The ethics of speaking out

you discreetly advise your Manager as this does not sit well with you that you will decline to process this expense explaining your rationale and that ou will refer this matter to Senior management

There’s many ways this could play out and choosing which path you take depends on how you think the situation will play out.

Despite the anonymity of speak out programs, the senior leader may suspect you as the person who reported the matter given that you’ve just inherited the responsibility. The manager may even inform the leader themselves. This might be okay if the leader was unaware that their expense couldn’t be reimbursed and stops thereafter. However if they knew it was against the rules and if they weren’t so happy being reported, you may have found yourself in an unfortunate situation. Assuming you now find it harder to receive promotions at the company, what you should do is find someone else to be your career sponsor, switch departments or lateral out of that company.

You could also choose not to report the matter and reimburse the leader, saving yourself the reputational loss. However you’re not without risk - if someone else notices the practice and reports the three of you, you may even face internal consequences and at worst, lose your job. Many banks don’t hesitate to cut you loose (e.g. Citibank), even when the expense is as small as a sandwich. If this is the case, you arguably make it harder to get hired at another company.

Some more high risk but high reward strategies:

1) Rid yourself of the dilemma by telling the senior leader that you won’t indict yourself and to allocate someone else to the task (eventually getting the manager to execute this). If successful, you save your reputation with your seniors AND the risk of someone else reporting the three of you. If you wanted to go a step further, now you can report it and nobody will suspect it’s you.

2) Depending on exactly what the manager said and how much they indicted themself (good practice to get things in writing), you could report them instead of the senior leader. This way if “they’ve gone to explore different career opportunities”, there’s now an opportunity for promotion.

Have a go at the speak out programme on line, HR would support the employee through this process. Have a read of the functionality which should have the ability to remain anonymous.