An administrative employee of a large concern is allowed to work partly from home. This is allowed at flexible working hours. When he is working at home, he has to clock in in an app. The employee himself is responsible for correct timekeeping. After investigation, he is summarily dismissed for hours fraud.
Instant dismissal after employer investigation
As a result of complaints, the employer had launched an investigation into the employee's hours records. This found that he had written 138.5 overtime hours in 2024. No output was recorded in 51 of those overtime hours in the employer's systems. The employer suspected that no work had been done in the other 87.5 overtime hours either. In addition, the employer found that the employee regularly clocked in in the morning, but then was not active in the various computer systems and was also not available to colleagues. The employer also found that the employee had repeatedly recorded travel time as working time. For these reasons, the administrative assistant was summarily dismissed.
Urgent reason for summary dismissal?
Given the extent of the hours not properly accounted for and the nature of the job, the judge also said the lack of output cannot be fully explained by work that is not recorded, such as reading emails and checking the diary.
Especially in an environment where employees can work partly from home and it is not visible whether someone is at work or not, an employer must be able to trust employees to handle their time records with integrity.
This is all the more true as the employer has a clear homework policy of which the employee was aware. The employee breached that trust. The weight of the urgent reason in this case lies in particular in the fact that, in addition to his regular working hours, the employee systematically wrote overtime in which he did not work. This shows a certain deliberate intention to favour himself at the employer's expense. The employer rightly took the position that this was seriously culpable and that it made the employee unworthy of his trust. The employer could therefore not be required to maintain the employment contract any longer.
The fact that the employer did not call the employee to account for this behaviour is immaterial. After all, the employee should have understood that wrongfully writing overtime is unacceptable and - like theft, for example - could lead to dismissal.
The fact that the team leader approved the overtime does not change this. Their mutual relationship makes it plausible that the team leader was aware that the overtime was not actually worked.
Nor do the employee's personal circumstances detract from this judgment. It is conceivable that instant dismissal is drastic for the employee, but because of the degree of culpability of his actions, it falls within his own sphere of risk and not that of the employer. Moreover, the employee has since found new work.
Conclusion judge
The instant dismissal was validly given and will not be overturned.
Note: This ruling makes it clear that precisely in a home-working environment where it is not visible whether someone is working or not, the employer must be able to trust that employees are handling their time records with integrity. Abuse of this trust can lead to summary dismissal.
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