When the Covid pandemic forced almost all of corporate America to pivot to remote work in 2020, many employers began to make the flexible work arrangement a permanent part of their workplace culture after it proved that employees could be just as productive working from home compared to when they are working in the office.
Wells Fargo (WFC) , which has allowed most of its employees to work remotely two days a week, has just revealed that it discovered “unethical behavior” from a group of its employees amid its recent shift to a more flexible work environment.
Related: Bank of America's return-to-office policy just got more foul
The bank giant recently had to make the harsh decision to fire over a dozen employees in its wealth- and investment-management unit after it looked into allegations “involving simulation of keyboard activity creating the impression of active work,” according to disclosures filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which were reviewed by Bloomberg.
Bloomberg also notes in its report that the disclosures fail to confirm the location from which the employees were allegedly faking active work.
In an emailed statement to TheStreet, a Wells Fargo spokesperson said that the company “holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior” and declined to comment on the matter further.
Remote workers sometimes fake productivity
It is common for remote and hybrid employees at companies to fake their productivity while working from home. Some remote employees use tools such as “mouse jigglers” to automatically fake mouse movements on their work computers, while others even book fake meetings on their calendar to appear busy. Some even attempt to hide their browsing history on their computer by surfing the web in private/incognito mode.
Image source: TheStreet.
A recent survey by Preply also revealed that 44% of remote workers have even faked being active on their company’s work chat app such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.
Many remote employees have also admitted to being distracted while working from home. A study from ExpressVPN last year found that remote employees in the U.S. and U.K. only spent an average of 13 hours of their 40-hour workweek on professional tasks. Most of their time was spent checking personal emails, shopping online, streaming TV shows and movies, etc.
More Labor:
- Dropbox CEO believes that return-to-office mandates are toxic
- Job recruiter goes viral for revealing how applicant lost the job
- Employees of bankrupt retailer forced to kick customers out of store
Employers fight back at remote employees who pretend to work
In an effort to prevent employees from trailing away from their work, some companies have resorted to monitoring their remote workers through the technology they use to do their jobs. Employers can have tracking software quietly installed into work computers that reveal keystroke patterns, web browsing activity, emails and more. Some software can even randomly take screenshots of what an employee is doing on a computer and even monitor activity through live video feed.
Another study from ExpressVPN last year found that 78% of employers track employees’ productivity through monitoring software, with 46% saying that they’ve fired an employee based on the information that was collected related to their remote work.
Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024
