Ethics Discussion:
Rachel works in a real estate office that is equipped with up-to-date copiers, scanners, and printers. She is frequently the only employee working in the evenings and often has spare time to do personal work. She has begun to use the office equipment for her children's school reports and for her husband's business. Do you think Rachel's use of the office equipment is harmless, or is she behaving unethically? Why? If you believe her behavior is unethical, what controls could be in place to prevent it? Have you ever used office resources for personal tasks? Under what conditions could such use of office resources be justified?

Most copiers have a counter feature on them. You could write down the number on the counter at the end of the "day" shift and then again in the morning. Once you establish a pattern of how many copies are made when she is there you would have some ammunition to question her. And yes, her behavior is unethical. That's not to say that most companies don't expect a few personal copies here and there, but if she is using equipment extensively and especially for her husband's business, that is clearly unethical

Many companies allow an unwritten perk to use company copiers for minimal personal use. But using it for her husband's business goes over the top.

Unethical.

Many companies now have passwords in place for copiers, printers, and scanners. At the end of the month, or week, or whatever, the supervisors of different areas look over the numbers, and if any seem excessive the employee is asked to justify the numbers with work output.

An ethics hotline, where someone could report misuse anonymously, is also a very good way to have people able to be held accountable by their peers.

I agree: unethical. I will occasionally ask my boss if I can make a copy of a bill or something like that. I work in a small business and everyone is very informal, and the boss told me it was OK to do this when I started as long as I asked her. But I think using equipment without permission, especially if she was using it a lot, is wrong. And using it for her husband's business is definitely not right.

At my last job, we did have to put a password on the copy machine because someone kept using it. I worked in a leasing office of an apartment community. Several employees lived at the apartment complex and everyone had keys to the office. We never did figure out who is was, but the boss set it up so that you had to use a password to turn it on. It worked. Whoever kept using it after hours stopped.