Employee monitoring software ‘time theft’ in unfair dismissal claim

A civil tribunal in Canada has ruled that an employee should compensate her former employer for ‘time theft’ because tracking software had calculated she had misrepresented hours worked.

An accountant in British Columbia, Karlee Besse at first claimed she was fired from her job without cause last year and sued for C$5,000 (£3,000) compensation over unpaid wages and severance.

But now she must compensate her former employer, Reach CPA, to the tune of C$2,499 in wages and an advance from the firm, after the tribunal agreed with the company that Besse had logged more than 50 hours that “did not appear to have spent on work-related tasks”.

It was revealed in court that Reach CPA had been using TimeCamp on Besse’s computer after finding that her work had been beyond time limits and was over-budget. The software tracks how employees spend their time, monitoring for example how long a document is open for and how they use it.

TimeCamp had, the tribunal heard, after an analysis of its records, found “identified irregularities between her [Besse’s] timesheets and the software usage logs”.

Besse said she had printed off hard copies of her work, which the software had not taken into account. But she hadn’t disclosed that to her employer because she “knew they wouldn’t want to hear that.”

Reach CPA’s representative responded that the software was also linked to the printer and monitored little printing activity.

Besse told the tribunal that she was concerned that the software didn’t differentiate between work and personal use, but Reach CPA showed how TimeCamp separated time logs for work from activities such as using the laptop to stream movies and television shows.

When the company confronted Besse with the discrepancies she admitted she had “plugged time to files that I didn’t touch and that wasn’t right or appropriate in any way or fashion … and so for that I’m really sorry”.

Following the rise in working from home during and after the pandemic, companies are increasingly monitoring their workers.

UK research last year by the CIPD and HR tech specialist HiBob showed that more than half of bosses (55%) agree with collecting information on regular home workers, including the amount of time spent on laptops each day and email-sending behaviours to identify risk of burnout.

However, only three in 10 (28%) leaders reported that their organisations were using software to monitor the productivity of home workers. Where workplace monitoring was in place, the CIPD and HiBob urged employers to be clear to staff about what is being examined and why.

In 2021, a survey by Digital.com of 1,250 U.S. employers found that 60% with remote employees were using work-monitoring software. Almost nine out of 10 of those companies said they had fired employees following the use of the software.

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