Top bank fires workers for sneaky work from home trick

One of the world’s biggest banks has fired a numerous workers after it allegedly discovered they had been using a sneaky WFH trick.

One of America’s biggest banks has fired numerous employees for allegedly faking work.

Wells Fargo & Co, one of the “Big Four” banks in the United States, sacked the workers after an investigation, according to filings with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The workers were accused of simulating “keyboard activity” to create the impression they were actively working.

Wells Fargo’s “flexibility” policy allows employees to “work from home on some days and at the office on others”.

It’s unclear if the fired employees were working from home or in the office, but companies are increasingly suspicious of remote workers simulating work activity with a cheap trick.

The workers were fired for the “simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work” (file image). Picture: iStock

For example, “mouse jiggler” or “mouse mover” devices became increasingly popular during the Covid-19 pandemic after workers were required to work from home en masse.

Initially invented for gamers, mouse jigglers include either software or physical devices and are designed to simulate computer actions so that workers appear to be actively working.

Various apps including Gmail, Outlook and Teams show the status of a user as “away” if they do not interact with a computer for a period of time.

The mouse jiggler is one way workers have tried to appear active while actually away from their desk. For example, a device could make a mouse movement every minute or simulate random keyboard strokes.

Devices are extremely cheap, with USBs retailing for just $8.

Mouse jigglers give the impression that a person is active on a computer. Picture: iStock

Filings viewed by news.com.au showed Wells Fargo three employees had been “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work”.

Bloomberg, which first reported on the firings, stated more than a dozen employees had been fired.

A spokesman for the company said: “Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behaviour.”

Worldwide, companies have ramped up their surveillance operations in response to the normalisation of working from home.

Software, sometimes dubbed bossware, allows companies to keep close tabs on employees, including tracking keystrokes and websites visited.

It’s unclear how Wells Fargo detected the alleged attempts to fake work activity.

Wells Fargo’s policy allows employees to work from home on some days and at the office on others (file image). Picture: iStock

Australian companies are also increasing their online surveillance of remote employees after hybrid working policies were widely introduced.

“Over the years it’s become much more common,” Uri Gal, professor of business information systems at the University of Sydney, told news.com.au in August last year.

“And the phenomenon has grown during Covid just because more people were working from home and the anxiety levels amongst managers were heightened because they wanted to make sure people were still performing as they were supposed to.”

The issue was highlighted last year with the case of Suzie Cheikho, 38, a former consultant at Insurance Australia Group (AIG) who was sacked on 20 February 2023.

Ms Cheikho took the matter to the FairWork Commission where it emerged AIG had been monitoring her keystroke activity — the number of times a person physically presses a key on their keyboard.

AIG claimed there were significant periods where no or minimal keyboard activity was evident, which was disputed by Ms Cheikho.

Deputy President Thomas Roberts found he was not satisfied Ms Cheikho was unfairly fired and dismissed her application.

The commission found Ms Cheikho’s “disconnection from work” was “serious and real” and that the dismissal “was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable”.

After her case went viral, Ms Cheikho pivoted to become something of a microinfluencer, gaining thousands of followers on TikTok.

She denied being “lazy”, telling the Seven’s Sunrise in August she was “a hard worker, and I was a loyal worker”.

“I was going through some personal and mental health issues,“ she said.

“I was reprimanded for my work. Instead of my company meeting their duty of care and helping me, I was basically targeted because of my mental health and the personal stuff I was going through.”