B.C. tribunal orders woman to repay employer for ‘time theft’ while working at home

A tribunal has ordered a British Columbia accountant to pay her former employer more than $2,600 after a tracking software showed she engaged in “time theft” while working from home.

The decision released this week by the civil resolution tribunal shows the woman made a claim of $5,000 to cover unpaid wages and severance pay, arguing she had been fired without cause last March.

But the employer, Reach CPA Inc., submitted a counterclaim with evidence showing a 50-hour discrepancy between her timesheets and activity recorded by the tracking software on her work computer.

The decision shows the woman started working remotely in October 2021 and Reach installed the software, called TimeCamp, on her laptop four months later, shortly after she and her manager met to discuss her performance.

The tribunal says Reach compared the woman’s timesheets with the software’s data over a month between late February and March and found she claimed 50 hours during which it appeared she wasn’t working.