The IT worker brought an unfair dismissal case to the Fair Work Commission. (Source: Getty)
An IT worker has lost his legal battle against his former employer after it was found he faked his timesheets while working from home. Records show he logged in for as little as 10 minutes a day, or not at all, while submitting time sheets for 7.5-hour shifts.
The Fair Work Commission rejected an unfair dismissal claim brought by the IT database manager against global software and services company Hansen Corporation. Hansen fired the worker for “serious misconduct” over falsifying his working hours and failing to fulfil his contractual working hours.
The commission heard that Hansen started to get suspicious when the worker, who worked a mix of in-office hours and work from home, kept failing to attend online meetings on time.
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Using monitoring tools that tracked laptop logins, web browsing, keystrokes and applications, Hansen found that for four days the worker had claimed full work days, but only logged into company systems for half a day or less.
On one day, the worker only logged in to his laptop for 10 minutes from 7.46am, but created a timesheet for 7.5 hours. On another day, he didn’t log into his laptop at all.
The worker initially accepted that his work hours were an issue, responding to his letter of termination via email that: “I have been barely keeping up with the minimum” and “I have lost my motivation”.
But he later claimed these statements did not constitute an admission, arguing he had done nothing wrong other than not provide sufficient details on his timesheets.
He claimed that he received “little or no work” since making a complaint against his manager, arguing that his being underutilised wasn’t something he should be accountable for.
He also claimed to receive nearly 500 emails a day and could access these through his mobile phone. On the day he didn’t log into systems at all, he claimed he was reading a long, complex 500-page report and had a hard copy he read over the course of a week.
But that report turned out to be only 72 pages with a number of hyperlinks, and Hansen argued that the worker would have needed to be connected to its systems in order to perform work for clients.
Fair Work Commissioner Trevor Clarke rejected the unfair dismissal claim.
Clarke said he was persuaded on the evidence that the worker had falsified his working hours on multiple timesheets, which he said was a valid reason for dismissal.
He noted the worker’s explanation for the “gaping chasm” between the 10 minutes of activity logged and his 7.5-hour timesheet was “wholly unconvincing”.
“It is elemental that dishonesty in representing that work has been performed, when it has not been performed, is destructive of the employment relationship and fundamentally incompatible with the trust and confidence necessary with the maintenance of that relationship,” he said.
Clarke noted the workers’ initial decision not to contest the allegations was “wise”, but “his decision to bring and persist with these proceedings was ill-advised”.
The case is one in a series of unfair dismissal claims by employees who have been accused of doing little work while working from home.
In 2023, the Fair Work Commission rejected a claim brought by an insurance worker who was fired after keystroke technology found she wasn’t typing enough while working from home.
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