Hi everyone,

First time posting here so I'm sorry if this is covered elsewhere - perhaps in a broader sense.

We have a member of staff who has bought £90+ of house plants and is trying to expense these to the company. Their reasoning being that the plants are support items and for air purifying purposes which are required for home working. You cannot make this up.

It has become an issue because a subordinate of mine 'joked' with them about using their work-from-home allowance on plants and they took that as permission given. We are a small, completely remote company (>20) and our policy on this is short and does not explicitly list all of the things that staff can buy as work from home aids (most commonly, ergonomic aids and external monitors) but states that these kinds of expenses should be 'reasonable' and 'essential to our business, values, and mission.'

I guess my, probably stupid, questions are:

1. Does your company or any that you know of allow the purchase such as plants or similar support items as company expenses, if they are for an employees work from home set up?
   
   
2. How do we go about making sure this or something similar does not happen again? We try hard to be a supportive employer and as small NGO, we had hoped that our employees would be more sensible with their budget and not to exploit loopholes in our current policies. We understand the benefits of having plants and have previously suggested that such items could be considered - but only with express permission from the member of staff in charge of the budgets.

Thanks in advance for your help.