A major insurance company used keystroke technology on an employee’s work laptop to test whether she was working her designated hours — and it ended terribly for her.<br /><br />The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has rejected an unfair dismissal application brought by former Insurance Australia Group (IAG) consultant Suzie Cheikho, finding she was fired for a “valid reason of misconduct.”<br /><br />According to the commission’s published finding, Cheikh was responsible for creating insurance documents, meeting regulatory timelines, and monitoring “work from home compliance,” among other significant roles.<br /><br />Ironically, her work-from-home performance marked the end of her 18-year career with the company.<br /><br />According to the FWC findings, Cheikh was fired on February 20 for missing deadlines and meetings, being absent and uncontactable, and failing to complete a task which caused the industry regulator to fine IAG.<br /><br />A month later, Cheikho claimed to the FWC her employer had a “premeditated plan to remove her from the business and that she was targeted due to her mental health issues.”<br /><br />According to the online findings, Cheikho received a formal warning in November 2022 about her output and was put on a performance improvement plan.<br /><br />She was subject to a detailed review of cyber activity, which analyzed the number of times she physically pressed her keyboard on 49 working days from October to December.<br /><br />The review found she did not work 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.<br /><br />On the days she did log on, she had “very low keystroke activity” and recorded zero strokes over 117 hours in October, 143 hours in November, and 60 hours in December.<br /><br />She averaged 54 strokes per hour throughout her surveillance, which showed “she was not presenting for work and performing work as required.”<br /><br />In a formal meeting about the review, Cheikho said she did “not believe for a minute” the data was true but showed no evidence that she’d been online and working when the report showed she hadn’t.<br /><br />“Sometimes the workload is a bit slow, but I have not worked,” she told her managers, according to the FWC findings.<br /><br />“I mean, I may go to the shops from time to time, but that is not for the entire day. I need to take some time to consider this and I will put forward a response.”<br /><br />In a written response, Cheikho said she’d looked at the data to seek an explanation for the missing hours but “really can’t recall why or how it’s that low.”<br /><br />“I have tried to go through emails and messages to see if I can explain it,” she wrote.<br /><br />“I have been going through a lot of personal issues which have caused a decline in my mental health and unfortunately I believe it has affected my performance and my work.”<br /><br />Cheikho said she always started on time but had “a few things going on” due to an injury.<br /><br />She claimed she would send a Teams message to advise managers when she had medical appointments and would “make up the time afterward
