanctioned by the HR department, then is it any wonder that employees consider employee expenses to be part of the benefits package?

Not surprisingly, it showed that employees are more likely to exaggerate their expense claims if they feel they are not being treated fairly by their employer:

Some employees may be tempted to abuse the employee expense system to compensate themselves if they think the company isn’t paying them their dues.

In these ways, employee expenses can be used as an informal system of benefits and rewards. Even if employees from the top to the bottom of the business consider expenses to be a flexible benefit, the accounts department would beg to differ. Where guidelines are confused, staff will make their own rules.

To break the back of this culture, companies should set out a clear employee expenses policy and enforce it.

Organisations could spend hundreds of thousands of pounds with a Big Four firm to design a fair and rigorous expenses policy, but if the manager with sign-off responsibility approves the expense claim regardless of the rules, t hen the money is wasted.

In order to change behaviour the expense rules and the reasons for them must be explained to all expense claiming staff from the most junior to the most senior. A positive change in behaviour should be rewarded and persistent offenders reprimanded.

Most important of all, senior management must be seen to lead by example. In the survey 16% of respondents said that they think it is acceptable for an employee to exaggerate his or her expenses if they are following a bad example set by senior management of wining and dining on the company.

David Vine is managing director of GlobalExpense