Woman forced to pay employer back for ‘time wasting’ after computer software caught her slacking off
A Canadian woman has been asked to pay her company back thousands after she was accused of “time stealing” recorded by tracking software installed on her work computer.
Teleworker Karlee Besse was an accountant for Reach CPA in British Columbia and originally tried to sue the company itself for $5,000 in compensation for both unpaid wages and severance pay, citing wrongful termination.
Instead, she must pay $2,498.89 in back wages after a civil court ruled in the company’s favour.
It was revealed in court that Reach CPA had used TimeCamp on Bese’s computer after realizing her work was over budget and behind on time. The software tracks how employees spend their time, including how long a document is open and how they use it.
The company claimed that her prosecution proved Besse wasted 50 hours of non-work related tasks in the company’s time and said they “found irregularities between her [Besse’s] timesheets and the software usage logs.”
Sophisticated “bossware” on the rise
Besse defended herself by saying that she actually printed out hard copies of her work, which is why the software didn’t take this into account. She also said she didn’t tell her co-worker because she “knew that’s not what they want to hear.”
However, the company said the software was also connected to the printer and monitored little printing activity. In addition, they added that the work done on the printouts should have been entered into the company’s software, which didn’t happen.
Besse also expressed concern about the software’s inability to distinguish between personal and professional use, but the company demonstrated in court that the software does this automatically, separating time logs from activities like streaming movies and television.
Besse admitted some of her dishonesty when confronted with a video meeting between her and Reach, in which she reportedly said she “put time into files that I haven’t touched and that were in no way right or appropriate… and I’m really sorry.”
With the rise in working from home during and after the pandemic, companies are increasingly monitoring their employees in ways that can exceed the capabilities of software like TimeCamp.
In 2021, a Digital.com survey of 1,250 U.S. employers found that 60% of remote workers use work monitoring software. Almost nine out of ten of these companies said they laid off employees after using the software.
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