Woman fears she'll never work again after boss used keystroke technology to track her working from home
Remote working has become a dream come to life for some.
Flexible hours, no daily commute, escaping a life-draining office and an overall better work-life balance.
But there has to be a certain level of trust involved between the employer and employee when working from home.
The employer must trust that the employees are working behind home-study doors. And the employee must... well, do the job.
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However, Suzie Cheikho's story serves as a caution about the potential downsides of remote work after her employer used keystroke technology to track how much work she was doing.
Cheikho, from Australia, had been with Insurance Australia Group (IAG) for 18 years when she was let go in February 2023.
The former employee's work activity was measured over 49 days between October and December 2022, and the findings weren't far from initial suspicions.
Cheikho reportedly started late on 47 days and finished early on 29 of the days.
There was a total of four days where Cheikho did no work at all.
On days that she did work however, her keystroke count was low, averaging only 54 keystrokes per hour on the days she was monitored.
The case has since sparked a wider debate about workers' rights and whether the use of tracking software is ethical. But in some fairness, the company had a fair few reasons for the investigation.
Australia's Fair Work Commission (FWC) discovered that Cheikho had missed several deadlines and meetings, was difficult to contact during work hours and a certain task completion failure caused her employee to pay a fine.
In response to the claims, Cheikho said she 'did not believe for a minute' that the data pulled from the keystroke technology was accurate, putting the case forward to her managers that she had 'never not worked'.
She attempted to dispute her unfair dismissal from IAG, but was unsuccessful due to the company backing that it had a 'valid reason of misconduct' for her termination.
'It's embarrassing that this story has gone viral - nobody is going to hire me,' Cheikho said on the back of her story going viral on several social media platforms.
'In 18 years of work there, I only ever got one warning.'
The 38-year-old has revealed she is now living off Centrelink and fears she may never find another job.