Singaporean employees refrain from submitting an average of USD 414 a year, while Malaysian employees give away USD 246 on average per year to their employers. In Australia, unclaimed expenses amount to an average of USD 202 a year.
Close to a quarter of the employees feel that their employers are gaining a financial advantage through their expense claim process.
Employees are also sometimes left short of money owing to the expense claim process. 21% of Singaporean employees, 39% of Malaysian employees and 20% of Australian employees claimed to be short of money in many instances. Of the employees who fell short of money, at least a quarter indicated that this has a negative influence on their feelings towards the company.
These findings are from the Asia Pacific leg of an independent research study into expense claims announced by Unit4, a fast growing leader in enterprise applications for service organisations.
The study was conducted by Ruigrok ¦ NetPanel in February 2016 among senior and middle management professionals across Singapore, Malaysia and Australia who submit expense claims to their employers. The findings are based on responses from over 600 full-time and part-time employees.
“Employees are the back-bone of successful operations. Therefore, it is essential that company processes do not weigh down on employee morale and satisfaction, especially when these processes can be easily automated” said Jack van der Velde, Managing Director APAC, Unit4.
“In order to create a sustainable competitive advantage, companies must invest in making internal processes more efficient and seamless, allowing employees to focus on more critical matters.”
The study further found that at least 50% of employees find their employer’s expense claim process time consuming and two out of five are unsatisfied with the process. As a result, employees sometimes refrain from submitting expenses.
