Company Assets Policy -

Hi,
I want to inquire about Company Assets policy in your organisation.
If you issue an electronic device - Laptop, PDA, Mobile to any employee and he damages the equipment so what is the policy do you apply? And you don't have insurance cover on that.
Do you charge them fully? the user is fully responsible for that?
Thank you.

Dear Ahmed,
You should have thought of damage, theft or loss of the company's property well before its allotment to the individual and not after.
It would not be fair to recover the entire amount. Anyway, conduct the enquiry. Let the culpability of the employee for damage or loss be established. Then decide how much per cent to recover. Please take into account the depreciation of the item also.
For making policy on allotment of company property to the employees, you may check my following previous replies:
https://www.citehr.com/336602-policy...ml#post1544266
https://www.citehr.com/375356-ex-emp...ml#post1725508
Ok...
Dinesh V Divekar
+91-9900155394

Thank you for your comments Mr. Dinesh,
I have been working here in Saudi Arabia Since 2011 and in many companies I found the same problem. Usually here, Saudi owner refuses to accept any excuse and simply deduct the whole price from the employee.
As there is no concept of TAX here, same as there is no concept of depreciation.

Dear Ahmed,
Any operating asset gets depreciated over a period of time. Therefore, how can you do 100% recovery? Depreciation is a result of wear and tear of the assets. When you purchase the assets, you have to assign the useful life to each asset.
I recommend you to talking to the Accounts department. Find out whether they maintain Fixed Asset Register (FAR). It could be in the form of register or in electronic form. Of late there very good softwares to maintain the fixed asset. If you wish to know more about depreciation of operating assets, then your may click here <link updated to site home> .
Thanks,
Dinesh V Divekar

The general rule followed by companies is that if the equipment is damaged in the custody of the employee, he is responsible for the loss. No loss is attributed to the employee of the damage is on accounted accident that was beyond the control of the employee or where he has taken normal protection to prevent it. It is therefore sensible to have an insurance cover.

There is no law, so each company makes its own rule. However, most countries require the doctrine if equity and natural justice (be fair and give the person an opportunity to explain).

In terms of the value of loss, the market vale of the asset would, be considered, not the original cost, again, it's up to the company to decide what it wants to do, but it should have notified the same to the employees well in advance.

That said, I have recently seen a case where kuoni travels (a company owned by the Swiss government) deducted cost of repair of a laptop (normal ware and tear in 2 years of use) from an employee when he was leaving. So mostly u r at the mercy if the employer

Thank you for the comments,
Well we prepared a depreciation policy and Acceptable Use policy. So I hope, it will help our company to coupe with such problems.