Wells Fargo has reportedly fired more than a dozen workers accused of faking work.
These employees, all part of the banking giant’s wealth/investment management arm, were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work,” Bloomberg News reported Thursday (June 13), citing a filing with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
PYMNTS has contacted Wells Fargo for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. A company spokesperson told Bloomberg the bank “holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior.”
As Bloomberg noted, devices and technology designed to let workers feign actual work — known as “mouse movers” or “mouse jigglers” — surged in popularity during the remote work heyday of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report said that it’s unclear whether these workers accused of faking work were remote workers or not. While the finance industry was quick to order employees back to the office as the pandemic lessened, Wells Fargo waited longer than its rivals, the report added.
As PYMNTS wrote last month, the cost and cultural balance around returning to the office versus continuing to allow remote or hybrid work is top of mind for CFOs, facing a distressed commercial real estate market and seeing competitors relocating or centralizing their headquarters.
“Increasingly, the calculus is changing as business leaders look to realize efficiencies and answer pressing questions around internal spend,” that report said. “After all, where a business spends its money is one of — if not the greatest — determiners of its growth strategy and road map.”
Remote work, the report continued, significantly transformed the way CFOs managed their budgets, and a return to office could wind up having the same effect, as companies rethink budget allocations for office space leases, maintenance, utilities and other expenses.
Meanwhile, research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown that the remote work environment has led to a rise in fraud and cybersecurity concerns for most small- to medium-size businesses.
“The return of business travel to pre-pandemic levels has given rise to more travel and expense reimbursement fraud, which can be especially costly, as it typically goes undetected for up to 18 months,” PYMNTS wrote. “Managing these fraud threats is a challenge for most SMBs due to small security teams and budgets threatened by inflation.”