All I want for Christmas...

Nick Leeson: Fraud "endemic" in the workplace, report says

There can be few things worse than getting the boot from your job just before Christmas. But a survey says British bosses will turn a blind eye to a touch of seasonal slacking and festive thieving.

Many British managers regard "Christmas Crimes" such as posting cards from work - or even taking a day off to nurse the office party hangover - as acceptable, a report has found.

Ripping off the company ranges from Nick Leeson stealing millions to somebody taking home a pencil at the end of the day

Rufus Olins of Management Today

Management Today magazine asked a sample of 800 managers and concluded that fraud and unethical behaviour was "endemic" in the British workplace.

But most bosses turn a blind eye to all but the most serious criminal activity.

"Ripping off the company ranges from Nick Leeson stealing millions to somebody taking home a pencil at the end of the day," says Management Today editor Rufus Olins.

The Business of Ethics Report

More than half of managers are aware of fraud at work - 4 in 10 would not report it

Posting Christmas cards from work rated in top 5 least acceptable crimes

4 in 10 agree there is no real difference between fraud and a bit of expenses fiddling

Some 8 in 10 do not receive any form of training in business ethics

"It depends who is defining what is acceptable. The interesting thing is where you drawn the line."

British managers seem to be pretty permissive, according to Management Today's survey.

Almost all bosses said that they knew pilfering went on, but they were not prepared to do anything about it.

One reason is that dishonest behaviour - on a petty or large scale - extends right up into the boardroom in many companies.

One manager told the magazine he knew of lots of "scams" usually carried out by company directors.

"All of the scams involve ripping off the company - and I am not the only person to know about them," he added.

Horrendous

Alongside fraud and pilfering there is the old problem of office romances and affairs.

Sex at the workplace has become a more charged issue in recent years and may even be taking on a nastier edge with news of the instant dismissal of a male office worker in Germany found to be secretly filming up the skirts of female colleagues.

A top civil servant was sacked after secretly filming up female colleagues' skirts with a camera tucked under his desk.

The man, who has not been named but is in his 50s, spent hours setting up the tiny camera so it aimed at just the right spot of the chair on the other side of his desk.

He connected it to his personal laptop computer, which he had set to record the picture so he could later store them on a CD-Rom.

Prank

Closer to home, a man has been sacked live on air after fraudulently phoning his boss and claiming to be sick. It was meant to be a harmless prank organised by a local radio phone-programme. But the man's boss did not see the funny side.

The man, according to press reports, identified only as "Steve from Sudbury", in East Anglia, had already had four days off sick. His boss told him to come into the office immediately - to collect his P45.