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Wells Fargo fires employees for 'simulating' keyboard activity

Wells Fargo fired several employees for faking work by using "mouse jigglers" to simulate computer activity, according to Bloomberg.

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Wells Fargo fires employees for 'simulating' keyboard activity

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

More than a dozen staffers in the wealth and investment management unit were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work," say Finra disclosures seen by Bloomberg.

It is not known whether the fired employees were "working" from home or an office but software and devices such as "mouse jigglers" that help simulate work became popular during the WFH pandemic era, selling for as little as $20.

They emerged at the same time as some employers began stepping up their use of technology to track things such as keystrokes and eye movements.

Wells Fargo began bringing people back to the office in early 2022 but still operates a hybrid model that sees most staffers spend some days working from home.

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Comments: (2)

John Davies

John Davies CTO at Incept5

I have to say, I find this rather funny. I wrote a little program for simulating activity back in the late 80s / early 90s. You could effectively sleep at the keyboard and if anyone came over you could just hit any key and it would write code (my job at the time). I could do my week's work in half a day so there was little else to do. This sort of thing is entirely down to the employer, if they're employing people who are obviously not needed and no one notices their lack of productive activity then who's to blame? People will always find ways to be lazy and to get around amateur attempts to monitor activity. Again, surely the measure of productivity is results? This reflects on the employer, not the employees.

Anthony Maw

Anthony Maw ANALYST at PACIFIC INNOVATIONS

Is using mouse and keyboard simulation software a legitimate cause for termination?  Since when did an employment contract say that was a firing offense?  They were probably terminated for other reasons.  As they say...."See you in court".

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