Employee ordered to pay company after software catches 'time theft'
Woman working in office
In an era where everything can be digitally monitored, times are getting tough for those who misrepresent working hours even when working remotely. A woman in Canada has been ordered by a court to pay her employer USD 1841 for 'time theft'.
Karlee Besse worked remotely as an accountant for Reach CPA. She was given a company laptop. Her employer had installed a controversial tracking software Time Camp on the system.
Besse initially claimed that she was fired without any cause last year and had sued the company for it.
Reach CPA in turn showed the court that it “identified irregularities between her timesheets and the software usage logs”.
Time Camp software can track how long a particular document was open, how the employee used the document and logs work time.
Besse argued that the software had misinterpreted her use of the laptop for personal use and professional use.
The company, in turn, demonstrated that the software was capable of distinguishing professional work and use of the system for entertainment purposes such as streaming movies.
Besse claimed that she had printed the documents and worked on them. But the company showed that the software was able to log print commands and that work done on printed documents was required to be reported to the company which Besse did not.
The judge dismissed Besse's assertion of wrongful termination and ordered her to pay the company.
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