A woman in Canada has been ordered to reimburse her former employer for ‘time theft’ after tracking software showed she was misrepresenting her hours while working from home.
Karlee Besse, from British Columbia, worked remotely as an accountant for Reach CPA, but was fired from her role last year.
She initially tried to sue the company for wrongful termination, asking for C$5,000 ($3,729/£3,066) in compensation for unpaid wages and severance.
However, a civil tribunal ruled in support of Reach CPA, meaning she must now pay C$2,459.89 ($1834.30/£1505.91) in returned wages, and part of a previous advance she had received.
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Reach CPA said the company had noticed Besse’s assigned files were not only over budget, but also behind schedule, and decided to install controversial employee-tracking software on her laptop to investigate.
It told the tribunal that Besse logged more than 50 hours of work, but that these ‘did not appear to have been spent on work-related tasks’.
Weeks after installing the tracker, Reach CPA said the software helped identify ‘irregularities between her timesheets and the software usage logs’.
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Controversial tracking software is increasingly being used by employers to monitor a worker’s output.
TimeCamp, the software that was used by Reach CPA, tracks how long a document is open, how the staff member uses this document and how their time is logged as work.
Its website says it allows people to ‘log working hours’ of employees either automatically or manually, so as to ensure they are ‘billed fairly’.
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It can also assess the performance of a team or project by creating ‘accurate resource estimates’.
“TimeCamp provides you with all the data you need to analyze the projects’ performance to ensure your team always stays on track,” the website says.
“Look at the clear graphics and get a better view of the time tracked!”
Reach CPA said the software also tracked printing, and that it had realised surprisingly few documents had been printed.
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When the company confronted Besse in a video meeting, she told her manager: “You can’t fight the time.”
Admitting she had ‘plugged time to files’ that she didn’t touch, she said: “And that wasn’t right or appropriate in any way or fashion.”
Besse added: “And so for that I’m really sorry.”
Topics: World News, Technology
Jess Hardiman