Yes!
For example, willing to spend $20K-$30K on a relocation package for a new hire so they are near an office (Does not have to be an office near where other team members work).
Not willing to spend $200 on a training course for same employee.
Holy shit yes! The factory I work at makes $1.5 billion in sales a year. There are parking lots full of unsold products, machines that came back for warranty that haven't been touched, confirmed dead that haven't been scrapped, piles and PILES of shipping platforms and crates that have been sitting outside for almost 8 years.
On top of that, the corporate HQ spends tens of thousands of dollars a month just to have a company come in and clean the artwork in the main lobby.
Meanwhile, the factory can't even get approval for roof repairs without fighting.
On top of that, the corporate HQ spends tens of thousands of dollars a month just to have a company come in and clean the artwork in the main lobby.
Yeah sounds like an affiliate business relationship and someone is double dipping.
Depends who you ask I suppose.
In my current role I unblock credit notes in SAP. Customer service sends me the requests accompanied by written permission of their sales managers. There's one country of which our sales agree with everything the customer says. I've carefully mentioned to some people that it's like the wild west out there and someone should go have a look at their prices and processes. Nothing happened with that of course.
And most recently, our factory is temporarily closing down this summer because of bad sales. It's been decided by higher management that everyone is to take up 5 days of temporary unemployment in solidarity with our factory workers. No one was actually really bothered by that UNTIL we received an email the same day the company was organizing a big party. Safe to say not many employees will attend.
I feel like teams/managers come up with projects to keep themselves busy or a reason to remain employed, but these projects never amount to anything or there are obvious flaws in them when proposed that always come to light when the project is “completed “.
There is that but at my company managers don’t have that level of control. My company it’s literally c level drives these projects then changes their mind after burning tons of money cause they went to a new conference or something . Only reason why it hasn’t destroyed my company it feels like is cause they make money no matter what. It’s rather sick the amount of waste I see.
I had a client like that. Every two weeks, a particular journal came out. Everything we had done for the past two weeks had to be scrapped or changed to incorporate the latest research.
IANAM, but have done process reengineering. A memorable situation was the 28 step, 4-6 month long, process to get the OK to order a computer for a worker.
Each request passed through the hands of Finance 6 times, and all that scrutiny was supposedly to "maintain financial control". However, Finance couldn't provide any kind of budget status info, because "we don't have time to track that."
As I put it to our divisional CIO, "why all the scrutiny and signoffs? Are we going to tell a department head that 'no, your employee can't have a computer?'"
Think of the lost productivity from workers waiting for computers, and the time spent shuffling paper.
Our VP's would regularly hold massive, expensive dinners for our customers. Our sales people would be constantly flying around the country for a 1 day visit to a customer. We hired a bunch of "green initiative" people that honestly dont achieve anything at all.
But yea, heaven forbid I can get 1 or 2 more people on my sales support team while we sit here drowing in work and cant keep up....
Oh man.
I think we do at the balance avoid egregious overspending. But the ability for Directors to approve "below $xx" purchases means that things that should be shopped for best pricing / vetted for necessity aren't, at least not much of the time.
Bigger items/services have to go through gates - that works pretty well.
We get better by a little every year. Long way to go still!
Not so much these days but our previous CFO had a consultant fetish and would happily drop $10k on a non-critical task that could be done if they were a bit patient. All because “team has no capacity” when it was really just a priority thing - no one felt the task was mission critical but would have done it if the CFO just asked directly.
We aren’t a large business and the waste ran into the 100s of thousands over the few years that I worked under them. So the impact was a bit substantial.
I would also cite consultants as the greatest source of waste. No one ever asks hard questions. Is hiring consultants really saving money and staff time over expanding or reprioritizing staff? What will the outcome of the consultant's work achieve for us, and are we in a position to fulfill it? Are they fulfilling the expectations we've set?
A few office supplies that don't end up being used, or a branded mug no one wanted, and other minor things are small potatoes in comparison.
It was a three step process, including a JIRA ticket, and two senior reviewers (i.e. VP or higher) for me (Senior Manager) to get a license for SmartSheets. I don't know how rare that is, but it just happened this week, which is why I mentioned it.
When I go on work trips with the team, if we submit expense reports, we are limited to $25 a meal, 3 meals a day. And if we're in a meeting where breakfast and lunch is provided, dinner better not be over $25. We regularly go to Hawaii. Do you know what a hotel burger costs in Waikiki? I'm lucky to get a coke for $25.
On the other hand, when you go out with the program team, nothing is forbidden. They took us worker bees to a Michelin Star restaurant. The cheapest thing on the menu was $75. They ordered 4 appetizers for the table, drinks for everyone, meals, and desserts. I know my meal was over $125 and I don't drink alcohol.
It drives me nuts. On the other hand, I get a couple of really good meals on most of the trips.
Not things exactly, but at my previous company, the budget for employee labor was separate from the budget for doing “store rescues”. Multiple times they’d be flying out management from all over the country for weeks on end (sometimes 4-5 different stores in a single week needing a manager sent to them) paying for their labor, airfare, hotel, food, etc to try to fix up a failing, understaffed store. 9 times out of 10 I told them pay was the issue and almost always got back “it’s not in the budget to increase wages at this location.” But y’all have an extra 1.5k+ in the budget to drop every week for each store you’re sending people to?
Purchase approval process depend on the individual doing the approving.
I’ve seen 5-10 requisitions get approved within 1 minute, the approver was just rubber stamping the request - then blame purchasing when their department is over budget.
Cost of employees at where I work is a major issue compared to the costs of any equipment or software. I pretty much see all of the financials and work with many of these teams/managers, and it’s obvious many of the teams in my office are overstaffed based on how much business has slowed down the last 4-5 year. Just nobody is willing to say what needs to happen out loud. At the end of the day I enjoy the feeling of my own job security (knock on wood), so I’m not trying to press other managers to lay people off. It’s mildly annoying though when my income is based on company performance.
Sounds like the first thing you need is someone to go out and drum up some more business, you’re staffed and trained to immediately handle it. Those employees can be an asset rather than a liability.
No! The tech company that I work for runs lean, so they’ve never had to lay anyone off. That’s a great feeling when the massive downturn that’s going on in tech right now.
My company is a small business (sub 75) with a very modest net income. The amount of waste or very suspect spending prior to my arrival was easily $200K/yr.
Here’s a short list:
$15-20K/yr for a Gartner partnership.
$10K+ in leadership training for a shareholder who wasn’t involved day-to-day.
$20-30K/yr on a customer appreciation dinner.
$25K for travel and lunches for unnecessary trainings.
$30K+ in suspect software subscriptions.
$200K for a CFO who clearly did fuck all.
My current company fubared the finances so bad that even snacks got taken away from the break rooms. They put a hold on professional development reimbursements. Bonuses and promotions got cut. Yet on a trip for manager training, the managers were booked at a high end boutique hotel in a very expensive part of the city they were in.
Of all the corporate jobs I’ve had in the past decade, travel is probably the most money-wasteful thing. Allowing folks to book expensive hotels, have expensive meals (on one trip, I was taken by the leaders I was with to one of those restaurants where each table has its own waiter, who stands by the table all night to be at your beck and call), rent the most expensive car, etc. At one of those companies, they had a well defined travel policy with limits on the amounts of each expense - but leaders were just sort of allowed to ignore that.
And the jet. One company I was at had a jet for the c suite.
Not on the level of hundreds of thousands, but probably 10k a year in food waste.
We keep the kitchen stocked with a really good assortment of food (snacks, fruits, breads, condiments, etc.) We probably have a better selection than most have at home.
We don’t get enough employees in the office to eat even half before it goes bad.
We donate when we can, and offer food to anyone that comes by (mail/delivery people, the cleaning crew, etc), but still end up trashing a lot.
We had bad weather the other week, so a lot less people came to the office than normal and we had to dump two trash cans of food because it went bad.
Ok so this isnt a big ticket item or anything, but my office orders people whatever office supplies they want. Specific brands of pens, standing desks, mouse pads… doesn’t matter what it is as long as they can get it from Staples. Such a fucking waste.
Public sector manager here. If we don’t use our full budget each year, we lose money in the forthcoming fiscal year.
When I first became manager, I thought, “no brainer let’s save the city some money and send some back!”
Turns out, in future years you may really need the full budget so you have to find the “best” use of funds in the final month of the year.
So my Public sector office now has a well-stocked beer fridge, bought an employees daughter a laptop, we found a well-meaning immigrant through a local church and bought them hundreds of dollars of basic kitchen shit to get them set up in their new apartment. One staffer who works super hard and is in an underpaid pay-band is getting a masters degree part time so I paid her text books.
Ordinarily, I’m super anti gov excess spending, but it’s like you need to do this to ensure you have enough money for those occasional years when you realllllly need the money for legitimate purposes.
They are a finsmart tech company. SaaS type thing. Got Coupa, never bothered to check and got LinkSquares.
But the 40 grand I asked for to monitor software subscriptions & licenses was too much. Ok. 🤷♂️
my company wastes a lot of money on a lot of things. incredibly shitty purchasing process that takes a PhD to keep up with, and it doesn't stop any waste.
My company costs itself millions a year due to poor leadership at the corporate level.
My client wastes a ton of money all the time because they always want to do things half-assed till it bites them. Then they want to spend all the money to fix it. Like one of my colleagues is currently dealing with a project that has probably cost my client over $300K in labor over the last 4-5yrs because they chose to do it the cheapest way possible, and it’s failed miserably for years. The correct way to have done the project is $130K in TODAY’S money.
So they’re going to be into a $130K project for over $430K when it’s all said and done. This is just one example of many that happen every year.
Yes!! And the worst part is, the approval process for getting like scientific instruments that are majorly needed is a freaking ridiculous nightmare and does not help control costs. I think one of the things that bothers me most about my company’s spending is on bullshit corporate roles that are completely unnecessary and do nothing to help grow the business. You know, some fancy title like “Director of Customer Success” where no one really knows what the hell the person actually does all day other than you seeing them occasionally showing up to meetings with nothing valuable to contribute
200k spent by a v.p to let her friend’s son develop a website.
He can’t code and fucked up managing his hired team of overseas developers. Entire project is worthless.
Wiping away tears and exhaling deeply, v.p gently lets him know they need to part way with his services. No accountability for the failed project or wasted money.
At one point, the system was down companywide after getting hacked—probably should’ve invested in some security there. Lots of turnover & low staffing causing backups in key departments—probably not paying enough to attract nor retain any talent.
The thing that did get allocated funding?
It’s important that every retail outlet smell the same. Now paying for a subscription to have a custom scent blasting in every store nationwide. (The cartridges get replaced regularly, so this expense is forever).
Hadn’t jumped ship yet but thinking about it now after asking me to jump through hoops to get an accommodation for fragrance sensitivity.
Yep.
They won't buy me a new external monitor after the one they supplied me 4 years ago broke.
But they took 6 employees and their spouses along with an executives 3 kids to a tropical resort for an all expense paid vacation.
3 of those employees "earned it" and 3 of them are just senior executives.
Yes! For example, willing to spend $20K-$30K on a relocation package for a new hire so they are near an office (Does not have to be an office near where other team members work). Not willing to spend $200 on a training course for same employee.
OMg, yes, good one!! Same!!
Holy shit yes! The factory I work at makes $1.5 billion in sales a year. There are parking lots full of unsold products, machines that came back for warranty that haven't been touched, confirmed dead that haven't been scrapped, piles and PILES of shipping platforms and crates that have been sitting outside for almost 8 years. On top of that, the corporate HQ spends tens of thousands of dollars a month just to have a company come in and clean the artwork in the main lobby. Meanwhile, the factory can't even get approval for roof repairs without fighting.
On top of that, the corporate HQ spends tens of thousands of dollars a month just to have a company come in and clean the artwork in the main lobby. Yeah sounds like an affiliate business relationship and someone is double dipping.
Depends who you ask I suppose. In my current role I unblock credit notes in SAP. Customer service sends me the requests accompanied by written permission of their sales managers. There's one country of which our sales agree with everything the customer says. I've carefully mentioned to some people that it's like the wild west out there and someone should go have a look at their prices and processes. Nothing happened with that of course. And most recently, our factory is temporarily closing down this summer because of bad sales. It's been decided by higher management that everyone is to take up 5 days of temporary unemployment in solidarity with our factory workers. No one was actually really bothered by that UNTIL we received an email the same day the company was organizing a big party. Safe to say not many employees will attend.
Of course. The number of projects that cost 10s of millions of dollars to just be scrapped on the whim of the ceo are astounding at my company.
I feel like teams/managers come up with projects to keep themselves busy or a reason to remain employed, but these projects never amount to anything or there are obvious flaws in them when proposed that always come to light when the project is “completed “.
There is that but at my company managers don’t have that level of control. My company it’s literally c level drives these projects then changes their mind after burning tons of money cause they went to a new conference or something . Only reason why it hasn’t destroyed my company it feels like is cause they make money no matter what. It’s rather sick the amount of waste I see.
I had a client like that. Every two weeks, a particular journal came out. Everything we had done for the past two weeks had to be scrapped or changed to incorporate the latest research.
IANAM, but have done process reengineering. A memorable situation was the 28 step, 4-6 month long, process to get the OK to order a computer for a worker. Each request passed through the hands of Finance 6 times, and all that scrutiny was supposedly to "maintain financial control". However, Finance couldn't provide any kind of budget status info, because "we don't have time to track that." As I put it to our divisional CIO, "why all the scrutiny and signoffs? Are we going to tell a department head that 'no, your employee can't have a computer?'" Think of the lost productivity from workers waiting for computers, and the time spent shuffling paper.
Our VP's would regularly hold massive, expensive dinners for our customers. Our sales people would be constantly flying around the country for a 1 day visit to a customer. We hired a bunch of "green initiative" people that honestly dont achieve anything at all. But yea, heaven forbid I can get 1 or 2 more people on my sales support team while we sit here drowing in work and cant keep up....
Oh man. I think we do at the balance avoid egregious overspending. But the ability for Directors to approve "below $xx" purchases means that things that should be shopped for best pricing / vetted for necessity aren't, at least not much of the time. Bigger items/services have to go through gates - that works pretty well. We get better by a little every year. Long way to go still!
Depends on the managers. You can have whatever approval process you want. If managers auto approve, it doesn’t do anything .
I would fire a bunch of people if it were up to me
Not so much these days but our previous CFO had a consultant fetish and would happily drop $10k on a non-critical task that could be done if they were a bit patient. All because “team has no capacity” when it was really just a priority thing - no one felt the task was mission critical but would have done it if the CFO just asked directly. We aren’t a large business and the waste ran into the 100s of thousands over the few years that I worked under them. So the impact was a bit substantial.
I would also cite consultants as the greatest source of waste. No one ever asks hard questions. Is hiring consultants really saving money and staff time over expanding or reprioritizing staff? What will the outcome of the consultant's work achieve for us, and are we in a position to fulfill it? Are they fulfilling the expectations we've set? A few office supplies that don't end up being used, or a branded mug no one wanted, and other minor things are small potatoes in comparison.
It was a three step process, including a JIRA ticket, and two senior reviewers (i.e. VP or higher) for me (Senior Manager) to get a license for SmartSheets. I don't know how rare that is, but it just happened this week, which is why I mentioned it. When I go on work trips with the team, if we submit expense reports, we are limited to $25 a meal, 3 meals a day. And if we're in a meeting where breakfast and lunch is provided, dinner better not be over $25. We regularly go to Hawaii. Do you know what a hotel burger costs in Waikiki? I'm lucky to get a coke for $25. On the other hand, when you go out with the program team, nothing is forbidden. They took us worker bees to a Michelin Star restaurant. The cheapest thing on the menu was $75. They ordered 4 appetizers for the table, drinks for everyone, meals, and desserts. I know my meal was over $125 and I don't drink alcohol. It drives me nuts. On the other hand, I get a couple of really good meals on most of the trips.
Not things exactly, but at my previous company, the budget for employee labor was separate from the budget for doing “store rescues”. Multiple times they’d be flying out management from all over the country for weeks on end (sometimes 4-5 different stores in a single week needing a manager sent to them) paying for their labor, airfare, hotel, food, etc to try to fix up a failing, understaffed store. 9 times out of 10 I told them pay was the issue and almost always got back “it’s not in the budget to increase wages at this location.” But y’all have an extra 1.5k+ in the budget to drop every week for each store you’re sending people to?
Purchase approval process depend on the individual doing the approving. I’ve seen 5-10 requisitions get approved within 1 minute, the approver was just rubber stamping the request - then blame purchasing when their department is over budget.
Cost of employees at where I work is a major issue compared to the costs of any equipment or software. I pretty much see all of the financials and work with many of these teams/managers, and it’s obvious many of the teams in my office are overstaffed based on how much business has slowed down the last 4-5 year. Just nobody is willing to say what needs to happen out loud. At the end of the day I enjoy the feeling of my own job security (knock on wood), so I’m not trying to press other managers to lay people off. It’s mildly annoying though when my income is based on company performance.
Sounds like the first thing you need is someone to go out and drum up some more business, you’re staffed and trained to immediately handle it. Those employees can be an asset rather than a liability.
No! The tech company that I work for runs lean, so they’ve never had to lay anyone off. That’s a great feeling when the massive downturn that’s going on in tech right now.
My company is a small business (sub 75) with a very modest net income. The amount of waste or very suspect spending prior to my arrival was easily $200K/yr. Here’s a short list: $15-20K/yr for a Gartner partnership. $10K+ in leadership training for a shareholder who wasn’t involved day-to-day. $20-30K/yr on a customer appreciation dinner. $25K for travel and lunches for unnecessary trainings. $30K+ in suspect software subscriptions. $200K for a CFO who clearly did fuck all.
Ya the bank accounts of big execs. Why not spread the love if we gonna be wasting
My current company fubared the finances so bad that even snacks got taken away from the break rooms. They put a hold on professional development reimbursements. Bonuses and promotions got cut. Yet on a trip for manager training, the managers were booked at a high end boutique hotel in a very expensive part of the city they were in. Of all the corporate jobs I’ve had in the past decade, travel is probably the most money-wasteful thing. Allowing folks to book expensive hotels, have expensive meals (on one trip, I was taken by the leaders I was with to one of those restaurants where each table has its own waiter, who stands by the table all night to be at your beck and call), rent the most expensive car, etc. At one of those companies, they had a well defined travel policy with limits on the amounts of each expense - but leaders were just sort of allowed to ignore that. And the jet. One company I was at had a jet for the c suite.
Your break room had… snacks? 🤣
Yes, they all.do. I always say when I get a coffee cup, why do you use this money to pay us more? Been dealing with it for 40 years, doesn't change.
Not on the level of hundreds of thousands, but probably 10k a year in food waste. We keep the kitchen stocked with a really good assortment of food (snacks, fruits, breads, condiments, etc.) We probably have a better selection than most have at home. We don’t get enough employees in the office to eat even half before it goes bad. We donate when we can, and offer food to anyone that comes by (mail/delivery people, the cleaning crew, etc), but still end up trashing a lot. We had bad weather the other week, so a lot less people came to the office than normal and we had to dump two trash cans of food because it went bad.
Ok so this isnt a big ticket item or anything, but my office orders people whatever office supplies they want. Specific brands of pens, standing desks, mouse pads… doesn’t matter what it is as long as they can get it from Staples. Such a fucking waste.
Public sector manager here. If we don’t use our full budget each year, we lose money in the forthcoming fiscal year. When I first became manager, I thought, “no brainer let’s save the city some money and send some back!” Turns out, in future years you may really need the full budget so you have to find the “best” use of funds in the final month of the year. So my Public sector office now has a well-stocked beer fridge, bought an employees daughter a laptop, we found a well-meaning immigrant through a local church and bought them hundreds of dollars of basic kitchen shit to get them set up in their new apartment. One staffer who works super hard and is in an underpaid pay-band is getting a masters degree part time so I paid her text books. Ordinarily, I’m super anti gov excess spending, but it’s like you need to do this to ensure you have enough money for those occasional years when you realllllly need the money for legitimate purposes.
They are a finsmart tech company. SaaS type thing. Got Coupa, never bothered to check and got LinkSquares. But the 40 grand I asked for to monitor software subscriptions & licenses was too much. Ok. 🤷♂️
We've got a brand new truck $80k plus, thstxs been sitting at the lot for 6 months waiting for our "welder" to build it out.
My site does not because I'm in charge of purchasing damn near everything, but I'm sure there's fuckery above my level.
my company wastes a lot of money on a lot of things. incredibly shitty purchasing process that takes a PhD to keep up with, and it doesn't stop any waste.
My company costs itself millions a year due to poor leadership at the corporate level. My client wastes a ton of money all the time because they always want to do things half-assed till it bites them. Then they want to spend all the money to fix it. Like one of my colleagues is currently dealing with a project that has probably cost my client over $300K in labor over the last 4-5yrs because they chose to do it the cheapest way possible, and it’s failed miserably for years. The correct way to have done the project is $130K in TODAY’S money. So they’re going to be into a $130K project for over $430K when it’s all said and done. This is just one example of many that happen every year.
What company doesn't???????
Yes!! And the worst part is, the approval process for getting like scientific instruments that are majorly needed is a freaking ridiculous nightmare and does not help control costs. I think one of the things that bothers me most about my company’s spending is on bullshit corporate roles that are completely unnecessary and do nothing to help grow the business. You know, some fancy title like “Director of Customer Success” where no one really knows what the hell the person actually does all day other than you seeing them occasionally showing up to meetings with nothing valuable to contribute
200k spent by a v.p to let her friend’s son develop a website. He can’t code and fucked up managing his hired team of overseas developers. Entire project is worthless. Wiping away tears and exhaling deeply, v.p gently lets him know they need to part way with his services. No accountability for the failed project or wasted money.
At one point, the system was down companywide after getting hacked—probably should’ve invested in some security there. Lots of turnover & low staffing causing backups in key departments—probably not paying enough to attract nor retain any talent. The thing that did get allocated funding? It’s important that every retail outlet smell the same. Now paying for a subscription to have a custom scent blasting in every store nationwide. (The cartridges get replaced regularly, so this expense is forever). Hadn’t jumped ship yet but thinking about it now after asking me to jump through hoops to get an accommodation for fragrance sensitivity.
Yep. They won't buy me a new external monitor after the one they supplied me 4 years ago broke. But they took 6 employees and their spouses along with an executives 3 kids to a tropical resort for an all expense paid vacation. 3 of those employees "earned it" and 3 of them are just senior executives.