Last month we asked if the fiasco surrounding MP's expense claims had caused you to more closely scrutinise your own staff's expenses: 29% Yes and 71% No

I was unsurprised by these results for a number of reasons. First, the system of monitoring expenses in the House of Commons, indeed in Parliament as a whole, was fundamentally flawed.

What company or public sector organisation allows expenses without receipts, or has such vague guidelines as to what is allowable, that moats, duck ponds and the like can even be considered by MPs as potentially allowable expenses!  In addition, the body within Parliament that monitors these expenses didn't seem to have much muscle or power or influence to confront many of these claims, so there was a systemic failure in all aspects of cost accounting and monitoring.

I suspect the power base of an MP, and the political power they perceived themselves to have, made them fairly robust in dealing with the Fees Office, which was less assertive than it should have been.

Although it is possible in some private sector organisations for a system failure of this magnitude, it is a rare phenomenon because of the concerns of most companies to keep their cost base as low as possible, and where the guidelines are more transparent and receipts almost always required, therefore, most HR professionals would have more confidence in their systems and procedures for monitoring expenses.

Second, given the dramatic economic downturn, the financial instability and the inevitable downsizing in many organisations, companies and HR professionals know they need to engage, more than ever before, their depleted but surviving staff. One of the most important aspects of engagement is ‘trust', allowing employees some autonomy and control over their jobs, encouraging them to innovate and building team working, given the increased competition for declining markets. 

Micro-managing and overly scrutinising employees' expenses, when most cost accounting systems are significantly more robust than the House of Commons, might appear to undermine employees' feelings of being trusted. This is a fine line but if the guidelines are clear, the internal systems healthy than I can see why HR professionals might be resistant to overly scrutinising the expenses of their employees for fear of being perceived as undermining this trust.

Cary Cooper is professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University Management School