An Australian woman who worked for an insurance company lost her job after 18 years after her company used keystroke detection technology to monitor her working from home.
According to the New York Post, the worker was fired because she wasn't typing enough while working remotely. The Australian Fair Work Commission rejected her claim for “unfair” dismissal, finding she was dismissed for a “good reason for misconduct”.
According to the outlet, Ms. Cheikho was responsible for creating insurance documents, meeting regulatory deadlines and overseeing “work from home compliance,” among other important duties. She was fired earlier this year in February for missing deadlines and meetings, being absent and uncontactable, and failing to complete a task that led the industry regulator to issue a fine. fine his company.
In March, Ms Cheiko claimed her employer had a “premeditated plan to remove her from the company and that she was targeted because of her mental health issues”. The investigation, however, concluded that Ms Cheikho had been dismissed for “valid cause of misconduct”.
In November 2022, the worker received a formal warning regarding her performance and was put on a performance improvement plan. The company used keystroke detection technology to track its cyber activity for 49 days between October and December, and found that it had “very low keystroke activity.”
The company found that Cheikho started work 47 days late, finished 29 days early and did not work his allotted hours 44 days. She also found that for four days he had not worked at all.
According to the results of the investigation, Cheikho recorded an average of 54 beats per hour during the monitoring period, which shows that he “did not show up for work or did not perform his work properly ”.
The worker, however, denied working fewer hours than expected, saying she sometimes used other devices to go online. She also said she was “confused and surprised” by the data and questioned its accuracy.
But the regulator ruled that the evidence showed Ms Cheikho “did not work as she was required to do during her designated working hours” while she was under surveillance. “The plaintiff was terminated for cause for misconduct.