Former Insurance Australia Group (IAG) consultant Suzie Cheikho ended her 18-year career at the major insurance company after she was found to be actually unproductive while working from home, using a keystroke technology.
Cheikho filed an unfair dismissal claim against former employer IAG, telling Australia’s Fair Work Commission (FWC) that the company had a “premeditated plan to remove her from the business and that she was targeted due to her mental health issues” – unfortunate for her, FWC has rejected her claim after finding she was dismissed for a “valid reason of misconduct,” news.com.au reported.
According to the commission’s findings, Cheikho was always missing deadlines and meetings, frequently absent and uncontactable, and failed to complete a task which caused the industry regulator to fine the company, leading to her dismissal in February.
On November 2022, Cheikho was said to have received a formal warning about her output and was put on a ‘performance improvement plan,’ after the company subject her cyber activity to a detailed review from October to December – wherein, the company analyzed the number of times she physically pressed the keyboard during the span of 49 working days.
The analysis found that Cheikho has not worked her rostered hours for 44 days, started late on 47 days, finished early on 29 days, and performed zero hours of work on 4 days – whereas on the days she did log on, she had ‘very low keystroke activity” averaging to only 54 strokes per hour.
On the other hand, Cheikho didn’t believe the data and told her managers at IAG, “Sometimes the workload is a bit slow, but I have never not worked,” according to the FWC findings. “I mean, I may go to the shops from time to time, but that is not for the entire day.”
However, Cheikho doesn’t have any evidence to show she’d been online and working, “I have tried to go through emails and messages to see if I can explain it,” she shared in a written response to FWC. “I have been going through a lot of personal issues which has caused a decline to my mental health and unfortunately I believe it has affected my performance and my work.”
She also stated that she always start work on time but had “a few things going on” due to an injury, and said that she would message her managers when she had medical appointments and would “make up the time afterwards.”
FWC Deputy President Thomas Roberts ruled out that she “was not working as she was required to do during her designated working hours” during the monitored hours.
“The applicant was dismissed for a valid reason of misconduct,” Roberts wrote. “I have little doubt that the factors underlying the applicant’s disconnection from work were serious and real.”
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