Workplace policies are meant to create order, not chaos.

If your workplace had a policy where you had to pay for your flights yourself and get reimbursed later, would you book your flights early or wait until the last minute?

This employee works at a large multinational company with a very specific travel reimbursement rule. Employees are required to present paper boarding passes before they can reimburse flight expenses.

Check out the full story below to find out how this policy backfired for the company.

When the big company doesn’t trust employees

I have a different story about economic incentives.

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

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.

This man and his colleagues decided to buy their flight tickets at the last minute.

People hated to spend 6–10k USD on a ticket and get reimbursed a month later once they could produce boarding passes.

So, they all bought their tickets at the last minute, thus paying $10–15k.

This is the economic lesson: people respond to incentives.

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

The policy eventually changed.

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.

It’s ridiculous to expect employees to pay for their flights and get reimbursed later.

Let’s see how others reacted to this story on Reddit.

This person’s company had the same policy.

This person needs some clarification.

Corporate paranoia is so expensive, says this person.

Finally, here’s a related personal experience.

When companies value control over trust, they pay for it.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.