By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine

The speaker of the House of Commons has been accused of using his air miles for his family, but this is a dilemma many of us face daily: is it fair to use corporate perks in our personal lives?
OK, so here's a situation. You work for Company X and during the course of your work you have to stay in hotels.

Every time you stay in a hotel you clock up Frequent Sleeper Vouchers, part of an incentive scheme to get you to stay in a particular chain. There are no rules at your company about the use of these vouchers, but you have a sneaking suspicion that your bosses would be less than delighted about you using them for anything other than work.

You quite fancy a trip away with your wife. But would you use the vouchers yourself, and if not why not? And would the situation change if Company X could not make use of them, perhaps because they would expire at the end of the month?

The allegations against the speaker Michael Martin are something different again, but they have cast light on what is apparently a burning issue in the world of business ethics.

"It comes up in business ethics quite a lot," says Simon Webley, research director at the Institute of Business Ethics. "A good many companies tell their staff they may use air miles. But you don't assume you can."

But it's not just air miles. For many workers, there is also the issue of company cars, company laptops, making personal calls at the office, certain uses of expense accounts, and general borrowing of company equipment for a personal use.

Code of conduct

Most of us would agree that if our contracts, which we had freely entered into, forbade a particular perk then we would be regarded as unethical if we still went ahead and took it.

The institute would suggest to companies that in their code of ethics or code of conduct an employer should have specific rules for use of company "perks" in order to avoid confusion. But in the absence of rules?

"The onus is on the company to set out rules. But I think you should ask if you are going to use company assets for a personal use," says Mr Webley.

At the University of Aberdeen Business School, Dr David Molyneaux said the allegations made against the speaker had stimulated debate among his students.

"My sense is air miles should generally be used to reduce the cost of a subsequent trip in the line of business or activity in which the individual is."

The alternative is the possibility that someone could be accused of doing something for improper reasons, says Dr Molyneaux, treasurer of the European Business Ethics Network-UK.

"You could end up that someone goes for a more expensive carrier simply to get the air miles simply to suit them."

For philosopher Alex Voorhoeve there is not just the question of obeying the rules but also being seen to obey the rules, whether it's perks or gifts.

"In my line of work students sometimes give you gifts. There is a clear rule that you shouldn't be paid except by the university, but if a nice bottle of vodka comes from a Russian student does that constitute payment?

"It should be fine unless it would in some sense corrupt your judgement or give the appearance of corrupting your judgement."

This can lead to a situation in business or elsewhere where an individual might want to turn down perks even if it was acceptable to take them.

"If you want to avoid even the appearance of being distracted you might want to turn down perks," says Dr Voorhoeve.

But for many of us, taking perks, even those we are not strictly entitled to, is a method of rectifying a work situation we see as unfair, says workplace sociologist Cary Cooper, of Lancaster University. For some people, there might be the tolerated taking of sick days when only low levels of paid leave are allowed, for others the liberal use of expense accounts when a low bonus is paid.

"People don't feel properly recognised by their workplace, when they are given perks... they think this is psychological recognition for the long hours of work they do and the efforts they put in."

There are people who feel they are unfairly rewarded or recognised for what they do.

Psychological recompense

"For them it isn't money, it's the value that they have to the organisation on the basis of the perk," says Prof Cooper.

"People feel they are not being recognised, feel they are not paid properly... the organisation or society should be rewarding this position much higher than it does. It is a form of psychological recompense, doing what I do should be compensated at this level."

And the answer?

"If employers and managers treated people properly, valued them by rewarding and praising we would get fewer people maximising their perks," says Prof Cooper.

There is also a legal aspect to the perks dilemma. Under British law at least, most perks are taxable with the employer usually responsible for reporting them to HM Revenue and Customs at the end of the year.

Whatever the sociological reasons for perk maximisation, it will continue to be a daily ethical dilemma for millions of workers across the country. And for the ethicists, it's clear that it isn't just a question of the letter of the law, but also of how we are viewed within an organisation and our duty to set an example.

"The test is would you be embarrassed if everyone else knew you had done it," says Dr Molyneaux.

"It's quite a good rule of thumb. If you are not embarrassed write a thank you letter to be put on public display in the glass atrium of your office. That is quite a good test.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7274603.stm