An official email reaches me, telling all staff that our company’s journalists must now pay the full delegate fee, plus 10% if they want lunch, when they attend conferences arranged by our conferences division. So – let’s get that straight. I pay £1,000 to the conferences division and charge it to expenses. Publishing is down £1k. Conferences are up £1k. Overall, the net gain to shareholders is zero. So – why bother?
Then, of course, I realise that the conferences division has targets to hit..and who is a more captive audience than our own employees? Can you guess where this brilliant idea came from? Ah, incentives and rent-seeking behaviour..