Corporate Policies
I work for a rather large multinational company. Those who know me personally know which company that is, but for the rest of you, I am not going to divulge that here.
Like many high-tech jobs these days, it’s required to have a mobile phone. Being a remote employee, I have typically expensed my service. It provides me a certain amount of direct control over my service, both in terms of the service plan I am on and the ability to call in and troubleshoot directly with the carrier if I have an issue, which I occasionally do. I had managed to get a fairly decent rate plan for what I needed at the time. With rollover mintues, it was an even better deal as the rateplan has been able to “grow” with me as needed.
Now I am being told that my phone service must be done through corporate billing. While I don’t mind that per-se, what I do mind is that all of the corporate phones have a very different rate plan–one that with my usage would end up costing the company at least twice as much as it costs them now.
I’ve run into the same problem with travel as well. I must use our corporate travel agency for making reservations for business travel. There’s some logic in that that I agree with. However, the policies surrounding what hotels I am allowed to stay at and what airlines I am allowed to travel don’t always allow for the most cost-effective choices to be made. I have gotten flack from the travel folks for staying at an unapproved hotel even when the choice I was was significantly cheaper than the approved hotel. The online tool for booking trave, until very recently,l did not allow me to choose the airline I wanted to fly on, even though the carrier I use is pretty much the only game in town for the particular route I fly regularly.
At least from the employee point of view, corporate policies seem to involve spending more money to do something than is needed. Maybe there is some inherent cost savings on a macro level, as opposed to the micro level that I am able to see things at. That being said, I feel like I am now costing the company more money for doing the same activities at the same levels I was doing them last month, and I feel like that’s a waste.
Oh well, I guess should just be a good corporate citizen and just shut up and work. 
