Suzie Cheikho, an Australian woman who gained internet fame last year, found herself in a precarious situation after her employer, Insurance Australia Group (IAG), utilized keystroke technology to monitor her work activity during her remote work tenure. This monitoring ultimately led to her termination after 18 years with the company.
Here’s all you need to know about what happened.
The Termination and Unfair Dismissal Claim
In February 2023, Cheikho was let go from IAG, prompting her to file an unfair dismissal claim. However, her claim was rejected in August of the same year by Australia’s Fair Work Commission (FWC), which determined that the company had a “valid reason of misconduct” to terminate her employment.
The FWC’s findings revealed that Cheikho had missed deadlines, meetings, and was often difficult to contact. Furthermore, her failure to complete a task resulted in a fine for IAG. These issues, coupled with a prior warning issued in November 2022, contributed to the decision to terminate her employment.
Keystroke Monitoring and Productivity Concerns
The crux of the matter lay in the keystroke technology utilized by IAG to monitor Cheikho’s productivity while working from home. An analysis of her activity on 49 days between October and December 2022 revealed concerning patterns.
According to the review, Cheikho started late on 47 days and finished early on 29 of those monitored days. Alarmingly, she did no work at all on four of the monitored days, and her keyboard pressing activity was deemed subpar on the days she did work. On average, she pressed her keyboard only 54 times per hour during the monitored periods.
Aftermath and Concerns
In the aftermath of her story going viral, Cheikho expressed concerns about her future job prospects. “It’s embarrassing that this story has gone viral – nobody is going to hire me,” she told MailOnline. Despite her 18-year tenure at IAG and only receiving one warning, Cheikho remained skeptical of the accuracy of the keystroke technology data, asserting that she had “never not worked.”
Harassment and Privacy Concerns
The unwanted attention and scrutiny took a toll on Cheikho, who claimed to be receiving harassment across various social media platforms. In a now-deleted TikTok video, she lamented, “This has never happened to me before, and for what? Something that’s very emotional and very private, I never even spoke about it on social media. I’m literally getting harassed through Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, like what do you want me to do? I can’t get a f**king job.”
Cheikho’s ordeal highlights the complexities and potential pitfalls of remote work monitoring, as well as the broader implications of employee privacy and the responsible use of productivity tracking technologies.
