Wells Fargo has fired several employees following allegations that they faked keyboard activity to make it look like they were working when they weren’t.
It’s unclear how the issue emerged at the U.S. bank or whether it had to do with remote workers.
The bank said it had fired or forced staff to resign after an investigation into allegations that they had imitated keyboard activity to give the impression they were actively working. BBC.
Independent Wells Fargo has been contacted for comment.
New rules in the US mean financial brokers who work remotely will have to be inspected every three years.
“Wells Fargo holds its employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behaviour,” a spokesman told the BBC.
Two years ago, Wells Fargo announced it had instituted a hybrid work schedule that allowed employees to work part of the time from home.
As remote work expands during the pandemic, many large companies are deploying tools to monitor employees, including tools that can monitor keystrokes and eye movements, take screenshots, and record which websites are visited.
People are also developing techniques to circumvent these surveillance tools, including so-called “mouse jigglers” that make it appear as if a computer is running when an employee is actually doing something else. Amazon, which sells them for less than $10, says it has sold thousands of them in the last month alone.
Bloomberg The layoffs were initially reported following a filing by the bank with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which said more than a dozen people were affected.
The BBC found six cases of employees being fired following investigations, as well as others who voluntarily resigned after facing allegations, several of whom had worked at Wells Fargo for less than five years.
Financial firms have been at the forefront of efforts to encourage employees to return to the office, with remote work remaining popular but in decline.
In May, 27% of paid time off in the US was spent working remotely, up from more than 60% at the peak of the pandemic in 2020, according to a study by ITAM Business School, Stanford University and the University of Chicago.
About 13% of full-time U.S. workers were fully remote this spring, and another 26% had a blended workforce, the researchers found.
