British Woman Fired For Wasting Time During Work From Home

A British-Columbia based company recently fired one of its work from home female employee for wasting time during working hours. A female employee, Karlee Besse, of a British company was fired because the company's software TimeCamp calculated her screen time to be very low.

Without notice, the company fired her for 'wasting time' and when she approached the court claiming that the software data can be wrong, but the employer proved that the app was indeed useful and Besse was asked to pay Rs 3 Lakhs to the company. This incident might be affecting the existing work from home policy of the companies and they might take such steps for slacking employees.

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Woman Fired For Wasting Time During Work From Home

Though many people think that work from home (WFH) is relatively easier than work from office, it has largely proved to be a misconception. Work from home is economical viable but not less hectic. In fact, for some people, it is even more tough to work at home as they are levied by house duties as well. When considered from the company's point of view, it is quite difficult to determine how much their employees are contributing to actual work. Though screen time and various other software do help them confirming the attendance of employees, they still not ensure that the person is working diligently.

There are employees who slack during work from home, somehow manage to show them available on screen while they do other stuff apart from work. If a policy like that of the British company in the case of Karlee Besse is applied by other employers, these employees will find it difficult to stay away from work without notice which will eventually make them work efficiently. However, this will also put pressure on people who have genuine reasons to stay away from work as in the case of working mothers and family women as they have a lot to attend to while working from home.

Such decisions will be better for employees who end up getting the extra workload of the slacking employees. When an employee does not work, the tasks don't vanish, they are just transferred to other people. They have to take up such tasks owing to the deadlines which increases work pressure for them and exploits their commitment towards their work. This will only increase work pressure.

For the company, such policies will be a better way of determining which of the employees actually work diligently from home. It will become easier for employees who are actually working to get recognition for the extra load the bear and the slacking ones will have to answer the reason of their absence from work. However, every policy is open to misuse. Since calculating screen time and availability at the system is a technical process, it can be altered which can again pose to be a problem because of wrong data.

Such strict policies do bring discipline but they fail to accommodate the legitimacy of employee data, cases of emergencies as well as the pressure of working while managing the house at the same time. It is hard to come at a sure outcome but if used with considerations and care, such policies can provide benefits to the employees as well as the company to some extent.