A WFH employee in Australia is hitting out at her ex-employer after it tracked how much she was typing — and then fired her

Employee monitoring appears to be on the rise.

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• An employee in Australia was fired when her firm said she wasn't typing enough in her remote work.
• Her manager said she should be hitting over 500 keystrokes an hour. She was hitting 80 in December.
• The worker's unfair-dismissal application was thrown out, but she still says she was targeted.

A woman in Australia is blasting her ex-employer for firing her over its claims that she was not typing enough while she was working from home — even though her unfair-dismissal claim was thrown out.

Suzie Cheikho was fired by Insurance Australia Group on February 20 after the company found "very low keystroke activity" on her laptop between October and December, a July 21 filing by Australia's Fair Work Commission said.

Cheikho had worked for the company for 18 years and was a consultant for outbound communications disclosure when her employment was terminated.

She submitted an unfair-dismissal application to the Australian Fair Work Commission on March 13. The commission rejected her application, saying she was dismissed "for a valid reason of misconduct," according to the filing.

But she has continued hitting back at IAG's claims against her, telling Australia's "Sunrise" TV program last week she was targeted.

In the filing, IAG said there was "very low keystroke activity" on Cheikho's laptop over the period, "which indicated that she was not presenting for work and performing work as required."

The insurance company presented details, saying Cheikho logged 48.6 keystrokes an hour in October, 34.56 in November, and 80 in December.

It added that she had zero keystroke activity for 117 hours in October, 143 hours in November, and 60 hours in December.

"As her role required data input and correspondence with various stakeholders, her keystrokes per hour would be upwards of 500 keystrokes per hour," her direct manager said, according to the filing. She was placed on a performance-improvement plan in December.

In addition to the keystroke activity, IAG's review of her cyber activity showed Cheikho did not work her designated rostered 7.8 hours for 44 out of 49 workdays. She also did not start work at her designated start time on 47 out of 49 workdays from October 1 to December 16 last year.

According to the filing, Cheikho said IAG had a "premeditated plan to remove her from the business and that she was targeted for her mental health issues."

She also said she used other devices to work and that there were "extended periods where she was just reading and checking the wording of documents and did not have to do anything else."

The case in Australia highlights the use of employee-surveillance technology as more employees work remotely.

In a US mid-March survey commissioned by Resume Builder, 96% of business leaders in the poll with a primarily remote or hybrid workforce said they used some form of employee-monitoring software to ensure that their staff remained productive — a big jump from just 10% before the pandemic.

Just 5% of those employers who monitored their employees said their staff was unaware they were being surveilled.

Companies are also using the data they obtain from monitoring their staff — about three-quarters of 1,000 survey respondents told Resume Builder their companies fired employees over the data they collected.

IAG and Cheikho did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

August 17, 2023: This story has been updated with additional details of IAG's review of Cheikho's cyber activity.

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