Companies are known for cutting corners to save money.

But, what happens when the “cuts” aren’t really adding up?

Read how one Redditor noticed one company standard that’s resulted in businesses losing money.

See the story below to learn more.

When the big company doesn’t trust employees

Bored of the repetitive posts maybe from bots, I have a different story about economic incentives.

This one has to do with flying on the company dime.

I used to work for a multinational that allowed to fly business class for intercontinental client trips.

And it all begins with some employee mistrust.

It must have been some accountant worrying that employees could trade the ticket in, fly coach, and pocket the money, because the policy stated that the boarding passes needed to be included in the expense report.

But the expectation was that the employees would front thousands.

Since people hated to spend 6-10k USD on a ticket and get reimbursed a month later once they could produce boarding passes, they all bought their tickets at the last minute, thus paying $10-15k. (this is the economic lesson: people respond to incentives).

And so, the company’s prolonged reimbursement timeline resulted in them losing out big.

So, the company ended up overpaying for plane tickets because it didn’t trust the employees.

Of course, the tides eventually changed, what with technology.

The policy changed when people started using electronic boarding passes and forgot to ask for paper ones.

Genius bean counters must have found significant savings in the average flight costs, but probably they were too dumb to figure it out.

Does Reddit have any examples of this?

Let’s read some of the comments below to see what everyone else is saying…

First up, a commenter could definitely relate.

Some were in disbelief.

Others said the “paranoia” wasn’t worth the expense.

And finally, one reader remained confused by the boarding passes.

It’s not worth it for companies to cut corners if employees will find a loophole.

Actually.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.