A major insurance company used keystroke monitoring technology on an employee’s laptop to check if she was meeting her scheduled hours… and it ended horribly wrong for her.
After her dismissal on February 20, Suzie Cheikho, who according to her LinkedIn profile lives in New South Wales, Australia, filed a wrongful dismissal complaint with the Fair Work Commission (FWC), but it was dismissed.
According to findings released by the Commission, Ms Cheikho was responsible for preparing insurance documents, meeting regulatory deadlines and overseeing work-from-home compliance, among other key roles at Insurance Australia Group (IAG).
Ironically, his own work-from-home gig marked the end of his 18-year career with the company.
According to the FWC’s findings, Ms Cheikho was fired on February 20 for failing to meet deadlines and meetings, being absent and unavailable and failing to complete a task, resulting in the industry regulator slapping her employer with a fine.
A month later, Ms Cheikho told the FWC that her employer had a “premeditated plan to keep her out of business and that she was being targeted for her mental health issues”.
According to online results, in November 2022 Ms. Cheikho received a formal reprimand for her performance and was placed on a performance improvement plan, the New York Post reports.
She underwent a detailed cyber activity scan, analyzing how often she physically pressed her keyboard within 49 working days from October to December.
The review revealed that she had not worked for 44 days, started 47 days later, finished 29 days early and had not worked hours for 4 days.
Photo by LinkedIn | Suzie Cheikho
On the days she logged on, she had “very little key activity,” recording 117 hours of no keystrokes in October, 143 hours in November, and 60 hours in December.
During the period of surveillance, she performed an average of 54 keystrokes per hour, showing that she did not show up for work and did not perform the requested tasks.
At a formal meeting about the review, Ms Cheikho said she “didn’t believe for a minute” the data was true.
“Sometimes the workload is a bit slow, but I never stopped working,” she assured her supervisors, according to the FWC’s findings.
In a written response, Ms Cheikho said she looked at the data to find an explanation for the missing hours, but really couldn’t remember why or how the number of missing hours was so high.
“I’ve had a lot of personal issues that have caused my mental health to deteriorate, and unfortunately I believe it has affected my performance and my work,” she said.
Ms Cheikho also explained that she always started on time but had “some problems” due to an injury.
FWC Deputy Chair Thomas Roberts said there was evidence that Ms Cheikho “did not work as required of her during her stipulated hours” when under supervision.
He found that Ms. Cheikho could not provide a credible explanation for the irregularities in her data.
“The applicant was terminated on valid grounds of his misconduct,” wrote Mr. Roberts, who also noted that in his view there was little likelihood “that the factors underlying the applicant’s separation from his job were serious and real .”
As Ms. Cheikho has been with the company for many years, Mr. Roberts regrets the dismissal but has no doubt that “the applicant’s dismissal was not grave, unfair or unreasonable”.