{"id":5383,"date":"2023-02-22T16:22:44","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T21:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/?p=5383"},"modified":"2023-02-22T16:22:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T21:22:44","slug":"time-theft-and-remote-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/time-theft-and-remote-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Theft and Remote Work"},"content":{"rendered":"
Remote work or work-from-home arrangements rapidly increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There also has been a rapid increase in \u201chybrid\u201d work arrangements where the employee works partly at home and partly at the employer\u2019s workplace. Most recently, we wrote about this topic in our blog COVID-19 Update<\/a>. In that blog we discuss certain remote work trends that we saw in 2022 that we believe we will see more of in 2023. The first was how more employers will be preparing written policies that would set out certain expectations and limitations of remote work for the employers\u2019 employees. The second trend would be a rise in monitoring of employee performance in a remote work arrangement. For instance, the Employment Standards Act, 2000<\/em>, was recently amended so that all employers with 25 or more employees must have a written policy in place relating to the electronic monitoring of employees.<\/p>\n Given the above, we decided that we will devote a full blog related to the second trend (a rise in monitoring of remote work and employee performance) as well as discuss the contentious issue of time theft in the remote work context. The issue of time theft is arguably growing given how remote work has also grown. We are seeing more news pieces and media postings about the topic in the recent weeks and months detailing employees who have been fired or terminated for committing time theft or how particular employers are tackling the issue by using certain strategies for monitoring of remote employees, etc.<\/p>\n The definition of time theft is really very simple. It occurs when an employee is getting paid as if they are working when really, they are not working and without the employer\u2019s express or implied consent to not work. And, obviously, an employee may have an easier time in committing time theft when they are not working at the office or in a workplace controlled by the employer but on their own in their own space or home. For example, a common form of time theft in a hybrid or remote work arrangement would be logging onto the employer\u2019s software to perform work but in reality, doing something else such as a household task, leaving to perform a personal errand, etc. To be clear, time theft existed prior to the pandemic. However, the pandemic has seemed to have exacerbated this issue for certain remote workers.<\/p>\n Generally, an employer will proceed to warn the employee if time theft is discovered so that the employee will have a chance to rectify their behaviour. However, it may also be the case that the employer will choose to dismiss the employee for cause if either their warning did not change the behaviour of the employee or simply the employer has chosen to take a firmer stance on the time theft that had occurred.<\/p>\n